Safety & Security

1. Meeting people safely

A hangout is an invitation into the real world. Whether you are meeting one new person or joining a group, a few habits keep things good for everyone:

• Meet in public, well populated places (a cafe, a park, a bar, a gym) for first meetings, and stay in public until you are comfortable.
• Tell a friend or family member where you are going, who you are meeting, and when you expect to be back. Share the hangout details if you can.
• Arrange your own transport so you can leave whenever you want. Avoid getting picked up from or dropped at your home by someone you just met.
• Watch your drink, keep it with you, and do not accept open or unattended drinks. Stay aware of how much you are drinking.
• Keep your home address, daily routine, workplace, and financial details private until you genuinely trust someone. There is no rush.
• Trust your instincts. If something feels off, you are never obligated to stay, explain, or be polite. Leave, and block or report the person if needed.

2. First-time meetups

The first time you meet someone from Hangout in person deserves extra care:

• Pick a public hangout or a public spot rather than a private home, hotel, or remote location.
• Video or voice chat first if you can. It is a simple way to confirm someone is who they say they are.
• Arrive and leave separately, and have a way to get home that does not depend on the other person.
• Keep your phone charged and on you. Set a check-in time with a friend so someone knows when to expect to hear from you.
• Be wary of anyone who pressures you to move somewhere private, to drink more, or to skip the public meetup entirely.

3. Avoiding scams and financial exploitation

Hangout is for meeting people, not for moving money. Treat any request for money or financial help as a serious red flag, no matter how convincing the story:

• Never send money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, bank details, or codes to someone you met here, even if they promise to pay you back.
• Be skeptical of anyone who professes strong feelings quickly, always has an emergency, or needs help with travel, medical bills, customs fees, or a "sure thing" investment. These are classic romance and confidence scams.
• Watch for pressure to move the conversation off Hangout to another app right away. Moving you off-platform makes it harder to report and easier to manipulate you.
• If an offer, deal, job, ticket, or rental sounds too good to be true, it is. Do not pay deposits or fees to people you have not met and verified.
• Never share one-time codes, passwords, or remote access to your phone or computer with anyone.

If someone tries to exploit you financially, stop responding, block them, and report them to us at support@myhangout.xyz.

4. Hosting safely

When you host, you decide who can see and join your hangout. Use those controls to set the tone and keep the group safe:

• Openness: choose who can see and join, from fully public to friends only or a specific community. Keep personal or higher-stakes plans to people you know.
• Approve to join: turn this on to review each person before they are added, instead of letting anyone join automatically.
• Capacity: set a limit so the group stays a size you can manage.
• Plus-ones: decide whether attendees can bring guests, and how many.
• Co-hosts: add people you trust to help review requests and keep an eye on the group.
• Vet attendees by glancing at their profiles. Remove, block, or report anyone who makes people uncomfortable, and end or hide a hangout if it stops feeling right.

5. Attending safely

When you join someone else's hangout, you stay in control of how much you share and how long you stay:

• Read the hangout details and host profile before you commit. Public, low-stakes plans are a good way to start.
• You are never required to check in, share precise location, or stay until the end. Leave whenever you want.
• If a host or another attendee crosses a line, leave, then block and report them. Your safety comes before the plan.
• For larger public events, stay aware of your surroundings and keep your belongings with you.

6. Protecting your location and check-ins

Hangout never tracks you continuously and never shows a live location dot. Check-ins are discrete, opt-in events that you control:

• A check-in happens only when you choose. When you arrive, the app may prompt you, and nothing is shared unless you tap to check in.
• You can check in with a precise or an approximate location. Use approximate when you would rather not reveal exactly where you are.
• A check-in's visibility inherits the hangout's openness. If the hangout is friends only, only those people can see that you checked in.
• You can turn check-ins off entirely in your settings, and you can skip any individual prompt. Declining a check-in never removes you from a hangout.

7. Protecting your privacy

You decide who can find you, contact you, and interact with your activity. The controls live in your in-app privacy settings:

• Private account: make your account private so people must send a follow request that you approve before they can see your activity.
• Blocking: block anyone from their profile or a message. Blocked people cannot see your hangouts, message you, or find your profile.
• Who can reach you: restrict who can message you, who can invite you to hangouts, and who can zap you.
• Read receipts: turn read receipts off if you would rather not show when you have seen a message.
• What others see: a hangout's openness controls who can see it and who can see check-ins and attendees. Your phone number, birthday, and gender are private to you and are never shown to other users.

