Terms of
Service

Last updated: 17 August 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern the use of the Secretly mobile application, related websites, and connected services (together, the "Services").

The Services are provided by Follow Your Instincts UG (haftungsbeschränkt) ("Secretly", "we", "us"). Full provider details are available in the legal notice / imprint.

By downloading, registering for, or using the Services, you agree to these Terms. Our Privacy Policy also applies: https://secretly.university/privacy.

Secretly is intended exclusively for adult users aged 18 and over. If you are not yet 18 years old, you may not use Secretly.

1. What Secretly is

Secretly is a moderated community app for adult users in the context of universities and colleges, fields of study, and alumni communities. The app enables, in particular, students and former students to answer questions or prompts within campus-related groups and to see content from their group.

Answers are generally displayed within the app without directly showing the author's name or profile picture on the answer itself. However, Secretly does not promise absolute anonymity.

2. Registration, eligibility, and minimum age

2.1 Minimum age 18

You may only use Secretly if you are at least 18 years old. By registering and using the Services, you confirm that you are of legal age. We may refuse access to the Services, restrict it, or suspend accounts if there are justified doubts about your age of majority or if users provide false information.

2.2 Target audience

Secretly may structure groups by universities or colleges ("campuses"), fields of study, or alumni groups of adult users. The reference to campuses or fields of study does not mean that Secretly is an offering for minors. Use remains reserved exclusively for adult persons.

2.3 No emergency or counselling service

Secretly is not an emergency, crisis, therapy, or counselling service. If there is acute danger, contact emergency services, a trusted person, or other suitable authorities.

3. Account and registration

Use of the Services requires sign-in through Apple or Google. As part of registration or profile setup, we may process the following information from you in particular: first name, university or college (campus), field of study (major), gender, and optionally a profile picture. Accounts created in earlier app versions may still hold a school and graduation year or grade instead of a field of study.

You are responsible for ensuring that your information is correct, not unlawful, and does not infringe third-party rights. In particular, you must not use a profile picture for which you do not hold the usage rights, must not impersonate another identity, and must not upload content for which you lack the required rights or consents.

4. Groups, access, and campus codes

Within the app, users may create or join campus-related groups or alumni groups for real existing universities and colleges. The activation of such groups may be subject to technical or manual review.

The creation or existence of a campus-related group does not mean that it is an official offering of the respective university or college, or that the institution has created, authorised, or commissioned the group. Secretly is not affiliated with any institution named in the app; institution names are used solely to organise groups.

We reserve the right not to activate, to restrict, or to remove campus-related groups for legal, safety-related, abuse- prevention, or operational reasons.

Access to a campus or group may be restricted by a campus code. Campus codes are intended to limit access, but they do not guarantee complete privacy and they do not securely verify actual enrolment, field of study, or alumni status. The field of study you state is likewise not verified by us.

We may change, rotate, disable, or further restrict campus codes or the admission of new users at any time where necessary to prevent abuse, improve safety, or reduce legal risk.

5. Visibility in the app and anonymity

5.1 What other users may see

Depending on the product design at the time of use, other users in your group or on your campus may, in particular, see your displayed first name, your field of study, and any profile picture you have uploaded in member lists or profile views. Your gender and field of study are typically shown alongside your answers. Answers themselves are generally shown without your name or profile picture as the author of that answer.

5.2 No absolute anonymity

Secretly does not promise absolute or mathematically guaranteed anonymity. Through group context, answer content, metadata, additional knowledge from the campus, course, or alumni environment, markings, screenshots, or other circumstances, users may make guesses in individual cases about who wrote an answer. This applies in particular to small fields of study, where the combination of field of study and gender alone can considerably narrow the set of possible authors.

If you want to remain anonymous, do not include information in your answers that clearly identifies you or others.

6. Author Hints and similar Pro features

6.1 What Author Hints are

Secretly may offer paid Pro features that display limited clues about the possible author of an individual answer ("Author Hints"). These clues are intended to narrow the possible author group, but not to directly reveal the real author's name on the answer.

