Privacy Policy

This policy explains how Pion collects, uses, stores, and shares information when you use the Pion mobile app, website, public share pages, and related support services.

Summary

Pion is being prepared as an account-based mobile app for focused conversations, user-generated content, social interaction, and optional AI-assisted features. We collect information needed to run those features, keep the service safe, provide support, process payments and Pion Balance, and comply with legal obligations.

Who We Are

For this policy, "Pion," "we," "us," and "our" refer to Pion Social Inc, the operator of the Pion app, website, public share pages, and related support services. Pion Social Inc is responsible for the processing described in this policy unless a separate notice says otherwise. Privacy, support, and data-rights requests can be sent to support@pion.social. If Pion appoints a regional representative or publishes additional market-specific contact details, this policy will be updated with that information.

Mailing address:
Pion Social Inc
1178 Broadway, 3rd Floor #3591
New York, NY 10001

Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly, information created while you use the app, and information generated by our service providers. This includes, depending on the features you use:

Account information, such as email address, authentication method, account identifiers, password reset and sign-in link activity, and basic account status.
Profile information, such as username, display name, bio, avatar, cover image, website, social links, language preferences, privacy settings, messaging rules, and notification preferences.
Content and activity, such as AI conversations, private messages, drafts, published threads, replies, votes, views, follows, blocks, reports, share links, tags, message metadata, and conversation titles or summaries.
Files and media that you choose to upload, such as profile photos, cover images, message photos, attachment names, attachment sizes, storage paths, and download URLs.
AI usage information, such as prompts, conversation context, responses, selected model, model provider, token counts, generated titles or tags, Pion Balance usage, and related billing logs.
Billing and Pion Balance information, such as account balance, balance transactions, purchase amount, Apple App Store transaction information, purchase identifiers, fee metadata, and revenue records. We do not store full payment card numbers.
Notification information, such as in-app notification records, email notification preferences, push notification tokens, platform, device identifier, delivery status, and notification dispatch logs.
Technical information, such as timestamps, app events needed to operate features, server logs, error logs, request metadata, link preview URLs, and cached link preview metadata.

If you use the website contact form, Pion processes the name, email address, optional company, subject, message, and selected website language that you submit. The submission is delivered to Pion through an email delivery provider and is not stored in Pion's content management system or application databases. For abuse prevention, Pion temporarily retains a keyed hash derived from request network information, together with hourly and daily counters, for up to 48 hours. The message remains in Pion's receiving email inbox as needed to answer and manage the request.

User-Generated Content

Pion stores content that users create, submit, send, publish, save, share, or interact with. Product settings and your actions determine whether content is private to participants, visible to selected users, visible by link, or visible to broader communities inside the app. Public or shared content can include your profile information, message snippets, thread content, AI model labels, timestamps, and related metadata.

AI-Assisted Features

Before Pion first sends your content to an AI provider, the app asks for your permission. The request names the providers and describes what is sent. You can withdraw this permission at any time in Settings › AI data sharing. While it is off, AI features are unavailable, and so are posting, replying, sharing chats, and editing profile text, because that content goes through the safety checks described below. Withdrawing stops new processing. It does not recall content already sent, and content you have already published can still be included when other people ask AI in a thread.

With your permission, Pion sends your prompts, messages, images and other supported attachments, and relevant conversation history to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or xAI to provide AI features, including replies, image generation, titles, and summaries. The provider depends on the model selected or configured for each feature. Background tasks may use a different provider from the one selected for a reply. These include summaries and titles, suggestions on whether an answer is worth verifying, and detecting the language of a post.

In shared AI chats, either participant can request AI using that chat's messages, attachments, and relevant history. This includes your contributions when the other participant requests AI. Pion asks for your permission before you can write in a shared AI chat, and AI pauses in a shared AI chat while anyone who has written in it has not given permission. The providers named above may also process that chat's messages to create background summaries and titles. Personal assistant memory is not included in shared AI chats.

