Privacy Policy

Shout is operated by Shout Social Media Limited. In this policy, “Shout”, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Shout Social Media Limited, and “the app” means the Shout mobile apps for iOS and Android, the Shout business portal and this website.

We are the data controller of the personal information described here, under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

For anything to do with your privacy, write to contact@shoutsocialmedia.app.

• You only appear on the live map when you choose to go live, and sessions end by themselves.
• Your map pin is deliberately offset from your true position.
• Crossed Paths is off by default. If you turn it on, the location points behind it are deleted after 48 hours.
• Shouts are temporary: text for 12 hours, voice for 24.
• We do not sell your personal information and we do not show third-party advertising.
• Private messages are not end-to-end encrypted. Our staff do not read them as a matter of course; a tightly controlled, logged process exists for safety investigations (see section 9).
• You can delete your account, and the data attached to it, from inside the app at any time.
• Shout is for adults. You must be 18 or over.

Information you give us

• Account details — your first and last name, date of birth, gender, and the email address or phone number you sign in with. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the identifier, name and email address that provider shares with us. We never see or store your Apple or Google password.
• Profile — photos, bio, interests, what you’re looking for, social preferences and any other optional profile fields you complete.
• Content — shouts (text and voice), comments (text and voice), events, event posts, hangouts, and the messages you send in one-to-one chats, Looking Now chats, hangout chats and event discussions.
• Social activity — likes, super-likes, passes, connections, blocks, RSVPs, invitations and memberships of hangouts and events.
• Business information — if you create a business account: business name, address, description, opening hours, photos, menus, offers, boosts and events, and the orders you receive.
• Orders — if you order from a business through Shout: what you ordered, when, its status and any notes you add.
• Support and reports — anything you send to our support inbox, and reports you file about other members or content.

Information created when you use Shout

• Location — explained in detail in the next section.
• Device and app information — device model, operating system, app version, language, time zone and a push-notification token so that we can send notifications to your device.
• Usage — which features you use and when, your last-active time, counts of AI features used (to apply daily limits), and aggregated daily statistics.
• Diagnostics — crash reports and performance data.
• Integrity signals — attestation from Apple App Attest or Google Play Integrity, used to confirm that requests come from a genuine copy of the app.

Information from other people

Other members may give us information about you — for example by inviting you to an event, messaging you, or reporting your profile or content.

Special category information

We do not ask for sensitive information such as your health, religion or sexual orientation. Please think carefully before putting anything of that kind in your profile or your shouts: whatever you post there is visible to other members.

Shout asks for access to your device’s location. Here is exactly what it is used for.

Finding what’s around you

While the app is open we use your location to centre the map, show you nearby people, shouts, events, hangouts, businesses and offers, give you directions, and check whether you are inside an area where Shout is currently switched on. Outside a covered area you can browse, but going live, posting a shout, creating an event and starting a hangout are disabled.

Going live

When you choose to go live, your location is shared with other members on the map and refreshed every few minutes until you stop or the session expires. Sessions end automatically — currently after no more than three hours. The pin other members see is offset by a random distance (tens of metres) from your true position, and the offset stays consistent during a session so that it cannot be averaged away.

Shouts, events and hangouts

These are pinned to the location you post them from or the place you choose, and are visible to other members.

Crossed Paths

Crossed Paths is off unless you switch it on in Settings → Privacy & Safety. When it is on, the app records periodic location points and compares them with those of other members who have also switched it on; if two of you were within roughly 100 metres of each other within about two minutes, you may each be told you crossed paths. Location points are deleted after 48 hours. On iOS, enabling Crossed Paths may allow the app to record location while it is in the background. The Android app only collects location while it is open.

Nearby offers

If a business near you is running a boost, we may send you a notification about it. You can turn these off in your notification settings.

Your control

You can stop a live session at any time, hide yourself from the map, turn Crossed Paths off, or withdraw location permission altogether in your device settings. Without location permission most of Shout will not work, because the app is a map.

Shout includes an in-app assistant, conversation starters, profile helpers and a natural-language search. These are powered by Google’s Gemini models through Firebase AI Logic. When you use one, the text you type — together with the context needed to answer, such as nearby public events — is sent to Google to generate a response. Please don’t put sensitive personal information into AI prompts.

AI responses can be wrong. We do not use AI to make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects. Moderation decisions are made by people.

