Privacy Policy

How MarriageEmporium collects, uses, and protects your information.

Last Updated: August 31, 2026 Effective Date: August 31, 2026

MarriageEmporium (“MarriageEmporium,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) operates a marriage-oriented compatibility and facilitation platform available at www.marriageemporium.com and through any related applications, features, and services (collectively, the “Services”). We are committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use, disclose, and safeguard it, and the rights and choices available to you.

By creating an account or using our Services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with it, please do not use the Services.

1. Who We Are

For the purposes of applicable data-protection laws, including the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), MarriageEmporium is the “data controller” of the personal information described in this Privacy Policy. You can reach us at any time at customerservices@marriageemporium.com.

2. Information We Collect

We collect the following categories of information, depending on how you use the Services:

Account and Identity Information. Your name, email address, date of birth (used to enforce our 18+ requirement), gender, general location, and password (stored only as a salted cryptographic hash — we never store your password in readable form).
Identity Verification Information. If you complete our identity-verification process, we collect the information and materials required for that process, which may include a photograph of a government-issued identification document, a selfie or liveness check, and the verification results. Verification artifacts are retained only for as long as needed to complete and evidence the verification and to meet legal, fraud-prevention, and safety obligations.
Marriage Contract and Profile Information. All information you provide to build your profile and “marriage contract,” including your preferences and statements regarding personality, career, faith and religious beliefs, finances, children, household roles, personal values, ideals, dealbreakers, aspirations, and any photos, videos, or other content you upload. Some of this information may be considered “special category” or “sensitive” personal data under applicable law (for example, religious beliefs, ethnicity, health information, or sexual orientation). You are never required to provide such information; where you choose to do so, we process it only with your explicit consent and to provide the matching Services you request.
Compatibility and Assessment Data. Your responses to readiness tests, values assessments, and questionnaires, together with the compatibility scores and reports generated from them.
Communications Data. Messages, “hearts,” and content exchanged in negotiation rooms and other communication features. We process this data to deliver the communication service and may review it where reasonably necessary to investigate reported abuse, enforce our Terms of Service, or protect user safety.
Behavioral and Usage Data. Information about how you use the Services, such as profiles you view, search history and filters, interactions with other members, feature usage, and pages visited.
Technical and Device Data. IP address, approximate location derived from your IP address (used to surface local matches and relevant cultural regions), browser type and version, time zone, operating system and platform, device identifiers, and device tokens for push notifications.
Payment Data. Payments are processed by our third-party payment processor, Stripe, Inc. (“Stripe”). We do not receive or store your full card number or CVV. We receive and store only a tokenized reference to your payment method, the card brand, the last four digits, the expiration date, and your billing details, as needed for recurring billing, fraud prevention, and accounting.
Background Check Data. If you purchase or consent to a background check, the check is performed by an independent third-party screening provider. We receive the results (or a pass/fail or summary indicator) only with your consent and handle them in accordance with this Policy and applicable law.
Cookies and Similar Technologies. See Section 6 below.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

Provide the Services: create and manage your account; build and display your marriage contract to other members; operate the matching engine (including ranked contracts and compatibility scores); deliver messaging and negotiation-room features; and process payments.
Improve and personalize the Services: refine our matching algorithms, develop new features, conduct analytics and research, and troubleshoot issues.
Enforce eligibility and safety: verify identity and age; detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, scams, harassment, and other prohibited or illegal activity; and enforce our Terms of Service.
Communicate with you: send service-related messages (account verification, match and message notifications, payment confirmations, safety alerts, policy updates) and, where permitted, marketing communications that you can control at any time through your notification preferences.
Comply with the law: meet record-keeping, tax, accounting, reporting, and other legal obligations, and respond to lawful requests from authorities.

4. Legal Bases for Processing (EEA and UK Users)

If you are in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or the United Kingdom (“UK”), we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR): to create your account and provide the matching, communication, and facilitation Services you request.
Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR): to improve and secure the Services, personalize your experience, prevent fraud and abuse, and conduct limited marketing, where these interests are not overridden by your rights.
Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR): to comply with applicable laws and lawful requests.
Consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR): for analytics cookies, certain marketing communications, and push notifications, where required.
Explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR): for any special-category data you choose to include in your marriage contract or profile (such as religious beliefs), and for identity-verification and background-check processing where required.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time through your account settings or by contacting us, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We share personal information only as follows:

