Privacy & safety explained

Your name and profile

Other members see your first initial, current age, gender, broad area and four profile answers. Your date of birth, email address and full first name are not included in Discover or another member’s profile view.

You can correct your first name in Edit Essentials. This keeps the same account: a name change does not remove blocks. Email verification confirms access to an email address; it is not an identity or background check.

Pending Pings show initials. Accepting a Ping reveals both current first names to the two members and opens a private conversation. Unrelated members continue to see only initials. Messages are not end-to-end encrypted.

A broad area, not an exact position

Your browser asks permission to use device location. NoPhoto reduces that position to a fixed area roughly three to four miles across in the UK before saving it. Searches and distance bands use these approximate positions too, so results near your distance limit may fall either side of it.

We show a nearby town or city with a recorded population of at least 10,000 when one is within about 15 miles of that approximate position. Otherwise we use a county or similar broad area, or an approximate distance band where no area is available. “Near” does not say where someone lives. Place data can be incomplete or out of date.

We refresh location when you open or return to the app, and reuse the area label while you remain in the same area. If location fails, we keep the previous saved area. We use downloaded place data; we do not send members’ locations to a map provider to obtain these labels.

What these protections cannot do

A broad area and an initial reduce what is disclosed, but do not guarantee anonymity. Someone may recognise your writing or details you share. Repeated observations may suggest movements between areas. Other members can take screenshots, and deleting your account cannot erase copies they made.

Avoid putting your surname, contact details, exact address, workplace or regular routine in your answers. Do not share financial details or send money to someone you have met online.

Blocking and account controls

Use Block member on a profile, Ping or conversation to stop the two accounts discovering or contacting each other. Blocking closes any conversation and removes ordinary messages for both people. Undoing a block does not restore the conversation. Changing a first name does not bypass a block. A block cannot prevent someone from creating a different account.

You can edit your details and answers, change Discover preferences, or delete your account. Deletion requires your password and confirmation. It removes your active account, profile, answers, preferences, saved area and blocks; it is not a promise that provider logs, backups or other people’s copies disappear immediately.

Use Report a concern on a profile, incoming Ping or conversation. Send the report before blocking, passing or ending the conversation if you want the content reviewed. The form explains which content is copied to the restricted operator inbox. Submitted reports are retained for 90 days and removed by the hourly cleanup, separately from ordinary messages.

You can also email contact@pingmedia.net with the profile or conversation link and a brief explanation. Reports and email are not emergency services or continuously monitored. If you are in immediate danger in the UK, call 999.

Read the Privacy Policy for data handling and your rights. You can withdraw dating-data consent in Privacy choices.

Place data credits

Town data: GeoNames, used under CC BY 4.0, filtered for qualifying UK settlements. Boundaries: Office for National Statistics via geoBoundaries, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2019. Data snapshot: 17 September 2026. No endorsement is implied.