Privacy Statement

Who is responsible

In brief: JGHP B.V. in the Netherlands determines what happens with your data. You can come to us with any question about that.

Debaty is offered by JGHP B.V., established in the Netherlands. In privacy law this is called the controller: the party that determines why and how your data is used, and whom you can hold accountable for it. That is us.

Our formal details — Chamber of Commerce, VAT number and postal address — are set out in the legal notice. Questions about your data go via your data rights or via contact.

We have not appointed a separate data protection officer. That is not required for a service of this size, and it would not answer your question any faster: it now goes directly to the people who build the service.

How to read these tables

In brief: below, for each item, we set out which data we use, what for, why that is permitted and how long we keep it. The "why that is permitted" column has four answers.

Privacy law (the AVG) only permits processing where there is a valid reason. There are four that we use, and this is what they mean:

• Our agreement — without this data we cannot deliver what you asked for. Your account, your bubbles, your conversations.
• Our interest — it is needed to keep Debaty safe and working, and your interest does not outweigh that. Recognising misuse, for example.
• Legal obligation — the law requires it of us. Keeping invoices, for example, or handling notices.
• Your consent — you have said yes to it yourself and you can always withdraw that.

Your account

In brief: the minimum needed to let you log in and keep your account secure. When you delete it, this goes away.

Multiple accounts. If you have more than one, you can set them up side by side on one device. That link is only in the cookies of that device. We do not record on the server that two accounts belong to the same person, and so we cannot look that up or give it to anyone either.

What you post and do

In brief: your own content and your own choices. Everything here disappears when you take it down or delete your account.

View counters. A bubble shows how often it has been viewed. That is a single sum per bubble; we do not record who viewed it.

Conversations

In brief: private messages are private. We do not read along with them, unless someone reports a message to us.

For a read receipt we keep one moment per conversation, not a history per message. Opening a conversation or replying in it moves that moment.

We do not read along with your private messages and no filter runs over them. If a participant reports a message to us, a moderator sees that one message — and not the conversation around it.

Notices, moderation and complaints

In brief: we keep a notice and the decision made on it, even after the content is gone. We have to, because we must be able to account for what we did.

The identity of whoever files a notice is never disclosed to the person the notice is about.

Help and contact

In brief: what you send us in order to be helped stays only for as long as your query is ongoing.

Attachments are not on the open web; only an administrator can open them.

Payments and advertising

In brief: payment details go directly to Mollie; we do not see any account numbers. Advertising is only possible on a business basis, and for that we need company details.

Management and security

In brief: what we keep track of to keep the service running and auditable.

Figures about the platform. We add up the data above into numbers: how many people signed up, how many posted something, how quickly notices are handled. That is how we see whether Debaty is growing and whether moderation is keeping up. Nothing extra is kept for this — the counts are made from the data above at the moment of viewing, and no separate statistics table is involved. What comes out are counts, never names: the screens they appear on are restricted to management, and a figure on them cannot be traced back to a single person. We do not show a percentage when there are too few observations behind it, because then "50%" only says that there was one out of two.

What we do not do

In brief: no selling, no tracking cookies, no advertising profile, no external analytics.

• We never sell your data and we do not give it to advertisers.
• We do not place tracking cookies and we do not build up an advertising profile of you.
• Your browser only talks to Debaty: no scripts or measurement pixels from other companies load alongside.
• No external analytics. We measure visitor numbers without cookies on our own servers (Umami, self-hosted within the EU). No Google Analytics, so no additional party that sees your data either. See the cookie policy.
• We do not link your data to data we bought somewhere. We do not buy that.

Advertisements

In brief: there are advertisements, but they look at the topic on your screen and not at you. What we report back to an advertiser is a number, not a person.

Debaty shows advertisements, always visibly marked. An advertiser chooses a topic, a language and a country in which its advertisement may appear. There are no further choices: selecting people is technically not possible here, and there is no field for it anywhere.