We also use AI tools internally to help find and draft listings for public, real-world events. Those listings are reviewed by a person before they are published and do not involve members’ personal data.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights and expectations. You can object at any time — see “Your rights”.

Other members

Shout is a social app, so your profile, photos, first name, age, interests, shouts, comments, events, hangouts and — while you are live — your offset location are visible to other signed-in members. Messages are visible to the people in that conversation. Members you block can no longer contact you.

Businesses

If you place an order with a business through Shout, that business sees your name, the order and any notes you add.

People outside Shout

Events and hangouts can be shared by link. Anyone with the link can see the public details of that event or hangout (such as its title, time and place) on a web page, even without an account.

Companies that help us run Shout

These providers act on our instructions under contract, except where they provide a service to you directly (such as Sign in with Apple or Google) under their own terms.

When the law requires it

We may disclose information to the police, regulators or courts where we are legally required to, or where we believe in good faith that it is necessary to protect someone from serious harm.

If the business changes hands

If Shout is merged, sold or reorganised, your information may be transferred to the new owner, who must continue to honour this policy.

Our service providers may process information outside the United Kingdom, including in the European Economic Area and the United States. Where they do, we rely on UK adequacy regulations or on appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. You can ask us for more detail at contact@shoutsocialmedia.app.

Public content — profiles, shouts, comments, events, hangouts and business listings — can be reviewed by our moderation team at any time, and is reviewed when it is reported. Moderators can remove content and suspend or ban accounts. Every moderation action is recorded in an audit log.

Private messages are stored on our servers and are not end-to-end encrypted. Our staff do not routinely read them. Where there is a specific safety concern — for example a report of harassment, a threat, or a request from law enforcement — an authorised administrator can access a conversation. They must record a written justification first, and each access is logged separately so that it can be audited.

Expired content stops being shown to other members straight away. It may remain in our systems for a limited time for safety and moderation purposes before it is removed.

When you delete your account

Deleting your account removes your sign-in, profile, photos, voice recordings, likes, connections, conversations, location points, crossed paths and notification token, and takes you out of any hangouts and events you had joined. A small amount of information may be kept where we have a good reason: reports made by or about you, events, hangouts or business listings you created that other people rely on (which we review manually), records we must keep by law, and information needed to enforce a ban. Backups are overwritten on a rolling basis.

Information is encrypted in transit using TLS and encrypted at rest on Google Cloud infrastructure. Access to the database is governed by server-enforced security rules, the apps are verified with Apple App Attest and Google Play Integrity, administrative access is restricted to named individuals, and every administrative change is written to an immutable audit log.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach that is likely to put your rights and freedoms at risk, we will tell you and the Information Commissioner’s Office as the law requires.

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you;
• have inaccurate information corrected;
• have your information erased;
• restrict or object to how we use it, including any use based on legitimate interests and any direct marketing;
• receive it in a portable format;
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent; and
• not be subject to solely automated decisions that significantly affect you.

Much of this you can do yourself in the app. For anything else, email contact@shoutsocialmedia.app. We may need to confirm your identity, and we will reply within one month.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

• Go live / stop — start or end location sharing whenever you like.
• Show on map — hide yourself from the map entirely.
• Crossed Paths — off by default; switch it on or off in Privacy & Safety.
• Online status — choose whether others can see when you were last active.
• Notifications — choose which kinds of push notification you receive, including nearby offers.
• Block and report — available on every profile, shout, comment and conversation.
• Pause account — step away without deleting anything.
• Delete account — permanent, from Settings.

Shout is strictly for people aged 18 and over, and we ask for your date of birth when you sign up. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 is using Shout, email contact@shoutsocialmedia.app and we will remove the account and its data.

Our Child Safety Standards explain how we prevent and deal with child sexual abuse and exploitation, and how to report a concern.

This website does not use advertising or tracking cookies. It stores one item in your browser’s local storage — your choice of light or dark theme — which never leaves your device. Fonts are served by Google Fonts, which means your browser sends Google your IP address when the page loads. Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs. If you email us, we keep the correspondence for as long as we need it to deal with your enquiry.

We will update this policy as Shout changes. The date at the top always shows the latest version. If a change materially affects how we use your information, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.

Shout Social Media Limited

Email: contact@shoutsocialmedia.app — for privacy questions, support and legal matters.

Our rules for using Shout are in the Terms & Conditions.