Rules for personal discovery

Eligible searches

At launch, a verified account may search only for the person who controls that account email. Every search requires a current self-search authorization and the discovery email must exactly match the signed-in account.

Family, employee, client and representative searches remain unavailable until Hide can verify separate authority and consent for the specific person. An employer's interest in security is not consent to inspect an employee's personal exposure.

Data sent to discovery providers

Automatic discovery uses a current or former name with broad context such as a city, organization or public role. Exact addresses, email addresses and phone numbers are not used as provider search queries. When you choose to save them, Hide uses them only inside the protected product to compare a bounded returned result.

Every source group reports whether it was checked, partial or unavailable. A search result is a possible match. It remains separate from confirmed exposure until the person reviews it.

Human approval requirements

• Hide never confirms that a possible record belongs to you.
• You see the source and the reasons for a match before making the identity decision.
• An uncertain match can be dismissed or sent for human review, but a reviewer cannot confirm identity for you.
• No removal request is sent until you review and approve the exact request and recipient.
• A sent request, provider acceptance or source reply is not reported as a verified removal.

Prohibited use

You must not use Hide to identify, locate, profile, monitor, threaten, harass or target another person. You must not use it for covert employee monitoring, recruitment screening, credit or insurance decisions, political profiling, credential collection, impersonation, social-engineering preparation, stalking or surveillance.

Do not submit information you have no right to process, identity documents, passwords, private-system locations or content obtained through unauthorized access. Do not evade account, rate, authorization or deletion controls. These restrictions form part of the terms of service.

Misuse controls

Hide uses verified accounts, exact-email binding, signed authorization records, daily creation limits, source-by-source search boundaries and owner-only access controls. Suspicious, disputed or unsafe activity may be blocked, suspended or routed to human review. Product access may be withdrawn where needed to protect a person, investigate abuse or comply with law.

These controls reduce misuse; they cannot make every public source accurate or every attempted abuse detectable. Hide keeps consequential decisions with the person and preserves an audit trail of authorization, confirmation and approved action.

Misuse and mistaken-match reports

If you believe Hide has been used to search for you without authority, a result describes the wrong person or a public source creates an urgent safety risk, email info@hidedata.app. Include the Hide case reference if you have one, but do not email identity documents, passwords or payment details.

Hide support is not an emergency service. If someone is in immediate danger in Germany, contact 112 or the police.