Last updated: 3 October 2026
Ember is operated by SM Digital Ventures (Pty) Ltd in South Africa. Ember is for adults aged 18 and older.
We process account and profile information you provide, including your name, date of birth, gender, country, city, profile details, matching preferences (including whom you are interested in meeting), prompts and photos. Your date of birth is used to enforce Ember's adult eligibility requirement.
Sharing your location is optional. If you choose to provide it, Ember may store your precise coordinates to support distance-based discovery and location features. Your precise coordinates are never displayed publicly to other members — other members see broad location or distance information according to your settings. To power nearby Date Ideas and related location features, Ember may send location information to a venue and places service. Ember does not perform background location tracking: your location is only used when you use a location feature or choose to provide it.
We also process Likes, matches, messages, saved Date Ideas, reports, blocks, moderation records, membership and voucher entitlements, Boost activity, advertising interactions, rewarded-ad records if that feature becomes available, and business listing information where applicable.
New profile photos are held from other members while moderation checks run. Photo moderation checks content; it does not prove identity.
Identity verification is optional for dating access and is available to eligible members. It follows one of two routes:
Ember's manual verification. A live selfie and your government-issued identity document may be stored privately in Ember's verification storage. Your selfie and limited profile photos may be processed for automated face-presence and face-match checks. Your identity document is stored privately and is not sent to AI services.
Veriff-hosted verification. For this route, Ember sends the necessary identity and session information to Veriff, and Veriff collects your verification images directly in its own hosted environment. Ember receives and stores only the verification session reference and the verification decision. Veriff processes verification information under its own applicable privacy and data-handling terms. We are currently confirming the retention and deletion arrangements applicable to Ember's account and will update this policy when those details are confirmed.
Verification documents and media are private and are not displayed to other members. We do not state an unsupported fixed retention period for identity documents.
Ember uses AI services provided by third parties, reached through Ember's AI gateway, for specific features:
Messages and profile text. Outgoing messages and profile bios may be checked by AI for automated safety and moderation.
Conversation suggestions. When you use AI-assisted conversation suggestions, recent messages in that conversation and limited profile context may be processed to generate the suggestions.
Photo screening. Profile photos may be processed for photo-safety and catfishing screening. Where that screening integration is enabled, a photo may also be checked against a reverse-image-search provider for fraud screening. Not every uploaded photo is necessarily checked this way.
Verification. As described above, during Ember's manual verification route a verification selfie and limited profile photos may be processed for face-presence and face-match screening. Your government-issued identity document is not sent to these AI services.
AI processing produces a result for Ember — such as a safety signal, a suggestion or a verification outcome. The handling and retention of information by these service providers is subject to their applicable data-handling terms and arrangements with Ember.
We use information to operate accounts, enforce the 18+ rule, provide discovery, matching, messaging and Date Ideas, administer memberships and Boosts, measure advertising, support business listings, investigate reports, apply blocks and moderation decisions, prevent abuse, and maintain the service.
Messages may be processed by automated safety tools, including AI processing as described above. Authorised reviewers may access relevant content when needed to investigate a report or enforce Ember's rules. Ember does not claim that staff routinely read every private message or that automated checks detect every risk.
Advertising and sponsored content on Ember is currently provided directly by Ember — first-party promotions and sponsorships. No third-party advertising network is currently embedded in Ember. This may change in the future; if it does, we will update this policy.
We may use service providers that support hosting, identity verification (including Veriff), AI processing through Ember's AI gateway, email delivery, venue and places services, and other app operations. They process information for those services under applicable arrangements. We do not sell personal information.
You can export your data, take a break, or delete your account in Settings, or delete it from any web browser at the Delete Account page after proving you own the account. Take a break hides your profile and keeps everything for when you return; it never deletes anything. Delete is permanent and cannot be undone: the account purge removes the account and associated member data, including current reports, blocks and uploaded files linked to it.
A limited operational deletion record may retain the deletion time and optional de-identified exit feedback. The deleted member's email address and original account identifier are used only while a deletion notification is being sent or retried, and are removed once that handling completes or is abandoned. No retention duration is stated because Ember has not yet finalised one. Verification-media retention also requires further policy review.
You can update profile and privacy settings, block or report members, export your data, take a break, and delete your account from Settings or the Delete Account page.
Questions? Email us at hello@emberdating.online.