This Privacy Policy explains how JoCoding, Inc. ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, and protects
your personal data when you use alike (the "Service") — a two-person camera app where you pair with
a friend, see each other live, and capture the same instant on a synchronized countdown, with both
photos saved to a gallery shared only by the two of you.
Effective Date: October 4, 2026 Last Updated: October 4, 2026
For users in the Republic of Korea, the Korean version of this
policy, drafted under the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), is the authoritative version.
1. Controller and Contact
Data Controller: JoCoding, Inc. (Representative: Donggeun Cho)
Address: 136 Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Business Registration No. (KR): 641-17-01133
Email: highball@jocoding.net
2. Personal Data We Collect
Account data
Items: email address and sign-in identifier from Apple or Google, or a passkey public-key
credential; a display name you choose.
Source: provided by you (or by your sign-in provider) at registration.
Data created by using the Service
Pair records (who you are paired with)
Photos you capture — end-to-end encrypted on your device before upload; we cannot
view their contents
Your encryption public keys and an encrypted key backup protected by a recovery phrase that
only you know
Push notification tokens (per device)
Live-request ("knock") and missed-call records
Automatically collected data
IP address, device information (OS, model), and service/access logs. In addition, the app uses
two third-party SDKs — PostHog for product analytics and Google AdMob for banner ads — described in
the next two sections. We do not use cookies, do not show personalized
(behavioral) ads, and never ask for permission to track you across other companies' apps (Apple
App Tracking Transparency), so the app never accesses the iOS advertising identifier (IDFA).
Product analytics (PostHog)
To understand how alike is used and to improve it, the app sends a small, fixed set of usage
events to PostHog, Inc. — for example "signed in", "a live call connected", "a moment was
captured", or "a moment was saved".
What is sent: the event name and simple details only — fixed choices (such as
photo or video, the capture format, or how a call ended), counts, and durations rounded to
a tenth of a second; app install/open events; basic device and app information (OS and
version, device model, app version, language); and your IP address, from which PostHog
derives an approximate (city-level) location.
Linked to your account: events are tied to your account's random identifier
(an opaque ID — not your name or email address). When you sign out, the app stops linking
new events to it.
Never sent: your photos and videos (which are end-to-end encrypted and never
leave your device unencrypted), names, email address, messages, pair codes or invite links,
and who you are paired with. There is no session recording, screen capture, or tap tracking.
Purpose and legal basis: measuring and improving the Service — legitimate
interests (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). We do not use this data for advertising.
Processor and retention: PostHog, Inc. processes this data on our behalf on
its US cloud and keeps it for the data-retention period of our PostHog plan (currently one
year), after which it is deleted.
How to opt out: turn off Settings → Data controls → Share usage
data at any time. The app then stops sending analytics events from that device.
Advertising (Google AdMob)
alike is free and shows banner ads provided by Google AdMob (Google LLC; for users in the
EEA/UK and Switzerland, Google Ireland Limited).
Non-personalized only: every ad request asks Google for non-personalized
ads. These are chosen using context such as the app, your general (city-level) location,
and the device and language — not a profile of your interests or your activity in other
apps — and ad content is limited to a general-audience (PG) rating.
What Google receives: the Google Mobile Ads SDK in the app sends Google your
IP address, device and app information (OS, model, app version, language), ad interactions
(such as ad impressions and taps), diagnostic data, and device identifiers — on Android, the
advertising ID; on iOS, the vendor identifier (IDFV), never the IDFA. Even for
non-personalized ads, Google uses this data for frequency capping, aggregated ad
reporting, and preventing fraud and abuse.
Not linked to your account: we do not give Google your account identifier,
name, or email address, and ads are never chosen based on your photos or videos, which are
end-to-end encrypted and never sent to Google.
Purpose, legal basis, and retention: showing ads that fund the free Service —
legitimate interests (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). Google processes this data under its own privacy
policy and retention periods; see "How Google uses information from sites or apps that use
our services" (https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites).
Your choices: on Android you can reset or delete your advertising ID in your
device settings (Settings → Google → Ads, or Settings → Privacy → Ads). On iOS no tracking
permission is ever requested, so the IDFA is not available to the app. Ads are always
non-personalized, so there is no ad personalization to switch off.
Special categories of data
We do not process special categories of personal data. Your photos may contain faces, but they
are encrypted on your device before storage so we cannot access their contents, and we do not
process them for biometric identification. The app's expression-analysis feature runs entirely
on-device, is currently inactive, and never transmits analysis data off your phone.
3. Purposes and Legal Bases
Account creation and management (identification and authentication, fraud
prevention) — legal basis: performance of a contract (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)).
Providing the Service (pairing, live video preview connection, synchronized
capture, encrypted photo storage and sharing with your pair partner, push notifications such
as live requests) — legal basis: performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)).
