Privacy Policy

Last updated 26 October 2026

This policy explains what personal information Debatable collects, why, who it’s shared with, how long it’s kept, and the choices you have. It covers the Debatable app and debatable.io.

1. Who we are

Debatable is run by Black Forest Labs CC, a close corporation registered in South Africa (“we” or “us”). We’re responsible for your personal information. Under South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), that makes us the “responsible party”.

Our Information Officer: Andrew Schär
privacy@debatable.io
PO Box 1117, Dundee, 3000, South Africa

2. What’s public on Debatable

Anyone using Debatable can see:

• Your profile: name, username, photo, bio, link and topics.
• Your record: how many debates you’ve had and rooms you’ve moved.
• Who you follow and who follows you.
• Your debates: the statement, who argued which side, the result and the vote totals, the live audio (and video, in a video debate), the replay, and clips people make.

Debate pages on debatable.io show a debate’s statement, the debaters’ names, usernames and photos, and the result. A host can also stream its debates live to its own channels.

Never shown to anyone:

• your date of birth;
• how you voted (only totals are shown);
• who you’ve blocked;
• the reports you make;
• the debates you listened to and the replays you played;
• your settings;
• your device details.

Listeners appear only as a count.

One exception, when you schedule a debate: your opponent sees the start time in your time zone, so you can both plan.

3. What we collect

What you give us

• Sign-in: when you sign in with Apple, Apple gives us an identifier for your account and, if you choose, your name. We don’t ask Apple for your email address. If you sign in with a phone number (where offered), we have that number.
• Date of birth, to confirm you’re 18 or over.
• Your profile: name, username, photo, bio, link and topics.
• Debates: statements you write, your side and format, scheduling, invitations and rematch requests.
• What you say and show in debates: the audio, and the video in video debates. We record it for replays.
• Your activity: votes, follows, blocks, reminders, notification settings, and any reports you make, with the details you add.
• Messages you send us, such as feedback from the app, and support or privacy requests.
• If you work for a host: details of the host, its debates and sponsors, and the stream keys for its channels. We keep stream keys encrypted.
• If you subscribe to Debatable+: which plan you have, when it renews or ends, and Apple’s identifier for the purchase. Apple handles the payment; we never see your card or billing details. So that a subscription belongs to one account, we give Apple a random identifier for your Debatable account, which Apple keeps with the purchase. We check your subscription with Apple, and Apple tells us when it renews, ends or is refunded.

What we collect as you use Debatable

• Usage: the debates you join as a listener, and the replays you play and how much of each. We use this for replay counts and average watching time.
• Device and technical information:
  • tokens for push notifications and Live Activities;
  • your time zone;
  • basic details such as device type and app version;
  • IP addresses and logs that our providers use to keep the service running and secure.

What we get from others

• Other people on Debatable: when they invite you, follow you, debate you or report a debate you were in.
• Invite links: if you join through someone’s invite link, we note who invited you, and you follow each other.
• Hosts: when a host invites you to one of its debates.
• Find Friends, where offered: your contacts’ phone numbers are scrambled (hashed) on your phone before they’re checked against people on Debatable. We never store your contacts.

4. How we use it

• Running Debatable:
  • your account;
  • live debates (the floor, the clock, votes and results);
  • replays, clips and share cards;
  • notifications and Live Activities;
  • scheduling across time zones.
• Social features: profiles, follows and invite links, and suggesting debates, people and topics based on your topics and who you follow.
• Safety:
  • checking your age;
  • enforcing the Community Rules;
  • reviewing reports (staff listen to the reported part of a replay);
  • filtering slurs from text;
  • preventing spam and abuse;
  • keeping moderation records.
  A report alone never penalises anyone. A person decides.
• Hosts: running hosted debates, and giving hosts reports with totals (audience size, replays, average watching time, new followers), not who listened.
• Debatable+: knowing who’s a member, so members can create video debates and get what Debatable+ includes.
• Improving Debatable: overall statistics, such as how many debates happen, and fixing problems.
• Talking to you: answering your messages, telling you about important changes, and letting you know when you’re old enough to join, if you ask us to.
• Legal reasons: following the law, responding to lawful requests, and protecting our rights.

We don’t use your information for targeted advertising, and we don’t sell it. Sponsor messages are shown to everyone in a debate. They aren’t based on who you are.

Our reasons for using it:

• to provide the service you signed up for;
• our legitimate interests in keeping Debatable safe and working well;
• your consent, which you can withdraw at any time. This covers notifications, the camera, the microphone and contacts, all controlled in iOS Settings;
• legal obligations.

