Privacy by design
Lirel is built to honour India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. You hold the right to know what data we have, to correct it, to delete it, to limit how it's used, to object, to receive a copy and to withdraw consent at any time. Our systems are designed to respect every one of those rights.
The problem with location apps today
Where you are tells a story about who you are. It reveals your home, your work, your daily routine and your relationships. Many apps in this space have treated that story as an asset to monetise. A large share of dating and social apps share or sell personal information, collect precise location even when the app isn't in use and show exact distances that let bad actors triangulate where someone lives or works. We designed Lirel to close those doors from the very first day.
Our privacy principles
Proximity is worked out on our side and never exposed as raw coordinates. The most sensitive detail of all is your precise location over time, and it is held in a form that no other user and no screen in the app can read back.
When you appear nearby, people see a deliberately rounded, coarse distance. They never see an exact figure and never a coordinate. That single choice removes the triangulation trick that plagues other proximity apps.
Turn discovery off and you drop out of the nearby list right away, while keeping full use of the app. You decide what shows on your profile and you can edit or remove it at any time.
Location is gathered only after you grant permission and any always-on location is a separate, explicit opt-in you can revoke at any time. We keep the personal information we hold to what the service genuinely needs.
We do not sell your personal data and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. We do not run advertising or tracking identifiers inside the app. Where trusted providers help us run the service, they may only handle your data on our instructions and under contract.
You can't browse Lirel anonymously and you can't reach the feed or see anyone nearby until your professional identity is verified. Verification is a required step. Until you complete it, the app simply doesn't open up. That keeps fake profiles and bad actors out for everyone.
Your data is protected in transit and at rest, access is restricted to you, app access is checked for tampering and sensitive keys are tightly scoped. The protections hold whether or not you ever think about them.
You can block and report. We automatically flag and suspend abusive accounts and we cap and cool down sensitive actions to prevent misuse.
Lirel leads the way to a privacy-first platform
| Privacy dimension | Common industry pattern | Lirel |
|---|---|---|
| Precise location | Collected continuously, stored, often shared | Worked out on our side; never exposed to anyone as coordinates |
| Background location | On even when the app isn't in use | A separate, explicit opt-in you can revoke anytime |
| Distance shown to others | Exact distance, enabling triangulation | Only a rounded, approximate distance |
| Profiles | Often anonymous or unverified | Verified professionals only. Verification is required before the app opens up. No anonymous access |
| Data we keep | Maximised, retained indefinitely | Minimised; you can edit or delete it |
| Sharing | Many apps sell or share user data | No advertisers, no data brokers, no selling |
| Visibility control | Limited or paid-only | Free toggle removes you from discovery right away |
Why verification changes everything
Requiring every member to verify a real professional identity before the app opens up is a foundation of how Lirel works. The trick that haunts anonymous proximity apps, where someone spins up fake accounts at known distances to triangulate a real person, depends on anonymous access. We removed that possibility at the door. Every person you see is a verified professional with a real identity attached to their account. That changes behaviour as well, because people act differently when their professional reputation is tied to what they do. Verification is at once a privacy protection, a safety mechanism and a quality filter that shapes the culture of the whole product.
Your rights and how we honour them
Lirel is built to comply with India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the applicable intermediary rules. That means you have the right to know what data we hold, to correct it, to delete it, to limit how it's processed, to object, to receive a copy and to withdraw consent at any time. When you delete your account, your data is removed from our active systems after a short grace period. A minimal record may be retained only for the limited window the law requires so we can answer lawful requests, after which it is permanently and securely erased. During that window it is never used for any other purpose, never sold and never used for advertising.
This isn't compliance theatre. It's how a proximity product should be built when the people using it are real professionals whose safety, reputation and personal data matter.
The standard we hold ourselves to
The industry spent a decade treating location as something to extract. We treat it as a responsibility. Proximity is worked out privately and never shared as coordinates. Only an approximate distance is shown. Lirel is open to verified people only, with verification required before you can see anyone. You control your visibility. There are no advertisers, no brokers and no selling. Your rights are honoured under Indian law, and we collect the least data we need to do the job. Put together, those choices are the whole point. You can use proximity freely, because the things that could be used against you never leave your control.