6.2 What clues may be shown

Depending on the current product design, Author Hints may display technical or contextual clues relating to an answer, for example concerning the device or device type used, the operating system or its version, the timestamp of the answer, the field of study (for accounts from earlier app versions, the graduation year or grade instead), stated gender, a Secretly ID, and other system- generated clues that can narrow the set of possible authors.

6.3 Limits and risks

Author Hints are only clues. They guarantee neither a correct attribution nor a unique identification. At the same time, it cannot be excluded that users in small groups or with additional background knowledge may draw inferences about the author. By using Secretly, you accept this residual risk.

6.4 Screenshot notices

Where technically available, Secretly may provide notices that a screenshot was taken of certain content. Depending on the technical implementation and product function, the feature may also indicate which visible in-app account triggered the event. Continuous or cross-platform availability is not guaranteed.

7. Community rules

You are responsible for all content you publish, upload, report, or otherwise submit through Secretly. In particular, content or actions are prohibited that:

• insult, bully, humiliate, threaten, stalk, or specifically target individual people;
• contain rumours, accusations, or claims about real people on sensitive topics, in particular health, mental health, sexuality, sexual orientation, pregnancy, drug or alcohol use, crimes, violence, abuse, grooming, or similar matters;
• sexualize, objectify, or degrade students, former students, lecturers, teaching or university staff, or other real people;
• disclose private or confidential information about others, in particular real names, phone numbers, email addresses, social handles, addresses, class or lecture timetables, student ID numbers, location data, login details, or other contact information; such content may also be transmitted to our AI moderation processor (Google Vertex AI) as part of moderation and should therefore especially be avoided;
• are designed to de-anonymize others or to misuse Author Hints;
• contain third-party photos, logos, or other material unless you have the required rights and the necessary consent of any depicted person;
• are unlawful, discriminatory, pornographic, glorify violence, incite hatred, are misleading, fraudulent, or spam;
• are mainly intended to circumvent the system or unlock content without genuine participation.

These rules remain binding even when an answer is displayed anonymously. Violations may lead to removal of content, restriction of individual features, or temporary or permanent suspension of the account.

8. Moderation, reports, and enforcement

All answers submitted by users may be reviewed before publication by an AI-assisted moderation system (Google Gemini, operated via Google Vertex AI in data centres within the European Union) for violations of applicable law and our community rules. Answers that do not pass review are not published and not permanently stored. The user is informed of this and may revise their answer.

The user acknowledges that AI-based moderation is technically fallible. There is no entitlement to publication of a particular answer. Details about data processing in the context of AI moderation, in particular the provider, region, and legal basis, are set out in the Privacy Policy.

Users can report content, profiles, or other inappropriate activity via the reporting functions provided in the app. Reported content is reviewed. If a violation is confirmed, we may remove the content and take action against the responsible user, including warning, feature restriction, temporary suspension, or permanent removal of the account.

We use technical systems, including AI-assisted review, and human moderation to identify, assess, and reduce prohibited, dangerous, or unlawful content. Comprehensive or error-free moderation is not guaranteed.

If content is reported, flagged, or otherwise appears problematic, we may, in our reasonable discretion, in particular:

• refuse publication or remove content later,
• limit or suppress visibility of content,
• issue warnings,
• restrict specific features,
• temporarily or permanently block accounts,
• disable or restrict groups, campuses, fields of study, or access.

Complaints and follow-up questions can be sent to support@secretly.university or, where available, through in-app reporting tools.

9. Paid features, pricing, and cancellation

9.1 Pro subscription

Secretly may offer an automatically renewing Pro subscription. The prices, terms, and feature descriptions displayed in the current purchase flow are controlling. Prices may vary by country, platform, and tax treatment.

9.2 Processed by Apple or Google

In-app purchases are generally processed through Apple App Store or Google Play. Payment processing, billing, renewal, cancellation, and any refund handling are also subject to the relevant platform's terms.

9.3 Cancellation

A Pro subscription must usually be cancelled through your Apple or Google account settings. Deleting your Secretly account does not automatically cancel a platform subscription.

