Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 7, 2026

Connect4.Chat pairs University of Michigan (UMich) students for in-person conversations with new friends. To do that well, we ask personal questions — about gender, religion, politics, and which one of them should be the same for you and your match. This page explains exactly what we collect, where it goes, and the promise we make about it.

The promise

Your answers are used only to pair you and to reach you, by email or by text. They are never made public and never shown to your match, with two exceptions you control: if you choose to share a short bio the day before you meet, your match sees your name, your year, where you are from, and your answer to that week's fun question; and if you upload a photo of yourself, only your matches see it. Otherwise your introduction contains only the name you asked us to use and how to reach each other — none of your survey answers. What you share in your conversation is up to you.

What we collect

• Survey answers. The required first section asks for your uniqname, your year, your major, how you spend your free time, the topics you could talk about for hours, your gender, your religion, your political placement, which one identity should be the same for you and your match, whether you prefer 1:1 or 2:2, the times you could meet, which campus, and your agreement to the pledge. Everything after that — where you are from, your social energy and planning style, how often you go out, how important religion and politics are to you, the friend you want to meet, and what you are looking for in a friend — is optional. Answers are saved as you move between sections, so a partly finished survey still counts.
• Thank-you follow-ups. All optional — what your match should call you (shared, since it goes in your introduction), a photo of yourself, the round's fun question (it goes in your short bio), the email you want us to use, and how you heard about us. At an event sign-up, whether to follow up by email or by phone, and your phone number if you choose phone.
• Your photo. If you upload one, your browser shrinks it before sending it, which also removes the location and camera details a phone photo carries. Only your matches see it, and a person at Connect4 looks at it before it is shared. We keep it until you ask us to delete it, or until the pilot ends.
• Texting. If you text us, your phone number and the messages you send.
• Follow-up survey. After a round of matches we may email you a short follow-up. It asks for your uniqname, whether you and your match met, what would improve the service, and — if you would like the thank-you payment we promised — the payment app and username, phone, or email to send it to. You can choose "No need, thank you" and give us no payment details at all.
• Contact form. Your name, email, and message when you write to us.
• Technical basics. The site runs no third-party analytics and no ad or marketing trackers. We do count opens of our own pages: when you open the home page or a sign-up page, we record the page, the link tag if you arrived through one, and a random code for your browser (no name, no IP address), at most once a day per page, so we can see how many people start the survey but do not finish. If you arrive through a tagged link (like a QR flyer's), that tag is saved with your submission so we know which flyer worked. The site keeps a few small entries in your browser's local storage: your uniqname, so the thank-you page can recognize you without asking again; the Tuesday your match is confirmed; a random code for this browser, saved with each copy of your answers so we can tell two devices apart (it identifies the browser, not you, and is used for nothing else); and a note that your answers were saved once already, so we only record a first-saved time once. Your uniqname rides along when you send the optional follow-up (or tap Open Messages), so we can connect it to your survey; otherwise these entries stay in your browser. Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, keeps standard server logs (such as IP addresses) to run and protect the site.

Where your answers live

Survey answers, thank-you follow-ups (your photo included), and follow-up survey answers are stored in Google Cloud Firestore, set up so that no one outside the Connect4.Chat team can see or download responses. Each time you save, we also keep a copy of what you sent, so an answer you change, or one someone else sends under your uniqname, is never lost; we match you on the latest one. Contact-form messages are delivered by FormSubmit, a form-to-email service, to a private inbox that only the team reads. Texts to and from our line are carried by Sendblue, a texting service, and are read only by the team.

The site's typefaces load from Google Fonts, which means your browser contacts Google's servers to fetch them when a page loads.

How we use your information

To create pairings, to email or text you your match status (email goes to uniqname@umich.edu, or to the email you gave us), to understand how students find Connect4.Chat, to improve the service from your follow-up answers, to send a thank-you payment you asked for (through the payment app you named), and to reply when you contact us. That is the whole list. We do not sell your information, share it with advertisers, or give it to anyone else — only the services named above ever hold it, and only to store it for us.

Deleting your answers

Your answers, every saved copy of them, and your photo can be deleted whenever you ask. Tell us through the contact form with your uniqname — we will remove them from our database, and any contact-form messages from our inbox.

Your choices

Only the first survey section is required — skip anything else you'd rather not answer. Sharing less may make your match a little less tailored, and that's fine.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your information, we will update this page and the date at the top before the change takes effect.

Questions

Use the contact form.