When someone asks AI in a thread, Pion sends the thread's title, the replies being answered, any quoted text, and the display names and usernames of the people who wrote them.

Pion also processes model choices and generated responses, and logs AI usage for billing, abuse prevention, debugging, and product operation. Personal information you include in messages or attachments may be sent to the providers. Avoid submitting sensitive personal information that you do not want processed for AI functionality.

Content Safety Checks

Before content appears to other people, Pion checks it with OpenAI's moderation service. This covers posts and their photos, replies, chats and messages you share, threads made public, and profile text (display name, bio, website, and social links). Pion may also send a post that needs a closer look to one of the AI providers named above for a second review. These checks are part of the same AI data sharing permission and apply to everyone who posts, whether or not they use AI chat. Profile photos, profile cover images, and usernames are not sent to AI providers.

Assistant Memory

When assistant memory is enabled, Pion uses the AI providers named above to create short summaries of your past private AI conversations and a compact profile of context you have shared, such as ongoing projects and preferences. Pion stores this memory and includes relevant parts in your own future private AI requests. These requests may use a different provider from the one that processed the original conversation. Memory is strictly per-account: it is never shared across users and is never used for other users' conversations. Incognito conversations are excluded from memory. You can turn memory off or delete all stored memory at any time in Settings; deleting a conversation also removes its contribution to memory, and deleting your account removes stored memory entirely. Memory is not updated while AI data sharing is off.

Photos, Attachments, and Permissions

Pion requests photo library access only when you choose to upload a profile image or attach a photo. Uploaded images and related metadata are stored in cloud storage. Supported attachments in AI chats may also be sent to the AI providers described above. If you enable push notifications, Pion requests notification permission to deliver them.

Authentication, Payments, and Service Providers

Pion uses third-party cloud services for authentication, databases, file storage, cloud functions, and app infrastructure. Depending on app configuration, Pion supports email/password, magic-link, Google, or Apple sign-in. In-app purchases on iOS are processed through Apple In-App Purchase and managed through a purchase management service. Website Pion Balance purchases, if available, are processed through that service and its payment partners. When email notifications are enabled, they are sent through an email delivery provider. Push notifications are delivered through a push notification service and platform notification services. App links that open Pion are handled by an app link service, as described in Public and Shared Links. These providers process information as needed to provide their services to Pion, under the protections described in Sharing and Disclosure.

Apple Refund Information

If you enable “Share refund details with Apple” in Billing settings and later request an App Store refund, Pion may tell Apple whether the relevant purchase was delivered, whether information about its functionality was available before purchase, and whether enough Pion balance remains to reverse the purchase. Pion also sends a recommendation to grant the full refund or decline it. Apple makes the final refund decision.

This response uses the verified App Store transaction identifier. Pion does not send Apple your chats, prompts, messages, exact Pion balance, or itemized usage information as part of this response. Consent is off by default and applies to your Pion account across devices. You can withdraw it at any time in Billing settings. Withdrawal cancels responses that have not yet been sent and restores any related provisional balance adjustment. It cannot retract a response already being sent or accepted by Apple, and enabling consent does not send a response for a request received before you enabled it. Verified refund decisions received from Apple are still processed to keep Pion’s server-owned balance records accurate.

How We Use Information

To create, authenticate, secure, and manage user accounts.
To provide profiles, conversations, messaging, threads, drafts, shares, and app features.
To process optional AI-assisted features and calculate related Pion Balance usage.
To process payments, Pion Balance, refunds, and billing records.
To send in-app, push, and email notifications according to user preferences.
To support privacy settings, messaging rules, blocks, reports, and moderation workflows.
To generate link previews and public/shareable pages when users choose to share content.
To detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to abuse, fraud, security incidents, and policy violations.
To debug, maintain, secure, and improve the app and related infrastructure.
To comply with applicable law, enforce agreements, and respond to lawful requests.