In concrete terms, this means:

• We do not use your account, your history or your behaviour to determine which advertisement you see.
• We only measure how often an advertisement has been shown and clicked, added up per hour. There is no person behind that number, so there is nothing to link it to either.
• To prevent you from continuing to see the same advertisement, your browser remembers which ones you saw. That stays in your browser and contains no tracking number pointing to you.
• With Debaty+ you see no advertisements.

Why we do it this way is set out on How Debaty makes money.

How the timeline chooses what you see

In brief: the ranked timeline adds up a number of signals. You can see which ones, and you can set each signal heavier, lighter or off altogether yourself.

Alongside the chronological timeline there is a ranked one. It adds up signals: how recent something is, whether you follow the maker, whether it is about a topic you follow, how much conversation there is beneath it. For each bubble you can call up why it appears there, and for each signal you can adjust the weight — down to zero as well, and then it really no longer counts.

This is an ordering, not a decision about you. Nothing is hidden from you on the basis of who you are, and nothing follows from it. If you do not want this at all, choose the chronological timeline; it shows everything by time, without weighting.

What software does, and what a person does

In brief: filters can flag something and, in a very clear-cut case, temporarily hide it. Every decision with consequences is taken by a person.

We use filters that flag possible breaches — spam, abuse, threats — for the moderation queue. Underlying these is a Dutch-language language model that runs on our own servers in the EU. If that model is in doubt, a second model from Mistral (France, EU) can be asked for a judgement.

What that software is allowed to do: flag content, and where certainty is very high, temporarily hide a message until a moderator has looked at it. This is a provisional measure, and a moderator reverses it if the notice was incorrect.

What that software never does: permanently remove content, restrict or suspend an account, or handle a complaint against a decision. That is always done by a person. There is therefore no decision-making that takes place solely by automated means and that has legal effects for you (AVG Article 22 — the provision that protects you against a computer deciding about you on its own). The full process is set out in the moderation policy.

Where your data is stored

In brief: your account, your bubbles and your conversations are stored in the Netherlands. For a few components the answer is longer, and that is stated here too.

Debaty runs on a single server in the Netherlands. The database, the e-mail, the translation and the moderation AI are stored on it.

What deviates from that, and why:

About the traffic to the site. Since 7 August 2026, Cloudflare has been in place as a security layer in front of debaty.com. That means your browser no longer talks directly to our server in the Netherlands: your request first arrives at the Cloudflare data centre nearest to you (for visitors from the Netherlands that is Amsterdam), and from there it is passed on to us. There is a fair consequence to that: Cloudflare terminates the secured connection, so everything you do on Debaty is readable there, and Cloudflare sees your IP address. We use that layer to stop attacks and abuse, not to track visitors: Cloudflare does not place a cookie on your device, we do not link anything to your account through it, and we do not buy in any statistics or profiles alongside it.

Here too the caveat below applies: Cloudflare is an American company, and where the traffic is handled depends on where you are — that is not a jurisdictional boundary as with the storage of your media. If you want to use Debaty without that layer, that is not possible: it sits in front of the whole site.

About the storage of your media. That is pinned to the EU, but the provider is American. Under the American CLOUD Act, "the data is stored in Europe" does not automatically mean "beyond American reach". That is a real caveat and we let it stand instead of writing that everything is European. The same law affects the security layer above, and for the same reason: it is the same company.

Per component, who manages it, in which country it is stored and which law applies to it: where your data is stored.

Who can access it

In brief: only the service providers we really need. The full list is on its own page.

• Our hosting provider (the Netherlands) for the server.
• Cloudflare as a security layer in front of the entire site. All traffic passes through it, so they see your IP address and the traffic itself. They do nothing else with it beyond what we instruct them to.
• Mollie (the Netherlands) for payments. Your payment details go directly to Mollie; we do not see any account numbers. Mollie itself determines what it does for that payment, with its own privacy policy.
• Veriff (Estonia, EU) for identity verification, only if you start it yourself.
• Cloudflare for storing your photos and videos, pinned to the EU.
• Mistral (France, EU) for a second opinion when our own moderation AI is in doubt.
• KLIPY (Georgia) for searching for GIFs — only your search term, never who you are.
• The push service of your browser (Google, Apple or Mozilla), if you turn on push notifications.
• We send email from our own server.