With other members: Your profile and marriage contract (excluding your contact details, exact date of birth, and payment information) are visible to other registered members as part of the matching service. You control certain visibility settings from your account. Please share thoughtfully — anything you place in your profile may be seen by other members.
Service providers (processors): Trusted vendors that process data on our behalf under written contract, including Stripe (payments), identity-verification providers, hosting and infrastructure providers, email-delivery services, customer-support tools, analytics providers, and an AI service provider (Anthropic) used solely to translate a message's text when you request a translation. They may process your data only on our documented instructions.
Professional partners with your consent: If you request services such as counseling, coaching, or wedding planning, we share only the information needed to connect you, and only with your consent.
Screening providers with your consent: Background-check providers, solely to perform checks you have purchased or authorized.
Legal, safety, and enforcement: Where we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to comply with law or legal process; to protect the rights, property, or safety of MarriageEmporium, our members, or the public; to detect or prevent fraud or abuse; or to report suspected exploitation, trafficking, or harm to appropriate authorities.
Business transfers: In connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of assets, subject to the protections of this Policy.
Aggregated or de-identified data: We may share information that has been aggregated or de-identified so that it can no longer reasonably be linked to you.

6. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use the following categories of cookies and similar technologies:

Strictly necessary cookies (no consent required): authentication, security and anti-forgery protections, load balancing, and session management. The Services cannot function without these.
Functional cookies: remember your preferences and settings.
Analytics/performance cookies: help us understand how the Services are used so we can improve them. These are used only with your consent where required by law.

You can manage non-essential cookies through our cookie-consent tool and your browser settings. Where required by law, we honor recognized opt-out preference signals such as Global Privacy Control (GPC). Blocking certain cookies may affect the functionality of the Services.

7. International Data Transfers

Your information is processed and stored on secure servers located in the United States and may be processed in other countries where we or our service providers operate. If you are in the EEA, UK, or another jurisdiction with data-transfer restrictions, we rely on lawful transfer mechanisms — such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum — and apply appropriate technical and organizational safeguards to protect your information wherever it is processed.

8. Data Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this Policy:

Account data: retained while your account is active. If you delete your account, your profile is removed from other members’ view promptly, and personal data is deleted or anonymized within a reasonable period, subject to the exceptions below.
Safety, fraud, and legal holds: we may retain limited information (for example, records relating to bans, abuse reports, chargebacks, or legal disputes) for as long as needed to protect the community, enforce our agreements, and meet legal obligations.
Financial and tax records: retained for the period required by applicable accounting and tax laws (typically up to seven years).
Identity-verification artifacts: retained only as long as needed to evidence verification, prevent repeat fraud, and satisfy legal obligations, after which they are securely deleted.
Backups: residual copies in encrypted backups are deleted on our normal backup-rotation schedule.

9. Data Security

We implement technical and organizational measures designed to protect your information, including TLS encryption in transit, salted password hashing, encryption of sensitive data at rest where appropriate, access controls, and monitoring. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a data breach occurs that is likely to affect your rights, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as required by law.

10. Your Rights and Choices

All users. You may access and update most of your information directly in your account settings, control marketing and notification preferences, and request account deletion at any time. You may also contact us at customerservices@marriageemporium.com to exercise any of the rights below. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request, and we respond within the time required by applicable law.

EEA and UK users (GDPR). You have the right to request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data; data portability; restriction of or objection to certain processing; and withdrawal of consent. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.

U.S. state privacy rights (including California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, and similar laws). Depending on your state of residence, you may have the right to know/access the personal information we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to obtain a portable copy, to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information or targeted advertising (we do not sell or share personal information or engage in targeted advertising as defined by these laws), to limit the use of sensitive personal information, and to appeal a denied request by replying to our response. We will not discriminate against you for exercising these rights. You may designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf, subject to verification.

11. Automated Decision-Making and Profiling

Our matching engine uses the information in your marriage contract and assessments to compute compatibility scores and rank potential matches. These outputs are recommendations only: we do not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you based solely on automated processing. You always decide whom to contact, meet, or marry. You may contact us for information about how a compatibility score was generated.

12. Children

The Services are for adults only. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have collected information from a person under 18, we will delete it and terminate the account. If you believe a minor has provided us information, contact us immediately at customerservices@marriageemporium.com.

13. Third-Party Links and Services

The Services may contain links to third-party websites or integrate third-party services (for example, Stripe’s checkout). We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third parties, and we encourage you to review their policies.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. We will post the updated version on this page, update the “Last Updated” date, and provide prominent notice (by email or in-Service notification) of material changes before they take effect. Your continued use of the Services after the effective date of an update constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy, except where a different form of consent is required by law.

15. Contact Us

Privacy questions, requests, or complaints:
Email: customerservices@marriageemporium.com (please include “Privacy Request” in the subject line)

If you are in the EEA or UK and are unsatisfied with our response, you may also contact your local data-protection authority.