8. How sign-in works

Hangout uses your phone number and a one-time SMS code (OTP) to sign in. There are no passwords to create, forget, reuse, or leak. When you sign in, we text you a short code and you enter it to confirm it is you. Because access is tied to your phone number, protecting your phone and your number is the most important thing you can do for your account.

9. Keeping your account secure

A few habits keep your account in your hands:

• We will never ask for your code. No one from Hangout will ever call, text, email, or message you asking for your one-time code. Anyone who does is trying to take over your account.
• Protect your phone number. Add a PIN or port-out protection with your mobile carrier to reduce the risk of SIM-swap attacks, where someone hijacks your number to receive your codes.
• Lock your phone with a passcode or biometrics so a one-time code cannot be read off your lock screen.
• Recognize phishing. Be suspicious of urgent messages, prizes, or warnings that push you to act fast or hand over a code.
• Verify links before tapping. Hangout links live on myhangout.xyz and our app subdomain. When in doubt, type the address yourself instead of following a link.

10. Recovering or losing access

Because sign-in is tied to your phone number, you regain access by signing in again with that number and a fresh one-time code. If you change numbers, update your number in the app before you lose access to the old one. If you believe someone has gained access to your account, or your number has been ported or stolen, contact your carrier to secure your number and email us at support@myhangout.xyz right away so we can help.

11. Reporting and blocking

Reporting and blocking are built into the app so you can act in the moment:

• You can report a profile, a hangout, a post, a comment, or a message directly from the item, usually from the menu next to it.
• You can block anyone from their profile or a message. Blocking is immediate and you do not have to explain it.
• After a report, our team reviews it against the Community Guidelines and can warn, restrict, suspend, or remove accounts and content. We may follow up for more detail, and we cooperate with law enforcement where the law requires it.
• For urgent safety concerns that the in-app tools do not cover, email us at support@myhangout.xyz.

12. Younger users

You must be at least 13 to use Hangout, and at least 18 to host. If you are a minor, please take extra care:

• Never arrange to meet someone in person that you do not already know and trust offline.
• Keep your account private, do not share your school, address, routine, or other identifying details, and tell a trusted adult about plans to meet anyone.
• Be especially wary of adults who try to move the conversation off-platform, ask for photos, offer gifts or money, or push to meet privately.
• If anything makes you uncomfortable, stop, tell a trusted adult, and report it. If you are in danger, contact local emergency services.

If you are worried about a minor, or you believe someone is putting a young person at risk, report the account or message in the app and email support@myhangout.xyz so we can act quickly. We do not tolerate any content or behavior that endangers or exploits a minor.

13. Our security practices

Here is how we protect your data, in plain language:

• Row-Level Security: our database enforces access rules on every row, so you can only read and change data you are allowed to. Your private fields, such as your phone number, birthday, and gender, are owner-only and are not exposed to other users.
• Encryption: data is encrypted in transit with TLS as it travels between your device and us, and it is encrypted at rest where it is stored.
• Phone-based authentication: sign-in uses one-time SMS codes rather than passwords, removing a whole category of password-related risk.
• Least-privilege access: our systems and our team get only the access they need, and sensitive operations are limited and logged.
• Monitoring: we monitor for unusual activity and abuse so we can respond to problems. Our backend runs on Supabase and our web app runs on Vercel, established providers with their own security programs.
• Account deletion: you can delete your account yourself from the app, which removes your account and associated personal data as described in our Privacy Policy.

No online service can promise perfect security. We work hard to protect your data and to improve our defenses over time, and the habits above help keep your account safe on your side.

14. Responsible disclosure

If you are a security researcher and you find a vulnerability, we want to hear from you. Email a clear report to legal@myhangout.xyz with steps to reproduce, the affected area, and the potential impact.

• Please do not access, modify, or delete other people's data, and do not run tests that degrade, disrupt, or overload the service (for example, denial-of-service or large-scale automated testing).
• Use only your own test accounts, and stop as soon as you confirm a vulnerability rather than exploring further.
• Give us a reasonable amount of time to investigate and fix the issue before sharing it publicly, and avoid sharing details with others in the meantime.
• If you make a good-faith effort to follow this policy, we will not pursue legal action against you for your research, and we will work with you in good faith to resolve the issue.

15. Emergencies

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, your safety comes first. Contact local emergency services, such as 911 in Canada and the United States, before anything else. Once everyone is safe, report what happened to us in the app or at support@myhangout.xyz so we can take action on the accounts or content involved and help where we can.

16. Contact

For safety concerns and reports, email support@myhangout.xyz. For security and vulnerability reports, email legal@myhangout.xyz. We read every message.