The Art of Companionship

Privacy statement

Version: 10 September 2026
Operator: The Art of Companionship, [vestigingsadres], Chamber of Commerce [KvK-nummer]
Privacy contact: [e-mailadres]
Website: https://theartofcompanionship.com

1. Who are we?

The Art of Companionship operates an online platform where clients and companions can get in touch with each other. The platform acts solely as an intermediary: we do not provide the companionship service ourselves and we are not a party to the arrangements between client and companion about the actual service.

For the processing of personal data via the platform, The Art of Companionship ([vestigingsadres], Chamber of Commerce [KvK-nummer]) is the data controller. Questions about this privacy statement or about your data can be sent to [e-mailadres].

2. Who does this statement apply to?

  • clients who visit or use the platform;
  • companions who create an account or publish a profile;
  • visitors of the website, also without an account;
  • persons who contact us or who are mentioned in a report or complaint.

This statement does not cover what clients and companions do with each other's data outside the platform; they are responsible for that themselves.

3. Which personal data do we process?

3.1 Account and contact data

  • name or username and e-mail address;
  • mobile phone number — mandatory for clients and verified by SMS code, optional for companions;
  • password, stored only in encrypted (hashed) form;
  • language preference, account status and the time at which you accepted the terms and confirmed being 18 or older;
  • for companions: two-factor authentication (2FA) data, including hashed backup codes.

3.2 Companion profile data

  • business or stage name, contact name, profile description and working regions;
  • rates and rate tiers, availability calendar and exceptions;
  • profile photo, presentation photo, gallery photos and selfies; optionally a restricted gallery that is only visible to logged-in users and is not indexed by search engines;
  • profile fields you fill in yourself, such as age, height, hair and eye colour, body type, ethnicity, service type and clientele — see also section 6 on special categories of data;
  • your verification and subscription status and — if you registered via a referral link — who referred you;
  • duo profiles you have formed with another companion, including the shared description and photos.

3.3 Booking data

  • date, time, duration and status of booking requests, confirmations, cancellations and completed bookings;
  • any notes added to a booking.

3.4 Communication data

  • messages between clients and companions that pass through the platform;
  • messages to our support and, for companions, messages in the private group channels;
  • push notifications and e-mail notifications, including the technical data needed to deliver them.

3.5 Review data

  • positive attribute tags given by clients (for example "punctual") after actual contact or a booking;
  • reviews that companions give about clients; these are visible to other companions only;
  • favourites saved by clients.

3.6 Subscription and referral data

  • chosen subscription tier, status, trial and payment period;
  • payments registered by us and the referral fees calculated from them, including payout status.

3.7 Statistics and technical data

  • aggregated daily view counts of profiles and photos; no IP addresses or individual visitors are stored for this;
  • server logs with IP address, timestamp and requested page, kept briefly for security purposes;
  • cookies and similar techniques — see our cookie page. Google Analytics is only loaded after you have given consent.

4. What do we use this data for?

  • creating, securing and managing accounts;
  • displaying and managing profiles and facilitating contact, messages and bookings between clients and companions;
  • sending confirmations, reminders and notifications about bookings and messages;
  • reviewing and approving companion profiles before they become visible;
  • offering and administering subscriptions, the referral programme and duo profiles;
  • showing companions statistics about their own profile;
  • protecting users and preventing fraud, abuse and safety incidents;
  • handling reports, complaints and support questions;
  • complying with legal obligations, including the statutory retention of tax records;
  • establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.

We do not use personal data for a new purpose that is incompatible with the original purpose without a prior assessment and, where required, additional information to you.

5. On which legal bases do we process data?

  • Performance of the contract — account, profile, messages, bookings, subscriptions, referral programme, duo profiles, notifications;
  • Legitimate interest — security, fraud prevention, moderation, aggregated statistics, handling of reports and complaints, defence of legal claims. You may object to processing on this basis;
  • Legal obligation — tax administration of subscription payments and referral fees;
  • Consent — special categories of data in your profile (section 6), analytics cookies and push notifications. You can withdraw consent at any time.

6. Special categories of personal data

The platform operates in the companionship sector. Data a companion places in a profile — such as service type, clientele, ethnicity or a restricted gallery — may therefore reveal information about sex life, sexual orientation or ethnic origin. These are special categories of personal data within the meaning of Article 9 GDPR.

We process such data solely on the basis of your explicit consent: before you can save profile fields, we ask for that consent once and record the time. You can withdraw consent by clearing the relevant fields or deleting your account; this also ends publication.

We do not ask clients for special categories of data. We ask all users not to include data about health, religion, criminal matters or other special categories concerning themselves or others in messages, reviews or reports.

The restricted gallery is only visible to logged-in users, is stored outside the public file directory and is excluded from search engine indexing.

7. Verification and the "Admin Verified" badge

New companion profiles are reviewed manually by our administrators before they become visible. Approved profiles show a verification badge. This review is based on the profile information; we currently do not request copies of identity documents and do not store them. Should this change in the future, we will update this statement beforehand and describe which data is kept and for how long.

A verification badge is no guarantee of the behaviour, reliability or quality of a user.

8. Who receives personal data?

We only share data with parties that are necessary to run the platform. We have data processing agreements with these service providers:

  • TransIP (Netherlands) — hosting of the website and database, within the EEA;
  • Resend (United States) — sending e-mails such as confirmations and reminders;
  • Twilio (United States) — sending SMS verification codes;
  • Google (United States) — Google Analytics, only after your consent and without linking to your account.

In addition, data becomes visible to other users where this is part of the function: profile content to visitors, messages to the conversation partner, attribute tags on the profile, reviews of clients to companions and duo profiles to visitors. Competent authorities receive data only where a legal basis or obligation exists, and advisers only where necessary for a legal claim.

We do not sell personal data and do not use it for advertising networks.

9. Transfers outside the European Economic Area

Our hosting is located in the Netherlands. For e-mail, SMS and (after consent) analytics we use US service providers. Transfers to these parties take place on the basis of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and/or the European Commission's standard contractual clauses. Further information is available from our privacy contact.

10. How long do we keep data?

  • Account and profile data, bookings, messages, reviews and photos: as long as your account exists. You can permanently delete your account yourself in your account settings; this erases these data definitively;
  • Backups: up to 30 days after deletion;
  • SMS verification codes: 10 minutes; password reset links: until used or expired;
  • Server logs: up to 14 days;
  • Subscription, payment and referral administration: 7 years after the financial year, under the statutory tax retention obligation;
  • Statistics: aggregated daily figures only, not traceable to a person;
  • Cookie preference: in your browser, until you clear it.

Data needed for an ongoing dispute, investigation or legal obligation may be kept longer, but no longer than necessary for that purpose.

11. Security

  • encrypted connections (TLS) with HSTS and modern security headers;
  • passwords and backup codes are stored in hashed form only;
  • mandatory two-factor authentication for companions and administrators;
  • restricted storage of 18+ photos, accessible only with a valid session;
  • access to administrative functions limited to authorised administrators;
  • regular security updates and backups;
  • a procedure for security incidents: in the event of a data breach we assess whether notification to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (within 72 hours) and to data subjects is required;
  • a public vulnerability reporting point at /.well-known/security.txt.

12. Minors

The platform is intended solely for persons aged 18 and over. When registering, you confirm that you are 18 or older. Accounts of persons under 18 are deleted as soon as we become aware of them.

13. Reviews, ranking and automated decision-making

After actual contact or a booking, clients can only give a companion positive attribute tags predefined by us. Companions can review clients; those reviews are visible to other companions only. We remove reviews that are not based on a genuine experience, are offensive or contain third-party personal data; a companion can object via our privacy contact.

The order of search results may be influenced by a companion's subscription tier. We do not take solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects; approval, suspension and blocking of accounts are always done by a person.

14. Group channels and support chat

The group channels are intended solely for communication between companions. Messages are processed to provide, secure and moderate the channels. Administrators only read messages after a report or on a concrete suspicion of a breach of the terms. Messages are retained as long as the channel exists or until your account is deleted. The support chat is read by our administrators in order to answer your question.

15. Cookies

We use necessary cookies for logging in, sessions, language preference and remembering your cookie choice. We only place analytics cookies (Google Analytics) after your consent; you can change your choice at any time via the "Cookies" link at the bottom of every page. More information is available on our cookie page.

16. Your rights

  • access to the personal data we process about you;
  • rectification of inaccurate or completion of incomplete data — you can edit your profile and account data yourself;
  • erasure — you can permanently delete your account yourself in your account settings;
  • restriction of processing;
  • objection to processing based on legitimate interest;
  • portability of the data you provided yourself;
  • withdrawal of consent previously given.

Requests can be sent to [e-mailadres]. To prevent abuse we may ask you to prove your identity, for example by replying from the e-mail address of your account; we do not ask for more than is necessary. We respond within one month; for complex requests this period may be extended by two months, in which case we will inform you.

17. Complaint to the supervisory authority

If you disagree with the way we handle your data, we would like to hear from you first. You also always have the right to lodge a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens), PO Box 93374, 2509 AJ The Hague, www.autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl, telephone +31 88 1805 250.

18. Changes

We may amend this privacy statement when the platform, our service providers or legislation change. The current version is always on this page, with the version date at the top. In the event of material changes we will inform you via the platform or by e-mail.

19. Contact

The Art of Companionship
[vestigingsadres]
Chamber of Commerce [KvK-nummer]
[e-mailadres]
https://theartofcompanionship.com