Privacy policy

Last updated: 2026-08-14

This page describes what Hexux stores about you, why, who can see it, and how to get rid of it. It is written to be read, not to be skipped.

What we store

• Account details — your username, email address, date of birth, and a hash of your password. The password itself is never stored and cannot be recovered from the hash.
• What you publish — posts, comments, likes and profile text, along with the time each was written.
• Private messages — the text and any photos or videos you send, readable by you and the person you sent them to.
• Location, once you allow it — a position and an optional place label. Hexux works by showing who is around, so seeing anyone requires being findable: once your browser has permission, your position is refreshed while you use the site. You can take yourself off the map at any time from the map page, or by revoking that permission in your browser.
• The town you are in — worked out from the same rounded area the map publishes about you, never from your exact position, and shown on your profile. Taking yourself off the map removes it.
• The IP address you signed up from — kept to deal with abuse, such as somebody evading a block by making new accounts, along with the approximate city and the network that address belongs to. That is worked out on our own server from a database held here - your address is not sent anywhere to look it up. All of it is visible only to administrators and is never shown on your profile or to other members.
• Activity — the time you were last active, used to show who is online and who appears on the map.

Who can see it

• Posts, comments, likes and your profile are visible to any signed-in member.
• Private messages and their attachments are served only to the two people in the conversation. Attachment files are stored outside the public web directory and every request for one is checked against the conversation. The one exception is reporting: if you report a message you were sent, a copy of it is saved and shown to the administrators so they can act on it.
• Your position is never published precisely. You are shown at the center of an area, and that area widens automatically until enough other people share it, so a single person is never pinned to a single point.
• Beacons work differently, on purpose. A beacon is something you put up deliberately for a set number of hours. It is shown in the same size of area as the map - roughly a thousand feet across - but it is not widened to hide you among other people, because the point of a beacon is to be found. It is still an area and never your exact position. It disappears by itself when the time is up, and you can take it down sooner.
• Checking in at a place is more precise still. If you say you are at a named venue, or that you are on your way to one, every other member is shown that you are at that address - not an area around it. That is the point of the feature, and it is why it is never automatic: it happens only when you say so, it clears itself after the time you pick, and you can take it down at any moment. It does not change where you are shown on the map, which stays inside an area either way.
• If you and another member are both sharing a location, each of you is shown roughly how far away the other is, as a range such as "under 1 mile" rather than a number. The range is measured from the center of the area you publish, not from where you actually are, so it cannot be used to work out your position by taking readings from several places.
• Anyone you block cannot see you and you cannot see them, in listings, search, the map or chat.
• Administrators can see account details in order to run the site.

Third parties

• Map tiles are loaded from OpenStreetMap, which receives your IP address and the area of the map you are viewing.
• If you share a location, OpenStreetMap is also asked what town the rounded area you publish falls in, so it can be shown on your profile. It is sent that rounded area and nothing else - never your exact position, and never anything identifying you.
• Profile images are generated by Gravatar from a hash of your email address.
• Email is sent through our mail provider in order to reach you.

Your personal data is never sold, shared or traded. That is not a description of what we happen to do at the moment - it is a rule.

There is no advertising and no third-party analytics on the site today. If advertising is ever added it will be sold and served by us: an image and a link, loaded from this site like any other page element. That is a technical difference with a plain consequence - an advertiser is never in a position to see who is looking, because nothing of theirs runs in your browser.

There will be no third-party ad scripts or tracking pixels, no profile, location or health details passed to an advertiser, and no targeting on anything you have told us. This page will say so before any of it changes.

Photos and your private album

• Your profile picture is visible to any signed-in member, unless you turn on the setting that shows it only to people you have let into your private album. Everyone else then sees the placeholder.
• Private album photos are stored outside the public part of the site and are served only to people you have let in, one person at a time. Blocking someone closes your album to them immediately.
• We cannot stop someone you have let in from taking a copy. Let people in the way you would hand someone your phone.
• Deleting your account deletes your album photos and the files behind them.

Profile details

The optional profile fields — position, body type, height, what you are looking for — are shown to any signed-in member and can be filtered on. Leave any of them blank and they are simply not shown.

Health details

You may optionally record an HIV status and a last-tested date. This is health data, which the law treats as more sensitive than the rest of your profile, and we handle it differently:

• Nothing is stored until you tick a separate consent box. The date you consented is recorded. Unticking that box erases what was stored — it is deleted, not hidden.
• It is shown only to people you have let into your private album, unless you change that to any signed-in member. Album-only is the default.
• It cannot be searched or filtered on, by anyone, including us. There is no way to list members by status.
• It is never included in a report sent to administrators, in an export, in our records of a deleted account, or in any log.
• It is never shared with anyone outside this site. No advertiser, analytics provider or other third party receives it, or anything derived from it, and that does not change if advertising is ever added.
• Deleting your account erases it. It is not part of the record kept about a deleted account.

You are under no obligation to fill this in, and nothing about the site works differently if you leave it blank.

Reporting

• You can report a post, a comment, a profile, or a message you were sent. Reports go to the administrators.
• A report records who reported it, what was reported, and a copy of the content as it was at that moment, so it can still be reviewed if the original is deleted.
• The person reported is not told who reported them.
• Reports are kept after they are closed, including a record of who closed them and why, so that repeated problems with one account can be seen. They survive the deletion of either account.

Cookies

One session cookie keeps you signed in, plus a longer-lived one if you choose "remember me". Both are restricted to this site and are not used for tracking.

Suspension and deletion

• An account that never confirms its email address is suspended after a grace period. Confirming the address afterwards lifts that suspension.
• A suspended account cannot sign in, and its email address cannot be used to register again until the suspension is lifted.
• An account that is not used for six months is deleted. You are emailed thirty days beforehand and again seven days beforehand, and simply signing in stops it and keeps the account. Being signed in and using the site counts - you do not have to sign in again for it to count.
• You can delete your own account at any time from the account menu. Deletion removes your posts, comments, likes and profile, including your profile picture.
• Private messages are removed with the account - from the other person's side of the conversation as well as yours. A message is one record shared by both of you, not two, so there is no way to remove your copy and leave theirs.
• We keep a record that the account existed and when it was deleted - the username, the email address, and a summary of the account - for 180 days, to handle abuse and answer disputes. It is then deleted automatically. Nothing about a deleted account is kept beyond that.
• For those same 180 days the address cannot be used to register again. Otherwise deleting an account would be a way to drop the blocks and reports against it and come straight back on the same address. This applies however the account was deleted, including by us.

Your choices

• Change or remove your profile details
• Take yourself off the map
• Export your posts, emailed to you as a file
• Manage who is blocked
• Delete your account

Contact

Questions about any of this, or a request about your data, go through the contact form. It reaches the people who run Hexux, and they answer through the site.