Terms of Service

1. What Hala is

Hala is a private, membership-based community and dating service. Admission is by application or referral, decided by a membership committee at our sole discretion. Applying does not create a right to membership, and we do not disclose reasons for decisions.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old, legally able to enter this agreement, and never previously removed from Hala for a violation. Your application and profile must be truthful, about yourself, and use your own recent photos.

3. Membership and payment

• Approved applicants activate membership through an auto-renewing subscription (monthly, six-month, or annual, as offered in the app) purchased via Apple’s App Store (or Google Play). The current price of each term is shown in the app before purchase.
• Payment is charged to your Apple ID (or Google) account at confirmation of purchase. The subscription renews automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and renewal is charged within 24 hours before the period ends.
• Manage or cancel anytime in your device’s subscription settings; cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid period. Deleting the app does not cancel the subscription.
• If your membership lapses, your profile is paused from discovery until it is renewed. We may grant complimentary memberships at our discretion.
• Except where law requires otherwise, payments are non-refundable; purchases through Apple/Google follow their refund processes.

4. Community standards

Trust, respect, and discretion are conditions of membership, not suggestions:

• Zero tolerance for objectionable content or abusive behavior: harassment, hate, threats, nudity or sexual content, solicitation, spam, or impersonation will result in content removal and account suspension or termination. Reported content is reviewed and acted on promptly, including ejecting offending members.
• Discretion: do not screenshot, record, or share other members’ profiles, photos, or conversations, and do not identify or discuss other members publicly (including social media). Doing so is grounds for immediate removal.
• Authenticity: one account, your real identity, your own photos. Photos must be genuine, recent images of you — not AI-generated, AI-altered, or edited in ways that materially misrepresent your appearance. Your application and profile must be about your real life, in substance your own; submitting an AI-fabricated application is misrepresentation and grounds for removal.
• You, not a bot: every account must be operated personally by its member. Bots, scripts, automated access, and AI agents that browse, swipe, or converse on a member’s behalf are prohibited.
• No commercial use: no promotion, recruiting, research, or scraping — including any collection or use of Hala content or member data to train artificial-intelligence or machine-learning systems.

You can block any member (immediate mutual invisibility) and report any member or content from their profile, any conversation, or Settings → Safety Center.

5. Your content

You own what you post. You grant Hala a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, display, and process your content solely to operate the service (for example, showing your profile to eligible members and applying our photo treatment). This license ends when you delete the content or your account, except for content already part of another member’s conversation history or an active safety review.

6. Artificial intelligence

• Hala does not operate AI chat assistants, AI personas, or bot profiles. Every member you encounter was admitted by the membership committee.
• We may use automated tools to help detect spam, scams, or content that violates these Terms; decisions that affect a membership are made by people.
• Membership, moderation, and safety decisions are made by the committee — human beings — not solely by automated means.
• If we introduce a feature powered by artificial intelligence, it will be clearly identified as such in the app, and the Privacy Policy describes how your data is (and is not) used with AI — including our commitment that member content is never used to train AI models.

7. Safety — read this

• We do not conduct criminal background checks on members. The committee reviews applications for community fit, not criminal history.
• You are solely responsible for your interactions. Use judgment: meet in public, tell someone, arrange your own transport. Hala is not responsible for the conduct of any member, online or offline.
• Never send money or financial information to another member. Report anyone who asks.

8. Suspension and termination

We may pause, suspend, or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or harm the community, with or without notice, and without refund of unused membership time except where the law requires. You can end this agreement at any time by deleting your account in Settings (which also permanently deletes your data, per the Privacy Policy).

9. Disclaimers

The service is provided “as is” and “as available.” We do not warrant uninterrupted operation, that you will receive matches, meetings, or any particular outcome, or the conduct or claims of any member. To the fullest extent permitted by law, our liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose.

10. Apple/Google standard clauses

These Terms are between you and Hala, not Apple or Google; those platforms have no obligation to furnish support or maintenance for the app and are not responsible for any claims relating to it. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms as they relate to iOS distribution and may enforce them.

11. Governing law and disputes

Nothing in these Terms limits rights that your local consumer law does not allow to be waived. Governing law and venue will be specified when Hala’s legal entity is finalized and this page will be updated accordingly.

12. Changes

We may update these Terms as the service evolves; material changes will be announced in the app. Continuing to use Hala after changes take effect means you accept them.

13. Contact

support@halatheapp.com