Community guidelines

Last updated: [[LAST_UPDATED]]. Applies from [[EFFECTIVE_DATE]].

1. Summary

These guidelines set the standard of conduct required of everyone who uses SmartMatchHub. They apply on blind date calls, in the written feedback given after a call, and in contact with a person after a Match. Reports are made by email to [[SAFETY_EMAIL]], and anyone may report, whether or not they use the service. We do not record calls, so reports are assessed against patterns of conduct rather than adjudicated call by call. Enforcement runs from a warning to permanent closure of an account. You may appeal any action taken against your account.

2. Who these guidelines apply to

These guidelines apply to every person who uses SmartMatchHub.

They form part of the Terms of Use, and breaching them is a breach of those Terms.

The service is for people aged 18 and over.

They apply to what you say on a blind date call, to the feedback you write about the other person after a call, and to the display name and contact handles on your Smart Match Card.

3. The standard required

A blind date is an audio call of no more than four minutes, and both people are anonymous to each other during it.

Treat the other person with courtesy for the length of the call.

Describe yourself accurately.

You may leave a call at any time and you do not have to give a reason.

Write feedback that is honest and relevant to the call you have just had.

Accept a Pass, and do not attempt to reach a person who has not matched with you.

4. Prohibited conduct

You must not do any of the following.

1. Misrepresent your identity, age, gender, location, circumstances or intentions.
2. Harass, bully, demean or intimidate another person.
3. Abuse another person, including on the basis of race, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, gender, sexuality or disability.
4. Threaten another person with violence or harm, or encourage anyone else to do so.
5. Introduce sexual content into a call without the other person’s agreement.
6. Solicit money, gifts, financial support, investment or cryptocurrency from another person.
7. Use the service to advertise, to promote or sell anything, or to recruit for a business, a cause or an organisation.
8. Engage in fraud, a scam, phishing, or any attempt to obtain another person’s financial, identity or account details.
9. Record, transcribe or otherwise capture a call or another person’s voice.
10. Use a synthetic, altered or disguised voice to deceive another person about who you are.
11. Pressure another person for contact details, or for any other personal information, before a Match.
12. Repeat contact with a person who has asked you to stop.
13. Disclose to anyone else what another person said on a call, or their display name or contact handles, without their agreement.
14. Interfere with the service, including attempting to gain unauthorised access to it, disrupting calls, or circumventing limits on matching.
15. Scrape, harvest or copy data from the service by automated means.
16. Hold more than one account, or register again after we have closed your account.
17. Encourage or assist another person to do anything in this list.

5. Illegal conduct

You must not use SmartMatchHub to commit an offence or to facilitate one.

Terrorism content, child sexual exploitation and abuse content, and other priority illegal content are prohibited.

We close the account of any person we determine to have engaged in that conduct.

We report conduct to the police or another competent authority where we consider it necessary or where the law requires it.

No photographs, images or video are collected, stored or shown by SmartMatchHub at any stage, and there is no text chat between users.

6. Conduct after a Match

A Match exchanges Smart Match Cards, each holding a display name and contact handles, and contact then continues on services we do not operate.

These guidelines continue to apply to your conduct with a person you met through SmartMatchHub after contact details are exchanged, wherever that contact takes place.

You must not share, or threaten to share, an intimate image or recording of a person you met through SmartMatchHub.

We may suspend or close your SmartMatchHub account for conduct that takes place off the service.

We cannot remove content from, or take action on, a service we do not operate.

If an intimate image of you has been shared without your consent, report it to us at [[SAFETY_EMAIL]] and see the Dating Safely guide for the organisations that can help.

7. Reporting

Report conduct that breaches these guidelines by email to [[SAFETY_EMAIL]].

You do not need an account to make a report, and reports from people who do not use SmartMatchHub are accepted by the same route.

Include the approximate date and time of the call, the display name if you have it, your own email address if you have an account, and a description of what happened.

We acknowledge a report within [[COMPLAINTS_TURNAROUND]].

If a person is in immediate danger, contact the emergency services before you contact us.

If you are in the United Kingdom, you may report illegal content to us by the same route and without an account.

8. How we assess a report

We do not record, transcribe, listen to or analyse calls, and no recording of a call exists at any time.

We do not use proactive detection technology of any kind, and no automated system scans calls or feedback.

We assess a report against the information we hold, which is the report itself, the record of who was on a call, when it took place and how long it lasted, the decision each person made, and the written feedback each person gave about the other.

Where two accounts of the same call conflict and no other information settles the matter, we look for a pattern across calls, feedback and reports rather than deciding which account of a single call is correct.

A single report is enough to act on where the conduct reported is serious.

We take account of the freedom of expression and the privacy of both people when we decide what to do.

9. Enforcement

We may take any of the following steps.

We choose the step according to how serious the conduct is, whether it is repeated, and the risk to other users.

We may move straight to permanent closure where the conduct is serious.

We tell you what action we have taken and why, unless doing so would prejudice an investigation or put another person at risk.

We give notice before suspending or closing an account except where safety requires immediate action, in which case we tell you as soon as we reasonably can.

You may not register again after we have closed your account.

10. Appeals

You may appeal a warning, a suspension or the closure of your account by email to [[SAFETY_EMAIL]] within [[APPEAL_WINDOW]] of the day we tell you about it.

Tell us why you consider the decision wrong and give us any information we did not have.

We review the decision against the information we held and anything further you give us, and we respond within [[COMPLAINTS_TURNAROUND]].

If we uphold your appeal, we reverse the action and restore your access.

If you made a report and disagree with the outcome, you may ask us to review it by the same route and within the same period.

Nothing in this section affects your right to complain to us under the Terms of Use or to take a dispute further.

11. Changes to these guidelines

We may change these guidelines.

We publish the current version with the date it was last updated, and we notify users of a material change before it takes effect.

Continuing to use SmartMatchHub after a change takes effect means the changed guidelines apply to you.