Privacy Policy
Privacy PolicyLast updated: October 25, 2026
Last updated: October 25, 2026
FOMO Circles LLC ("fomo," "we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our mobile application (including its Mac version), our Apple TV app, and related services (collectively, the "Service").
By using fomo, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.
Using fomo on Apple TV? Our TV app is covered by a dedicated Apple TV Privacy Policy.
fomo is intended for users aged 18 and older. During registration, you enter your date of birth and confirm that you are 18 or older. If the date of birth you enter is under 18, the app will not create an account. Your date of birth is private: only you and fomo can see it.
If we discover that an account belongs to a user under the age of 18, we will promptly terminate the account and delete all associated personal information. If you believe a user under 18 is using the Service, please contact us at privacy@fomocircles.com.
fomo asks for permission to read your contacts only when you open the invite screen and choose to connect them. We do not ask at sign-up and the app works fully without it.
If you sign in using a third-party service (such as Apple or Google), we may receive your name and email address from that provider, as permitted by your account settings. To stop fake accounts, Google (reCAPTCHA and Play Integrity) and Apple (App Attest) check that requests come from a real copy of the app. On Android, Google Play tells us which invite link, if any, led to your install.
We use the information we collect to:
When everyone involved is on fomo 8.5 or later, these can be end-to-end encrypted, and the app shows when they are:
They are locked on your phone and unlocked only on the devices of the people in the chat or circle. fomo stores and delivers them, and its call servers carry calls, in a form that neither we nor our service providers can read. In a 1-on-1 chat, fomo checks which devices can read it (see “Checking who has the keys”). An encrypted chat, circle or call says so.
We need this to deliver what you send and to show your chats and feeds.
Everyone in the circle when you post: new members can also see the circle’s posts from before they joined. Someone removed from a circle can’t open what’s shared after they leave. They may already have opened earlier posts, and encryption can’t take those back. When a circle or group-chat call is end-to-end encrypted, anyone in that circle or group can decrypt it. Someone added to the circle or group during a call can decrypt it from then on, and the call shows a note; someone removed is cut off within seconds.
A scheduled post is encrypted on your phone when you schedule it. If someone leaves one of its circles before it goes out, we hold it until your phone updates its keys, and we ask you to open fomo.
We can’t scan encrypted photos and videos. Your phone checks them itself before they’re posted, using fomo’s own on-device model (and on iPhone, Apple’s sensitive content check too when it’s turned on), and if they look sensitive, they’re blurred for viewers until tapped. The check runs on your phone; we see only its result, never the photo (see Automated Systems & AI).
(1-on-1 chats; key checks for groups and circles come later.) In a 1-on-1 chat, fomo checks the devices automatically: a device set up with that person’s encryption PIN or recovery key is confirmed without you doing anything, and the chat warns you if a device joins that fomo can’t confirm. You can also compare a safety number (or scan the other person’s code) yourself.
For encrypted content, the notification says who it’s from and, for a group or circle, its name, but not what was sent. The content never reaches us, Apple or Google in a form anyone but your phone can read. For content that isn’t encrypted, the notification may show a preview of it.
To keep your messages when you change phones, you can protect a backup with a PIN or a 64-character recovery key.
Your message history backup is stored in our cloud storage, encrypted on your phone with your backup key. We cannot read it without your PIN or recovery key.
Because we cannot read encrypted content, we only see it if someone who can see it reports it. When you report a message (press and hold it, then tap Report), your phone shares that message and up to five messages before it, including any photos and voice memos, with our safety team.
When you report an encrypted post, Flik, comment or Thought, your phone shares what you opened (its text and media) with our safety team. In both cases your phone sends us a readable copy, which is deleted 1 year after the report is resolved.
Reporting, and asking us to review your own post that was marked sensitive, are the only ways fomo can see encrypted content. When you ask for a review, your phone sends us a readable copy of that post only if you agree. Only our review team can see it, and it is deleted when we decide, and within 30 days at most.
Ads keep fomo free. Our ad partners (Google AdMob and Meta) may use your device’s advertising ID to show more relevant ads, but only if you allow it (on iPhone, through Apple’s tracking prompt; in the EEA and UK, through the consent form). You can turn this off anytime, and you’ll still see ads, just less personalized ones.
fomo displays advertisements in certain areas of the app (such as the Explore feed) to help support the Service. We show ads through Google AdMob, which can also fill an ad space with an ad from Meta Audience Network:
These advertising partners may collect and use limited data, including your advertising identifier (IDFA on iPhone, Advertising ID on Android), device information, approximate location, and ad interaction data, to serve personalized advertisements. We do not share your name, email, phone number, or content with advertising partners.
