Law Enforcement Guidelines

1. Who these guidelines are for

Deseret Singles LLC, an Arizona company, operates the Deseret Singles dating service on iPhone, iPad, Android and the web. These guidelines explain how law enforcement and government agencies can ask us for information about a member, what we hold, what we need before we release it, and how we treat emergencies. They are for official agencies; a private party or civil litigant must use the ordinary legal process and serve it on the company.

Nothing here waives any objection we may have to a request, and we may update these guidelines at any time.

2. How to reach us

Send requests to the email address in the contact block at the end of this page, with "Law enforcement request" in the subject line; it is the same monitored address our Child Safety Standards name as the point of contact. Paper process may be served at the postal address there.

Requests must come from an official agency email address or on agency letterhead, name the requesting officer, agency and a callback number, and identify the member as precisely as possible (username, the email address on the account, or a phone number). We may call the agency to confirm a request before acting on it. Times in our records are kept in UTC.

3. What we need before we disclose

We release member information only in response to valid legal process served on Deseret Singles LLC, or in the emergencies described below. In the United States, the Stored Communications Act (18 U.S.C. § 2701 and following) sets the minimum process. We require:

A subpoena for basic subscriber information: name, the email address and phone number on the account, the dates the account was created and last used, the sign-in IP addresses we hold, and the kind of membership and its dates.

A court order under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) for records other than content, such as who a member matched or exchanged messages with and when.

A search warrant for the content of an account: profile text, photos, direct messages and community-room messages.

Agencies outside the United States should proceed through a mutual legal assistance treaty or letters rogatory, routed through the United States Department of Justice. We do not act on foreign legal process served on us directly, except in a genuine emergency.

4. Emergencies

Where we believe in good faith that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay, we may disclose information to the agency responding to it, as 18 U.S.C. § 2702(b)(8) (content) and § 2702(c)(4) (records) permit.

Send the request to the email address above with "EMERGENCY" at the start of the subject line, from an official agency address, and tell us: the agency and officer, the nature of the emergency, why it is urgent, the member involved, and exactly what information is needed to address it. We respond to emergency requests as fast as we can, at any hour we are reachable, and we may ask for a sworn statement afterward.

5. What we hold

What exists about a member is described in our Privacy Policy. In general we may hold: the email address and, if given, the phone number on the account (Sign in with Apple members may have a private relay address instead of their own); name, birthdate and the profile a member wrote; photos; the city and approximate location recorded at signup and when the member updates it; the IP address and device information from sign-ins; direct messages and community-room messages; likes, passes and matches; reports made by or about the member and our moderation records; SafeDate™ check-in details if the member used that feature; and membership records (plan, dates, status). We never hold full payment card numbers; Apple, Google and our web payment processor do.

Retention. Our Privacy Policy, section 5, says how long we keep data after an account is deleted and what survives: messages a member sent to other members remain in those members' conversations and can still be produced from them; after a deletion we may keep the first name and email address for return invitations, and the record of an account removed for fraud. Records that are gone cannot be produced, so a preservation request should come early.

6. Preservation requests

On a written request from a law enforcement agency under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(f), we will export and keep a copy of the records we then hold about the identified account for 90 days, and for a further 90 days on a renewed request, while the agency obtains legal process. A preservation request does not by itself authorize disclosure.

7. Telling the member

Our policy is to notify a member before we disclose their information in response to legal process, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so (for example by an order under 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b)), the request concerns an emergency or child safety, or we believe notice would create a risk of harm or interfere with an investigation. Where a non-disclosure order expires, we may notify the member afterward.

8. Child safety

Apparent child sexual abuse material is reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as 18 U.S.C. § 2258A requires, and the account and its records are preserved as evidence rather than deleted. Our Child Safety Standards, at www.deseretsingles.com/child-safety.html, describe how we prevent, detect and report it.

9. How we respond

We aim to answer a request within ten business days, and emergencies as soon as we are able. Records are produced electronically, as PDF or CSV files, by email or a secure link. On request we provide a certification of business records for use in court; we do not volunteer testimony or opinions about members beyond what the law requires of us. We do not ordinarily charge for responding to law enforcement requests, but may seek reimbursement, as the law permits, for a request that is unusually burdensome.

Deseret Singles is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.