Operator review required. This page describes how Noders works today. It is not a final legal notice until the operator completes the marked items and has it reviewed.
PrivacyHow Noders handles your information
Noders is a free, invite-only place for verified members to have short private conversations about careers, studies and life abroad. It is designed to share as little about you as possible, and only when you choose.
Who is responsible
Noders is operated by Nikita Smirnov, established in Hong Kong SAR, China. The operator decides how your information is used and is your contact for privacy questions.
What we store
- Account: your email address and password (handled by our authentication provider), the invitation you joined with, and your membership verification status, including the reviewer's decision note.
- Privacy choices: whether you can be discovered and whether you accept requests. Both are off until you turn them on.
- Discovery details: your city (chosen with city search, stored only as the city name and a position rounded to about 10 km) and up to three broad areas, if you choose them.
- Introduction: a first name and an optional headline that you write.
- Requests and conversations: the topic and message of requests you send or receive, their status history, admin review notes, and the time and meeting link of scheduled conversations.
- Email delivery records: which notification was sent to which account and when. The emails contain no names, messages or links to meetings.
- Earlier pilot data: if you used the earlier referral pilot, its profile, CV and request records are kept as they were.
Who can see what
- Nobody can find you until you turn on discovery. Other verified members then see only your approximate city and broad areas — never your name, email or employer.
- If you also turn on “Show me on the public map”, anyone visiting Noders can see your city (positioned to about 10 km) with your broad areas and whether you accept requests — still never your name or contact details. Only signed-in verified members can send you a request.
- An admin reads every request before the member it is for can see it.
- A member who receives a request sees only its topic and message. First names and headlines are shared with the other participant only after a request is accepted.
- Meeting links are shown only to the two participants of a scheduled conversation, and stop working if it is cancelled or either member is suspended.
- Admins can see what they need to verify members, review requests, schedule conversations, provide support and keep audit records.
Service providers
Noders uses these providers to run the service. Each receives only what it needs:
- Supabase — database and sign-in.
- Vercel — website hosting.
- Resend — sending notification emails.
- Mapbox — the globe on the home page is provided by Mapbox, which also powers city search in your settings (only what you type into that search is sent). When the globe loads, your browser requests map data from Mapbox, which receives your IP address and basic browser information under its own privacy policy. The globe shows no member data.
- Conversations take place on the meeting service named in the meeting link, under that service's own terms.
Cookies
Noders uses only functional cookies: to keep you signed in, to remember which email address is awaiting confirmation, and to complete a password reset securely. It does not use advertising or analytics cookies.
How long we keep it
- Account and privacy choices: until you ask us to delete your account.
- Requests and conversations: 24 months after their last activity.
- Admin review and safety records: 3 years, so that misuse can be investigated.
- Email delivery records: 90 days.
Status and audit history is kept as a record and is not silently rewritten. When a retention period ends, or you ask us to delete your account, the information is deleted or anonymised unless the law requires us to keep it longer.
Why we may use your information
- To provide the service you joined: your account, membership, requests and conversations.
- Your consent: being discoverable, accepting requests and appearing on the public map. You can withdraw consent at any time by switching these off.
- Legitimate interests: reviewing requests, preventing misuse and keeping the community safe, and keeping audit records.
- Legal obligations: where the law requires us to keep or disclose information.
Our service providers may process information outside your country, including in the United States; we use providers that offer appropriate safeguards for such transfers.
Your rights
You can ask to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your information, to restrict how it is used, and to object to its use based on legitimate interests. We answer within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the data protection authority where you live or work.