Viva Social — Biometric Data Policy

Effective: 2026-08-13

This policy explains how identity verification on Viva Social works, what biometric data is involved, who holds it, how long it is kept, and how it is destroyed. It is published as a public written policy to meet the requirements of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (740 ILCS 14), and it also covers our practices under the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act and Washington's biometric statute.

Verification is entirely optional. You can use every part of Viva Social without it. You will not have a Verified badge, and members who use the verified-only filter will not see you. That is the whole difference.

1. What is collected, and by whom

When you choose to verify, you are handed to Stripe Identity, operated by Stripe, Inc., which acts as our service provider. Inside Stripe's flow you provide:

• an image of a government issued identity document, and
• a live selfie.

Stripe generates a facial geometry scan from the selfie and compares it to the photograph on the document, to determine whether the same person is present and whether the document appears genuine.

Technology Advantages LLC does not receive, view, or store your identity document, your selfie, or any facial geometry derived from either. What we receive back from Stripe is:

• a session reference (an opaque identifier), and
• a result: passed or failed.

That is the entire payload. There is no biometric identifier in our database, and there is nothing biometric in a data export because we hold none.

2. Why it is collected

For one purpose only: to confirm that a member is a real adult human matching their primary photo, so that other members can rely on the Verified badge.

We do not use biometric data for advertising, matching, ranking, training machine learning models, tracking you across services, or any purpose other than the verification decision itself.

3. We never sell it, and we never profit from it

Technology Advantages LLC does not sell, lease, trade, or otherwise profit from biometric identifiers or biometric information. Neither we nor Stripe may use your verification data to make money.

4. Who it is disclosed to

Only Stripe, as the processor performing the check, under a data processing agreement.

We do not disclose biometric data to any other party, because we do not hold any. We would disclose the verification result, and could be compelled to disclose it, in response to valid legal process (see our Law Enforcement Guidelines), or where disclosure is required to prevent imminent physical harm.

5. Retention and destruction schedule

Held by Stripe. Stripe retains identity documents, selfies and the derived facial geometry under Stripe's own privacy policy and its retention controls. We instruct Stripe to redact verification session data once the check is complete and the result has been returned, and in any event within the shorter of:

• the period ending when the purpose for collection has been satisfied, or
• three years from your last interaction with Viva Social,

which is the outer limit Illinois law permits.

Held by us. The session reference and the pass or fail result are kept while your account is active. When you delete your account they are removed with the rest of your data on the hard purge, 30 days after deletion is requested. Neither is a biometric identifier.

On request. Email support@technologyadvantagesllc.com and we will instruct Stripe to redact your verification session, and remove the result from your profile. You keep your account; you lose the Verified badge.

6. Your consent

Before verification begins the app tells you that a government ID and a live selfie will be collected and processed by Stripe Identity to confirm you are a real adult, and you must affirmatively proceed. If you do not consent, do not start verification, and nothing biometric is collected.

For members in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, this is explicit consent to process biometric data under Article 9(2)(a) GDPR. You may withdraw it at any time under §5 above, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.

7. Safeguards

We apply the reasonable standard of care for our industry, and at least the standard we apply to other confidential and sensitive information:

• Verification is performed by a specialist processor rather than in house, which is why we hold no biometric data at all.
• The verification result is protected by row level security in our database and is readable only by you and by our service role.
• Verification webhooks from Stripe are signature verified before they are accepted.
• Transport is TLS 1.2 or better; data at rest is encrypted with AES-256.

8. Illinois residents

If you are in Illinois, this policy is the publicly available written policy required by 740 ILCS 14/15(a). The retention and destruction schedule is in §5. Verification will not begin until you have been informed of the collection and its purpose and have given a written release by affirmatively consenting in the app, as required by 740 ILCS 14/15(b).

9. Changes

Material changes are announced in the app and by email at least 30 days before they take effect. If a change expands what is collected or how long it is kept, we will ask for consent again rather than rely on your earlier consent.

10. Contact

support@technologyadvantagesllc.com

Technology Advantages LLC, 28 Valley Road, Montclair, New Jersey 07042, USA