With these parties we have, where the law requires it, a processor agreement: a contract that stipulates that they use the data only for our work. The full, up-to-date list with name, purpose and location is on the sub-processor list.

Beyond that, we only hand over data where the law obliges us to — for example, to a competent authority with a valid request. We give no more than is asked, and we let you know unless the law prohibits it.

Translation

In brief: translation happens on our own servers. The text never goes to anyone else's translation service.

If a message is in another language, you can tap Translate. That translation runs on our own software on our own servers in the EU. The text does not leave our systems to do so. We keep the translation for a short time, so that the same translation does not have to be made again each time; it disappears along with the message.

Identity verification

In brief: voluntary and free. We never keep a copy of your identity document — only the outcome.

If you want the Verified badge, you can have your identity checked. This is voluntary and free, and you can always refuse it or reverse it.

The check is carried out by Veriff (Estonia, within the EU). There you go through a short step with your identity document and, where necessary, a selfie for comparison. Veriff does this on our behalf, under a processor agreement; the data is processed and stored within the EU (Ireland). Veriff does not keep the document data any longer than needed for the check and a short, legally permitted period thereafter.

Comparing your face requires your explicit consent. Comparing your face with the photo on your document is a processing of biometric data: data about your body by which you can be recognised. This falls under a stricter regime (AVG Article 9) and we do it only with your explicit consent, which you give at the start of the verification. If you do not give it, the verification does not go ahead and you lose nothing further. You can always withdraw your consent; the badge then lapses and we erase the outcome.

We receive only the result: whether you are verified, what kind of document was used, whether you are 18 or older, and a reference to the session. We never receive or keep a photo or scan of your document, your name or your date of birth. The 18-plus check is computed at the source into a single yes or no. If you delete your account, the outcome goes with it.

What others can see about you

In brief: what is public can be seen by anyone, including search engines. What you shield stays shielded.

You choose per bubble who sees it. If you make something public, it can be found on the open web and search engines can include it — that is part of being public, and we cannot reverse that afterwards with others.

You can shield your profile in Settings > Privacy. Your username and your display name remain visible to anyone who has a conversation with you; otherwise a conversation would not work.

What always stays private: your email address, your date of birth (which we do not even keep), your settings, who you blocked or muted, and your private messages.

Deletion and retention

In brief: account gone means data gone, after a thirty-day cooling-off period. Only what must legally remain, remains.

If you delete your account, a thirty-day cooling-off period applies first: simply log in again and your account is back. After that, we erase or anonymise your data according to a set process.

What remains after that, and why:

Messages you sent in a conversation remain with the recipients — just like a letter you have posted. Your name attached to such a message does disappear, though.

Your rights

In brief: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and portability. You can arrange much of this yourself, and the rest we do within a month.

You have these rights, and this is what they mean:

The form is at your data rights. We respond within one month. If your request is complex, we may extend that period by two months — in which case we should let you know within that first month, with the reason.

If we refuse a request, we say why, and then the route to the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens and to the courts is open. Your request costs you nothing. If we ask you to confirm that it is really you, that is to prevent us from giving your personal data to someone else.

Security

In brief: your password is stored encrypted, all connections are encrypted, and you get a notification when a new device is used.

What we do in concrete terms:

• Your password is never stored in readable form. We cannot see it either; if you forget it we reset it, we do not send it to you.
• All connections to Debaty are encrypted.
• You can enable two-step verification, with recovery codes in case you lose your phone.
• If you log in from a new device, you get a notification about it.
• In Settings > Sessions you can see where you are logged in and end a session.
• Who can access which personal data is limited to those who need it for their work, and administrative actions are logged.
• We make back-ups and test whether we can restore from them.