Pion does not sell personal information. We disclose information in the following situations:

With service providers that help operate authentication, hosting, storage, databases, cloud functions, payments, email, push notifications, app links, AI-assisted features, content safety checks, analytics and diagnostics, support, security, and app infrastructure.
With other users when you publish content, participate in social features, send messages, create share links, follow users, vote, reply, or otherwise interact through the app.
With payment processors and platform providers where needed to process purchases, refunds, fees, app review, or platform requirements.
When we believe disclosure is necessary to comply with law, protect users, protect Pion, investigate abuse, enforce terms, or respond to legal process.
With third parties that pay for API access to public threads, as described in AI Training, Improvement, and Licensing.

Pion shares personal information only with service providers and other third parties whose terms or agreements with Pion require them to give it the same or equal protection as this policy describes and as applicable law and app store rules require. These include the AI providers named above (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI), cloud hosting and infrastructure providers, payment processors, email and push notification services, analytics and diagnostics tools, app link services, other third-party SDKs in the app, and any parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of Pion that has access to personal information. Service providers may use personal information only to provide their services to Pion, unless the law requires otherwise. This does not apply to content you choose to make visible to other people, or to disclosures required by law.

Pion may use or share aggregated or de-identified information that does not identify and cannot reasonably be linked to a particular user, within the limits described in AI Training, Improvement, and Licensing. We maintain safeguards designed to prevent this information from being reidentified.

Public and Shared Links

If you create or open a share link, Pion stores public identifiers, slugs, titles, summaries, snippets, expiration status, creator user identifiers, and share analytics events. Link-only pages are accessible to anyone with the URL until they expire or are revoked.

Pion uses an app link service to handle app links. Links in Pion notification emails and the “Open in app” buttons on pion.social go through this service so they can open the right screen in the app, including the first time you open the app after installing it. When you open one of these links, or open the app for the first time, the service receives the link, your IP address, and basic device and app information, and assigns an install identifier. It uses this to match the app to the link that led you there and to report link opens and installs to Pion. Each link contains only the web address of the Pion page it opens. Pion does not send the service your name, email address, or account ID.

Link Previews

If you submit a URL for a link preview, Pion fetches the URL, extracts metadata such as title, description, image, and site name, and caches that metadata. Pion restricts link preview fetching to HTTPS URLs and blocks known local or private network addresses.

Advertising

Pion does not currently show ads. Any advertising we introduce will be contextual and appear in threads, feeds, and profile pages. Pion will not display advertisements in private AI chats, private direct messages, or private shared AI chats.

Pion does not use private AI chats, assistant memory, private direct messages, or private shared AI chats to create, enrich, or maintain user profiles for advertising, or to select or target advertisements. These exclusions also apply to summaries, inferences, and other information derived from those sources, and to service providers acting on Pion's behalf.

Pion does not use personal information for third-party behavioral advertising. For more details, see the Advertising section of our Terms of Use.

AI Training, Improvement, and Licensing

We use information to operate, secure, and improve Pion. Today, we do not train AI models on user content, and we do not license user data.

Direct messages, shared AI chats, and incognito chats are never used for training, recommendations, or licensing. Pion uses them only to provide, secure, and support the service, including handling reports, and never includes them in datasets for Pion or anyone else.

In the future, we may use other content, including private AI chats and followers-only content, to improve Pion. For example, we may use it to develop, train, and evaluate Pion's own AI models and machine learning systems, such as those used for recommendations, ranking, safety, and classification. Information used to train AI models will be de-identified first, so it cannot reasonably be linked to you. Before we start, we will update this policy, notify you in advance, and give you a way to opt out in Settings.

We may also license de-identified datasets to third parties, such as AI providers, for purposes such as AI training and research. Before we start, we will update this policy, notify you in advance, and give you a way to opt out. Information from your private AI chats will be included only if you first give your permission in the app. Without it, your private AI chats are left out, including chats from before we start. You can withdraw your permission at any time; withdrawing applies to datasets created afterward. Saying no does not limit your use of Pion. We may offer rewards, such as Pion Balance, to people who choose to take part. Followers-only content is never included in datasets licensed to third parties.