Safety and security (access logs, rate-limiting of pair-code attempts) —
legal basis: legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) in keeping the Service secure.
Product analytics (understanding which features are used and where they fail,
so we can improve them; see "Product analytics (PostHog)" above) — legal basis: legitimate
interests (Art. 6(1)(f)); you can object at any time with the "Share usage data" switch.
Showing ads (non-personalized banner ads that fund the free Service; see
"Advertising (Google AdMob)" above) — legal basis: legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)).
We do not use your data for personalized advertising, profiling, or automated decision-making,
and we do not sell it.
4. Recipients and Data Sharing
We do not share your personal data with third parties, except with the processors listed below,
with Google for ad serving as described below, and where required by law. Note that your display name, online status, and the photos you capture
together are visible to your pair partner — that sharing is the core function of the Service.
We use the following processors:
Processor
Purpose
Location
Supabase, Inc.
Database, authentication, and storage hosting (data is stored in the
Seoul, South Korea region)
United States (operator) / South Korea (data at rest)
Advertising: the Google Mobile Ads SDK sends the data described in "Advertising
(Google AdMob)" directly from the app to Google LLC / Google Ireland Limited, which acts as an
independent controller for serving and measuring ads and preventing ad fraud.
5. International Transfers
Our Service is operated from the Republic of Korea, and photo/database storage is located in
Seoul, South Korea. Transient processing by Cloudflare (encrypted live-video relay) and Expo (push
delivery) occurs in the United States and on global edge networks. Product-analytics events are
stored by PostHog in the United States, and ad-request data is processed by Google in the United
States and other countries where Google operates. Where GDPR applies, transfers
rely on the processors' EU Standard Contractual Clauses and, where applicable, EU–US Data Privacy
Framework certification. The Republic of Korea benefits from an EU adequacy decision (Art. 45).
Copies of applicable safeguards are available on request at highball@jocoding.net.
6. Retention
Account data — until you delete your account.
Encrypted photos and key backups — until you delete them or delete your
account; deleting your account also removes photos shared with your pair partner.
Push tokens — until sign-out, account deletion, or token refresh.
Pair-code attempt records (rate limiting) — 1 hour.
Product-analytics events (PostHog) — PostHog's retention period for our plan
(currently one year). After you delete your account, the random identifier on past events no
longer points to any account; you can ask us to delete those events sooner.
Ad-request data (Google AdMob) — under Google's own retention policies.
After the retention period, data is deleted irreversibly.
7. Your Rights
Depending on your jurisdiction (including under GDPR Arts. 15–22 and Korean PIPA), you have the
right to access, rectify, erase, restrict or object to the processing of your personal data, the
right to data portability, and the right to withdraw consent at any time where consent is the
basis. To exercise any right, email highball@jocoding.net or use the in-app settings screen
(display-name change, account deletion). We respond within one month.
If you are in the EU/EEA, you may lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority
(https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en). In Korea, you may contact the Personal
Information Dispute Mediation Committee (1833-6972, www.kopico.go.kr) or the KISA Privacy Center
(118, privacy.kisa.or.kr).
8. Cookies and Tracking
This website uses no cookies, trackers, or analytics. The app uses no cookies and does not track
you across other companies' apps or websites, but it does contain two third-party SDKs:
PostHog (product analytics) — usage events linked to your account's random
identifier; turn it off in Settings → Data controls → Share usage data.
Google Mobile Ads SDK (AdMob, non-personalized banner ads) — on Android it
reads the device advertising ID, which you can reset or delete in your device settings.
See section 2 for exactly what each one collects.
9. Security
End-to-end encryption of photos — photos are encrypted on your device; only
the two members of a pair can decrypt them. We cannot.
Encryption in transit — all traffic uses TLS; live video uses DTLS-SRTP.
Access control — database row-level security restricts every record to you
and your pair partner; photo storage is a private bucket accessed only via short-lived signed
URLs.
The Service is not intended for children under 14 (Korea) or under 16 (EU/EEA), and we do not
knowingly collect personal data from them. If we learn that such an account exists, we will delete
it and its data without delay.
11. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Policy. Changes are announced at least 7 days before taking effect (30 days
for material changes), via the Service or this website.
Revision History
2026-07-02 — Version 1 (initial pre-release version)
2026-07-10 — Full revision: end-to-end encrypted storage, live-video relay, push
notifications, and international transfers reflected
2026-10-04 — Product analytics (PostHog) and non-personalized banner ads (Google AdMob)
disclosed, with the "Share usage data" opt-out; "no analytics" statement removed
This Privacy Policy takes effect on October 4, 2026.
This document is a reference draft, not legal advice; review by qualified counsel is
required before production deployment.
alike — take a photo together, apart. Contact: highball@jocoding.net