If something does go wrong. In the event of a personal data breach that poses a risk to you, we report it within 72 hours to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens), and we let you know if the risk to you is high. We then describe what happened, which personal data was involved and what you can do yourself.

Age

In brief: Debaty is for people aged 16 and over. We ask for your date of birth only to check this, and we do not keep it.

Debaty is intended for people aged 16 and over and is not aimed at children. That limit comes from privacy law as it applies in the Netherlands (AVG and UAVG, Article 8). If you are under 16, you cannot create an account here.

When you create an account, we ask for your date of birth. We use it only to check whether you are old enough. We do not keep the date itself. Once the check is complete, we store only the fact that you confirmed you were 16 or over, and when. This is called data minimisation, and it comes down to this: we do not keep anything we do nothing with.

If someone suspects that an account belongs to a person under 16, this can be reported. We then follow the route set out in the moderation policy. What this means for young people is set out at Debaty and minors.

Cookies

In brief: only what is needed to log in and to remember your preferences. Nothing that tracks you.

Which cookies we use and why is set out in the cookie policy, with their names and how long they stay. The short answer: only what is needed to log in and to remember how you have set up Debaty. No tracking cookies, and therefore no consent banner that you have to click away.

If this statement changes

In brief: we update it whenever something changes about what we do. In the event of a real change, you will hear about it beforehand.

If something changes about which data we use or what we use it for, we will amend this statement. If it concerns something substantial, we will notify you beforehand in the app and by e-mail. At the bottom you will always find the version and the date of the last change.

Questions or a complaint

In brief: come to us first — that is the quickest route. In addition, you can always go to the supervisory authority.

Is something not right, or is something unclear? Get in touch, or use the form at your data rights. We respond within a month, and usually sooner.

If you disagree with how we handle your personal data, you can lodge a complaint with the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch supervisory authority) at autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl. If you live in another EU country, you can also turn to the privacy supervisory authority of your own country; it will forward your complaint and remain your point of contact. And the route to the courts is always open.

Version and changes

In brief: this is version 1.0 of this document, adopted on 23 July 2026.

• v1.0 — 23 July 2026. First adopted, complete version of this document.

Where to take a complaint

In brief: come to us first. If that does not resolve it, the choice is yours: our Dutch supervisory authority, or the one in your own country.

We are a Dutch company. Our own supervisory authorities are therefore the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch data protection authority) and the Autoriteit Consument & Markt (the Dutch authority for digital services). You can turn to either one, wherever you live.

If you live in the EU or the EEA, you do not have to come to the Netherlands for that. You can lodge your complaint with the supervisory authority of the country where you live or work, in your own language. That authority handles it or passes it on, and remains your point of contact. The data protection authorities are listed by the European Data Protection Board (edpb.europa.eu); the Digital Services Coordinators are listed by the European Commission.

If you live outside the EU and the EEA, you can still turn to our Dutch supervisory authorities. On top of that, the law of your own country may give you an authority of your own; a complaint that reaches us through such an authority is handled in exactly the same way.

Why no foreign authority is named here. The language you are reading this in does not say which country you live in. Which supervisory authority is yours depends on where you live, not on the language you read — and sending you to the wrong desk costs you the very time a complaint does not leave you.

And the courts are always open. If you live in the EU, that may be the court in your own country, where consumer law there allows you to do so.

Language and validity

In brief: the version you read is the one that applies to you — a translation included.

This document is available on Debaty in fourteen languages. The version in your language applies to you, and it binds us too. Where a translation differs from the Dutch text, the reading that is most favourable to you applies: we cannot hold our own translation error against you.

Dutch is the language in which we write changes and against which we check translations. That is a working arrangement inside our company, not a ranking between readers. If a translation lags behind the Dutch text, we say so at the top of the page, with both dates.

Wherever you live, the mandatory consumer law of your own country continues to apply, whatever else is written here.