Privacy Policy

What we collect during your application

To keep minors, fake identities and impersonators out, the membership application asks for private verification information: your legal first, middle and last name, your date of birth, your current residential address (street, city, state or region, postal code, country), and the email address you used to sign in. We also collect the dating-profile answers and photos you choose to provide.

This private information is used for identity and age verification, safety, fraud prevention, and lawful requests. It is never shown on your public member profile.

Age and identity verification

Checking an "I am 18 or older" box is not verification. Every applicant must complete an independent, provider-hosted age and identity check using a government-issued photo ID and, where supported, a matching selfie or live face check. The ID scan or upload and the selfie happen inside the verification provider's own hosted flow — Velvet Haven never receives or stores the ID image, the selfie, the document number, or biometric data.

From the provider we keep only the minimum result: a provider reference, verification status, whether the confirmed date of birth shows you are at least 18, the verified age, whether the name matched, attempt counts, reason or status codes, and timestamps. The verified status can only be set by our backend from the provider's result; it can never be set from a browser.

If the provider's confirmed date of birth shows you are under 18, your application is blocked immediately and you cannot browse, message, or activate a membership. If verification fails, you may retry; after three failed attempts the case is paused and sent to our administrative review.

Velvet Haven does not perform criminal-record or sex-offender background checks. Identity verification and criminal background screening are different things, and we do not claim to do the latter.

What other members can and cannot see

Other members never see:

• your legal name, unless you choose it as your display name
• your exact date of birth
• your street address or postal code
• your email address or phone number
• any ID number, ID image, or verification selfie
• raw information from the verification provider
• payment information
• internal administrative or moderation notes

Members may see your display name, your age (not your birth date), your general city or region if you allow it, your approved profile photos, and the profile answers you provided — occupation, education, interests, biography, relationship preferences and lifestyle answers. Optional sensitive details are never required and you control whether your general location is shown.

Photos

Dating profile photos are separate from identity verification material. A government ID image is never used as a profile photo. Profile photos are stored privately and are only visible to approved members after moderation.

Message screening

Member-to-member messages are screened automatically before they are delivered. The screening is a deterministic, rules-based check on our servers — keyword, pattern and combination rules, with text normalisation to catch simple obfuscation. It is not artificial intelligence and it does not build profiles of you. Staff do not read your ordinary conversations.

The check looks for commercial sexual services; human or sex trafficking; grooming or the sexualisation of minors; coercion, sexual violence or non-consensual content; scams, fraud and payment solicitation; and attempts to move contact or payments off the platform (phone numbers, email addresses, external links, third-party messaging or social apps, payment apps and crypto).

If a message matches, it is not delivered. It is stored in a safety-flag record — sender, intended recipient, the message text as evidence, the matched categories, a risk level, internal indicator labels and timestamps — with a matching audit-log entry. Only admin and moderator accounts can read flagged content, enforced by database access rules. Reviewers confirm a flag or mark it a false positive and may issue a warning or suspend messaging; three confirmed violations suspend messaging pending review. Unreviewed flags and false positives never count. Safety flags, enforcement records and audit entries are retained for as long as needed for safety, fraud prevention, dispute resolution and lawful requests. You can see your own enforcement status and appeal it from your account.

Safety, moderation and records

We keep audit records of application decisions, verification outcomes, moderation actions and reports so that safety decisions can be reviewed. We may review reports, remove content, restrict access, suspend or terminate accounts, and preserve relevant information when reasonably necessary for safety, security, fraud prevention or lawful requests. If the verification provider is unavailable or a verification state is unknown, access stays closed.