5. Who we share it with

• Everyone, for what’s public (section 2).
• The companies that help us run Debatable. They may only use it to provide their service to us:
  • Clerk: sign-in and account security.
  • Convex: our database and servers, including profile photos.
  • Stream: live audio and video, and recording debates. Stream keeps its copy of a recording only for a limited time.
  • Cloudflare: our website, and storage for replays.
  • Apple: Sign in with Apple, notifications and Live Activities, and the App Store, including Debatable+ purchases.
  • Google: our email.
• Hosts. If you take part in a hosted debate, its producers and moderators see what they need to run it: your profile, your answer to their invitation, and any questions you send them.
• Streaming platforms. If a host streams a debate to YouTube, X or its website, the live video goes there, and those platforms’ own privacy policies apply.
• For legal and safety reasons: when the law requires it, or to protect someone’s safety or rights, or to deal with fraud or abuse.
• If the business changes hands. If Debatable is reorganised, merged or sold, your information may pass to the new owner, still under this policy.

6. Where your information goes

We’re based in South Africa, and the companies that help us run Debatable process information in the United States and other countries. We only use providers bound by contracts or laws that protect personal information at least as well as POPIA requires, or we transfer it because that’s needed to give you the service you asked for.

7. How long we keep it

• Your account information: while you have an account. That includes your Debatable+ subscription’s details, deleted with your account.
• Replays: kept while the debate is public. When a debater deletes their account, we delete the replays of their debates. We keep a debate we’ve removed under the Community Rules privately, so we can handle appeals. When everyone in a debate asks us to take it down, we delete its replay and votes. If it’s under review for breaking the Community Rules, we keep the replay privately until the review is over, and for up to 12 months after a decision that it broke them, so we can handle appeals.
• When you delete your account, we delete:
  • your profile, photo and username;
  • your follows, votes, notifications and blocks;
  • your devices;
  • the feedback you’ve sent from the app;
  • the replays of your debates;
  • your sign-in account.
  We keep:
  • the debates you took part in, as a record (the statement and result), with “Deleted account” in your place, so your opponents keep their record;
  • reports and moderation records, for safety and legal reasons;
  • statistics that don’t identify you.
  Copies in our providers’ backups and logs disappear as they’re replaced.

8. Your choices and rights

In the app, you can:

• edit your profile;
• choose which notifications you get (Settings › Notifications);
• block people;
• listen with Audio Only;
• delete your account (Settings › Delete Account).

iOS Settings controls access to your camera, microphone, notifications and contacts.

Your rights. Depending on where you live, the law gives you rights over your personal information, and we offer them to everyone:

• to know what we have;
• to get a copy;
• to correct it;
• to delete it;
• to object to how we use it, or limit it;
• to withdraw consent;
• to opt out of “sale”, “sharing” or targeted advertising (we don’t do any of these);
• to be treated no differently for using these rights.

Email privacy@debatable.io. We’ll check it’s you, then reply within the time the law sets, usually 30 to 45 days. Where the law allows, someone you authorise can ask for you.

If we turn down your request, you can appeal by replying to our answer. If we still turn it down, you can contact the attorney general of your state.

We treat a browser’s Global Privacy Control signal as a request to opt out, though we don’t sell or share information in the first place.

Complaining in South Africa. You can complain to South Africa’s Information Regulator:

• JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001
• POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
• inforegulator.org.za

We’d be grateful for the chance to put things right first.

9. Children

Debatable is for people 18 and over. We ask for your date of birth before an account is made.

• Under 13: we don’t keep your personal information. The sign-in account is deleted straight away, and only a note on your device stays for 24 hours.
• 13 to 17: we keep a note that you aren’t old enough yet: the date, and your age group. If you ask us to tell you when you can join, we also keep your birth month and year, and how you signed in, until we’ve told you.

If we learn that someone under 18 has an account, we remove it.

10. Security

Information is encrypted on its way between your device and our services, and live calls use encrypted connections. Hosts’ stream keys are encrypted when stored. Only people who need it can access personal information.

No system is perfectly secure. If you find a security problem, please tell us at privacy@debatable.io.

11. More for US residents

Some US state laws ask us to list what we collect in their categories. In the last 12 months, we collected:

• identifiers: your account identifier, username and, where used, phone number;
• personal records: your name and photo;
• age (date of birth);
• internet and app activity: usage, as section 3 describes;
• audio and visual information: debate recordings and photos;
• your general location, from your time zone.

Sections 3 to 7 describe where it comes from, why we use it, who we disclose it to and how long we keep it. We disclose it only to the companies in section 5, for business purposes. We don’t sell or share personal information, and we haven’t in the last 12 months. We use sensitive information, such as your sign-in, only to provide Debatable.

12. Changes

If we update this policy, we’ll change the date at the top. If a change is significant, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect.

13. Contact

Black Forest Labs CC, trading as Debatable
Information Officer: Andrew Schär
PO Box 1117, Dundee, 3000, South Africa
privacy@debatable.io · support@debatable.io