We may also offer third parties, such as AI answer services, paid API access to public threads for single uses, like showing a thread in a response. Access is paid, we do not sell public threads in bulk, and contributors receive a share of the proceeds. Private AI chats, private direct messages, and followers-only content are never available this way.

We never use or share personal information for ad targeting or tracking.

Analytics, Diagnostics, and Logs

Pion uses operational logs, share-link events, billing logs, notification delivery records, error logs, and diagnostic information to operate, secure, debug, and improve the service.

The mobile app uses an analytics and diagnostics provider, hosted in the United States, for redacted error reporting and optional session replay. Session replay creates a sequence of screenshots and interaction timing so we can reproduce app failures and usability problems. We configure replay to mask text, text-entry fields, and images, and to exclude console logs and network telemetry. The recording can still show the structure of a screen and the sequence of interactions.

Session recordings are kept for no more than 30 days unless a shorter service limit applies. A limited incident record may be retained longer when reasonably necessary to investigate a security, fraud, billing, or service-reliability issue. Access is limited to people working on Pion who need the recording to diagnose the issue.

Your Choices

You can manage certain settings in the app, including profile details, private profile status, messaging rules, notification preferences, model preferences, and account status. You can choose whether to upload photos, create public or shared content, use AI-assisted features, or enable push notifications.

You can turn off “Share session recordings” in Account & Privacy settings. This is a device-level choice: turning it off stops replay on that device immediately and the setting remains off after sign-out or an account change. If the device cannot confirm the immediate stop, Pion keeps the opt-out for the next launch and asks you to fully close the app. Turning it back on takes effect the next time the app starts. Disabling replay does not disable redacted JavaScript error reports, operational or billing records, or purchase analytics needed to operate and secure the service.

You can give or withdraw your AI data sharing permission at any time in Settings › AI data sharing. This account-wide choice is synchronized across devices. See “AI-Assisted Features” and “Content Safety Checks” above for what is sent, to whom, and what changes while it is off.

You can separately enable or disable “Share refund details with Apple” in Billing settings. This account-wide choice is off by default and is synchronized across devices. See “Apple Refund Information” above for the data shared, its purpose, and the limits of withdrawal.

Account Deactivation and Deletion

Users can delete their account in the app. When you delete your account:

Public threads without another user's contribution are permanently deleted. Unanswered replies you posted are also deleted.
Public threads with another user's contribution, and your replies that have answers, remain available as “Deleted user.” Pion removes the profile association and replaces your account identifiers in those records with a random, non-reversible tombstone.
Private threads and followers-only threads will be permanently deleted.
Your profile, private AI chats, drafts, shares, votes, preferences, notifications, memories, uploaded files, and other account settings are permanently deleted.
Messages you sent in direct-message conversations are deleted. The other participant keeps access to their messages and the conversation container, where your identity is shown as “Deleted user.”
Pion attempts to revoke any stored Sign in with Apple credential, deletes the sign-in account, and requests deletion of identified analytics data from its analytics and diagnostics provider. Provider erasure requests are retried after temporary provider failures without delaying deletion from Pion. If no usable Apple token is available, you should remove Pion from Sign in with Apple in your Apple Account settings after deletion.
Any remaining Pion Balance associated with the account will be forfeited and cannot be recovered, transferred, or refunded, except where applicable law requires a different result.

Where a purchase, refund, chargeback, payout, or earned-revenue record exists, Pion retains a limited financial identity record—including the account identifier, contact email or phone when available, and payment-provider identifiers—for seven years to handle purchases, refunds, chargebacks, tax, accounting, legal claims, and financial disputes. This exception does not keep the public profile or reconnect the random “Deleted user” tombstone to it in public product data. Temporary backup copies may remain only until the applicable backup cycle expires.