On iPhone, fomo’s welcome screen explains why we ask about tracking. When you tap Continue, iOS shows Apple’s prompt asking for your permission to track your activity across apps and websites owned by other companies, and you choose Allow or Ask App Not to Track. If you haven’t answered that prompt yet (for example, because you updated from an earlier version of fomo), fomo may show the same explanation once, the first time you see an ad, and Continue again goes straight to Apple’s prompt. Once you’ve answered, we don’t ask again. Granting permission enables more relevant, personalized advertising. Declining still allows ads to be shown, but they will be less personalized. You can change this choice at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
In the EEA and UK, Google’s consent form asks for your choice before ads are personalized, on iPhone and Android.
fomo uses Meta’s app events SDK to measure how well our own ads on Facebook and Instagram work. When you install fomo, open it, or finish signing up, fomo tells Meta that this happened, along with basic technical information such as your device model, operating system, app version, and IP address, and, for sign-up, the sign-in method you chose (for example, phone or Apple).
On our website: if you reach fomocircles.com/get or /review from one of our Facebook or Instagram ads, Meta’s pixel on that page tells Meta about the visit and whether you went on to a store. See Cookies & Tracking.
We never send Meta your name, email address, phone number, fomo user ID, or any of your content. Meta’s handling of this information is described in Meta’s Privacy Policy: facebook.com/privacy/policy.
To opt out of personalized ads on any platform, see Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information.
We do not sell your personal information for money. Under California law (the CCPA, as amended by the CPRA), letting our ad partners use your device’s advertising ID to show you more relevant ads can count as “sharing” your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. You can opt out of that at any time. You’ll still see ads, just less personalized ones.
Questions, or want us to handle it for you? Email privacy@fomocircles.com with the subject “Do Not Sell or Share”. We don’t need you to create an account, and we won’t treat you differently for opting out.
We are committed to maintaining a safe environment for all users. fomo provides tools to help you control your experience and report concerns:
We review all reports and take appropriate action, which may include removing content, issuing warnings, temporarily suspending accounts, or permanently terminating accounts. We aim to review reports promptly and will notify the reporting user of the outcome when appropriate. Reports about child safety are reviewed first.
We review encrypted content only when someone who can see it shares it with us in a report. We do not scan encrypted content, and we cannot.
If three or more other users report your account within a rolling 30-day window, your account will be temporarily disabled pending human review and you will be signed out. You will not be able to sign in until the review is finished. Reports are counted across all of your posts, thoughts, and your profile, so the threshold applies whether the reports are on a single piece of content or spread across multiple. Only reports filed by other users count toward this threshold: automated SafeSearch flags do not. Multiple reports from the same reporter are deduplicated (one bad-faith reporter cannot trigger a suspension on their own), and reports older than 30 days age out and no longer count, so reports spread across months or years do not accumulate against your account. If you believe the suspension was issued in error, you may appeal by contacting safety@fomocircles.com.
The following content is strictly prohibited on fomo and will be removed upon discovery:
Accounts found to be sharing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or engaging in any form of child exploitation will be immediately terminated and reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and applicable law enforcement authorities.
fomo has no AI chatbot, and we don’t use image recognition to identify what’s in your photos. We will never add an assistant that chats with you, or analyze your photos to tell you who someone is, where they are, what they’re wearing, or what kind of dog that is. The only automated processing is:
We don’t use your content or data to train or improve any AI model.
We don’t rank, recommend or personalize the posts in your feed: every feed shows posts newest first. Ads appear in fixed places in the feed; whether the ad itself is personalized is your choice (see Advertising).
We don’t suggest friends or people to follow, and we don’t recommend circles to you. When you browse public circles by category, they’re listed by size, the same for everyone.
To keep fomo safe, particularly for people who view publicly accessible content, we use Google Cloud Vision SafeSearch to scan photos, and frames sampled from videos, in posts that aren’t end-to-end encrypted. It scores each image for nudity, violence and suggestive content; only likely nudity is acted on, and the other scores are kept with the post for our safety team. Encrypted photos and videos are never scanned by us or by Google; your phone checks them before they’re posted (see Sensitive photos). This is the only automated/AI-powered system that processes user content on our servers. Photos and voice memos in direct messages are end-to-end encrypted in encrypted chats (when everyone involved is on fomo 8.5 or later), and they are never scanned on our servers. A safety model on the recipient’s phone may blur explicit photos.
Only the image (or a link to it) and frames from videos are sent to Google Cloud Vision for analysis. We do not send your name, email, profile data, location, or any other identifier alongside the image. Google processes the image solely to return safety labels and is contractually prohibited from using the image for its own purposes under its Cloud terms. See Google's privacy policy at https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/data-usage for their handling practices.