9.4 No guaranteed outcome

Paid features, especially Author Hints, only provide clues and give no guarantee of a correct guess, a unique attribution, or a specific information gain.

10. Rights in your content

You generally retain the rights in the content you create. To the extent you publish answers through Secretly, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free right for the duration of their availability to host, store, technically reproduce, display, transmit, review for moderation, and process those answers to the extent necessary for formatting, security, abuse prevention, moderation, troubleshooting, support, and operation of the Services.

If your account is deleted, we remove your profile, your entry from member lists, and account-related profile data from visible use. However, answers you previously published may continue to be displayed in the app, provided that they are no longer displayed as linked to the deleted profile and that their continued availability is necessary for the operation and integrity of the service and legally permissible.

This does not affect our right to moderate, restrict, hide, or remove content at any time, in particular in the event of violations of these Terms, complaints, safety concerns, abuse- prevention needs, or where continued display is no longer legally permissible.

11. Removal, retention, and account deletion

Unless the app provides its own deletion function for specific content, content may remain visible until a moderation decision, other removal, or other product logic applies. Reports and support requests do not automatically lead to removal, but they will be reviewed.

Removed content, report data, moderation decisions, and security-relevant data may be retained for a limited period where necessary to handle complaints, prevent abuse, defend legal claims, comply with legal obligations, or protect other users.

You may request deletion of your account using functions provided in the app or by emailing support@secretly.university. Further details on data processing and retention can be found in the Privacy Policy.

12. Deactivating campuses or groups

We may deactivate, restrict, or only offer in a restricted form individual campuses, groups, fields of study, codes, or features if this appears necessary for safety, to prevent systematic abuse, to comply with law, in response to justified complaints, or to reduce legal risk.

13. Secretly intellectual property

The Services, their software, designs, brands, logos, databases, and other components — with the exception of your own content — belong to us or our licensors. You may only use these components as part of the intended use of the Services.

14. Availability and disclaimers

Secretly is provided within the scope of technical and operational possibilities. In particular, we do not guarantee that the Services are available at all times, error-free, uninterrupted, fully secure, or identically available on all devices.

We also do not guarantee that every prohibited answer will be detected, that every report will be decided immediately, or that every inference of anonymity can be ruled out.

15. Liability

Statutory liability limitations and mandatory consumer rights remain unaffected. We are fully liable for intent, gross negligence, injury to life, body, or health, assumption of a guarantee, and under the German Product Liability Act.

In cases of slight negligence in breach of essential contractual obligations (cardinal obligations), we are liable only for typical and foreseeable damage. Otherwise, liability for slight negligence is excluded to the extent permitted by law.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for user- generated content, conduct, or assumptions of third parties.

16. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer, mandatory consumer protection rules of your country of habitual residence also continue to apply where they are more favourable and cannot be waived.

If you use the Services in the United States: the Services are operated from Germany. Nothing in these Terms limits any rights you have under the laws of your state of residence that cannot be waived or limited by contract.

17. Consumer dispute resolution

We are neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

18. Copyright complaints (DMCA)

We respect intellectual property rights and expect users to do the same. If you believe that content on the Services infringes your copyright, you can send a notification to legal@secretly.university that includes: (1) identification of the copyrighted work you claim has been infringed; (2) identification of the material you claim is infringing and information reasonably sufficient for us to locate it (for example a screenshot and the group or campus where it appears); (3) your contact information; (4) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; (5) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf; and (6) your physical or electronic signature.

We will review valid notices, remove or disable access to infringing material where appropriate, and may terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. If your content was removed and you believe this was a mistake, you may send a counter-notice to the same address.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms with future effect where required for legal, safety, technical, operational, or functional reasons. We will give appropriate notice of material changes. If you do not accept the updated Terms, you must stop using the Services from the effective date of the change.

20. Language versions

These Terms are provided in English and German. Both versions are intended to have the same meaning. For users residing in Germany or Austria, the German version is authoritative in the event of inconsistencies; for all other users, this English version is authoritative, except where mandatory law of your country of residence provides otherwise.

21. Contact

Questions, complaints, reports, and legal notices: legal@secretly.university