Data Retention

We keep information for as long as needed to provide the service and operate active accounts. After account deletion, the limited financial identity and transaction records described above are retained for seven years. Backup copies expire on their normal restricted backup cycle; they are not restored into the live product except for disaster recovery.

Security

We use technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect information, including authenticated access controls, server-side authorization checks, managed cloud infrastructure, and restricted privileged operations. No online service can guarantee absolute security.

International Processing

Pion and its service providers process information in the United States and other countries where our infrastructure or providers operate. Data protection laws in those locations can differ from the laws where you live.

Children

You must be at least 18 years old to use Pion, as required by our Terms of Use. Pion is not intended for anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has provided personal information, contact support@pion.social.

Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to request access, correction, deletion, portability, restriction, or objection regarding your personal information. To make a privacy request, contact support@pion.social. We may need to verify your identity before completing a request. Additional regional details are provided below.

EEA, UK, and Switzerland Privacy Notice

If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, this section provides additional information about our processing of personal data. To the extent applicable data protection law applies, Pion Social Inc acts as the controller for the personal data processed to provide the app and related services, unless a separate notice says otherwise. Privacy requests can be sent directly to support@pion.social. If Pion appoints a representative for a specific region, we will update this policy with that representative's contact details.

Where applicable, we rely on the following legal bases:

Contract: to create and manage your account, authenticate you, provide profiles, conversations, messaging, threads, drafts, shares, AI-assisted features, purchases, Pion Balance, and support.
Consent: to send your content to third-party AI providers for AI features and content safety checks, to send optional push or marketing communications where consent is required, to access device permissions you choose to grant, and for other optional features that ask for consent.
Legitimate interests: to secure, debug, maintain, and improve Pion; prevent fraud and abuse; enforce policies; moderate reports; protect users; and preserve business, security, and legal records.
Legal obligations: to keep records, process payments, comply with tax, accounting, consumer protection, safety, and platform obligations, and respond to lawful requests.

You may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or port your personal data; object to certain processing; withdraw consent where processing is based on consent; and lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that happened before withdrawal. To exercise rights, contact support@pion.social.

Pion and its providers process personal data in the United States and other countries. Where required, we use appropriate safeguards for international transfers, such as contractual protections with service providers. Pion does not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects based solely on automated processing. AI-assisted features generate or help transform content when users choose to use them.

California and US State Privacy Rights

If you are a resident of California or another US state with an applicable privacy law, you may have additional rights. The exact scope of those rights depends on where you live and whether the relevant law applies to Pion at the time of your request.

The categories of personal information we collect include identifiers, contact and account information, commercial information, internet or electronic activity information, user-generated content, photos or media you choose to upload, device and diagnostic information, preferences and inferences, and sensitive personal information only where you provide it, where it is needed for security or account access, or where it is processed by our payment providers.

We collect this information from you, your use of the app, your device or browser, other users who interact with you, and service providers that help us operate Pion. We use and disclose these categories for the purposes described in this policy, including app functionality, authentication, payments, AI-assisted features, support, safety, security, debugging, legal compliance, and service operation.

We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes that require a right to limit under California privacy law. We may use or disclose aggregated or de-identified information that is maintained so it cannot reasonably be linked to a specific person or household.

Depending on applicable law, you may have the right to know or access personal information, request deletion, request correction, receive a portable copy, opt out of sale or sharing, limit certain sensitive personal information uses, and not be discriminated against for exercising privacy rights. You or an authorized agent may submit a request at support@pion.social. We may verify your identity and authority before completing a request.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will be posted on this page with an updated effective date. Material changes may also be communicated through the app or by other appropriate means.

Contact

Questions, support requests, or privacy requests can be sent to support@pion.social. You may also contact us by mail at Pion Social Inc, 1178 Broadway, 3rd Floor #3591, New York, NY 10001.