Because we can’t scan end-to-end encrypted photos and videos, your phone checks them before they’re posted, using fomo’s own on-device model (and on iPhone, Apple’s sensitive content check too when it’s turned on in your phone’s settings). It checks each photo, and up to six frames from each video. If something looks sensitive, the post is marked sensitive and blurred for viewers until they tap it. If you think a post was marked by mistake, you can ask us to review it (see Reporting). fomo can also blur sensitive photos sent to you, checked on your phone the same way.
The check runs entirely on your phone. Your photos and videos are never sent to us or to anyone else for it; we see only whether a post was marked sensitive. Like SafeSearch, it never generates or edits content, ranks your feed, identifies people, or counts toward account suspension.
On iPhone, while you record a video with sound, fomo uses Apple's ShazamKit to recognize a song playing around you, so the song can be credited on your video. ShazamKit turns the audio into a signature on your phone and sends only that signature to Apple to look for a match; the recording itself isn't sent. Listening stops when you stop recording. This is separate from Google Cloud Vision.
One automated rule acts on accounts rather than on content: if three or more different people report an account within a rolling 30-day window, the account is disabled automatically until our safety team reviews it (see How we handle reports). It never looks at your content; it only counts other people’s reports.
If we ever add a new automated or AI-powered system that processes your content or data, we will update this Privacy Policy to disclose it before that system is deployed, and we will continue to honor the commitments above: no AI-generated content, no AI feed ranking, no AI personalization, no chatbots in DMs.
The blue verified badge is earned by inviting five different people to fomo by text (see Contacts). We do not ask for photos of an ID.
An earlier version of fomo asked for photos of a government-issued ID and a selfie for the badge. That process has ended. Photos submitted to it are kept only for our safety team’s review, in a Firebase Storage location that only authorized fomo admins can read, and are deleted 30 days after the review; we keep the decision record (date, outcome, and any reason) for our audit logs. You can ask us to delete your photos sooner at privacy@fomocircles.com, and we will do so within 7 days.
Your data is stored using Google Firebase infrastructure, which provides enterprise-grade security including encryption in transit and at rest. We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction.
Encrypted messages, posts and calls are additionally end-to-end encrypted on your device before they reach us (see End-to-End Encryption).
While we strive to protect your information, no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.
We retain your information only for as long as necessary to provide the Service and fulfill the purposes described in this policy. Specific retention periods include:
We may retain certain information for longer periods where required by law, for fraud prevention, or to resolve disputes.
Depending on your location, you may have the following rights:
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@fomocircles.com. We will respond within 30 days.
You can delete your account at any time from the app settings. When you request account deletion:
When you delete your account, we delete your profile, posts, photos, videos and messages. We keep a minimal record (your account ID, the deletion date, and any safety reports involving your account) for legal and safety purposes. The record is deleted 1 year after the account is permanently deleted, and safety reports are deleted 1 year after they are resolved. Material under a legal hold, such as reports we must preserve by law, is kept as long as the law requires.
If you are a California resident, you have the right to:
Categories we collect, described in Information We Collect:
We collect this from you, your device, other users (for example, when they report something), and sign-in providers, for the purposes in How We Use Your Information. We disclose it to the service providers listed in Sharing Your Information. In the past 12 months, we have “shared” identifiers and internet or app activity with Google AdMob and Meta for advertising and ad measurement (see Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information). We do not sell personal information. We keep each category as long as we need it for the purposes described in this policy (see Data Retention).
To exercise these rights, contact us at privacy@fomocircles.com or delete your account through the app settings. You can also use an authorized agent. We will verify your request before acting on it.
Residents of Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and other states with comprehensive privacy laws may have similar rights under their respective state laws. To exercise your rights, please contact us at privacy@fomocircles.com.
fomo is operated from the United States. If you access the Service from outside the United States, your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States or other countries where our service providers maintain facilities. These countries may have data protection laws that differ from the laws of your country.
By using the Service, you consent to the transfer of your information to the United States and other countries as described in this policy. We take appropriate safeguards to ensure that your personal information remains protected in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we process your data based on your consent (which you provide when creating an account), contractual necessity (to provide the Service), and our legitimate interests (to improve and secure the Service).
If you are in the EEA, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.
fomo requires all users to be at least 18 years of age. When you sign up, you enter your date of birth and confirm that you are 18 or older, and the app does not let anyone younger create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 18.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Our age requirement of 18 well exceeds COPPA's threshold, providing significant additional protection for minors.
If we learn that we have collected personal information from a user under 18, we will promptly terminate the account and delete all associated personal information.
If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child under 18 has created an account or provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately at privacy@fomocircles.com and we will take steps to remove the account and data.
In the event of a data breach that compromises your personal information, we will notify affected users and relevant authorities as required by applicable law. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you within 72 hours of becoming aware of a qualifying breach, using the email address associated with your account.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the updated policy within the app and updating the "Last updated" date. Your continued use of the Service after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.
If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us: