Cookie Policy

Cookies are small pieces of information stored on or accessed from your device when you use a website. Similar technologies can perform related functions without using a traditional browser cookie.

Some cookies are essential to provide a service that a person has requested, such as keeping an authenticated member signed in or protecting a login from automated abuse. Other technologies, such as advertising or behavioural-tracking cookies, serve different purposes and may require a choice or consent before they are used.

The cookies in the current MatedSouls inventory are used for authentication, registration and login security, and remembering an explicit choice you make about our essential-cookie information notice. They are not used for advertising, behavioural profiling or measuring members for marketing purposes.

We treat the authentication and security cookies as necessary to provide the secure member service a person requests. We use the acknowledgement cookie only to remember the choice you make when you dismiss our essential-cookie information notice. MatedSouls therefore does not ask for consent merely to set these cookies.

Selecting "Got it" on the information notice is an acknowledgement that you have seen the notice. It is not consent to advertising, analytics or other optional cookies.

MatedSouls uses Appwrite for authentication and parts of the member-service infrastructure. After a successful sign-in, an Appwrite session cookie allows the MatedSouls server to recognise the authenticated member when private pages and APIs are used.

The current session cookie is protected with browser security attributes including HttpOnly, Secure and SameSite protection. HttpOnly helps prevent normal page JavaScript from reading the session secret directly.

Blocking all cookies in your browser can prevent authenticated member features from working because MatedSouls would no longer be able to maintain the sign-in session.

MatedSouls uses Cloudflare Turnstile on email-and-password sign-in and account registration to help distinguish genuine member actions from automated abuse. The Turnstile script is provided from Cloudflare's challenge service and the resulting security token is checked server-side before the sign-in or registration request is allowed to continue.

MatedSouls temporarily places each token in a purpose-specific first-party cookie: matedsouls_turnstile_login for sign-in and matedsouls_turnstile_signup for registration. Each token cookie is scoped to its matching protected endpoint and cleared after use.

Cloudflare can offer additional security-cookie behaviour in some configurations, such as a clearance cookie when Turnstile pre-clearance or other Cloudflare challenge features are enabled. No such additional Cloudflare cookie was identified in the current local inventory. We will recheck the live production service before launch and update this policy if the production security configuration sets one.

Our current application-code review found no MatedSouls use of browser localStorage or sessionStorage for member tracking, advertising or analytics. We also found no advertising pixel or behavioural analytics integration in the current codebase.

A technology does not have to be called a cookie for privacy and electronic-communications rules to matter. If MatedSouls later uses another technology to store information on or access information from a member's device, we will assess it in the same way and update this inventory where appropriate.

MatedSouls may change as the service develops. If we introduce optional analytics, advertising, personalisation or another non-essential technology, we will assess whether consent or an objection control is required before using it.

Where consent is required, a non-essential technology will not be switched on merely because someone continues browsing the site. We will provide clear information and a genuine choice.

We will update this page when the cookie inventory changes materially and will review the live production service as part of launch and subsequent privacy reviews.

Your browser normally lets you view, remove or block cookies. The exact controls depend on the browser and device you use.

If you remove or block the Appwrite authentication cookie, you may be signed out and private MatedSouls features may stop working until you sign in again. Blocking the temporary login or registration security cookie can prevent the matching protected flow from completing. Removing the acknowledgement cookie may cause the essential-cookie information notice to appear again.

You do not need to allow advertising or behavioural-tracking cookies to use MatedSouls because those technologies are not part of the current service inventory.

If you have a question about this Cookie Policy or the technologies MatedSouls uses, please contact:

For broader information about how MatedSouls handles personal information, please read our Privacy Notice.