Privacy Policy: Find Friends Feature

Last Updated: December 14, 2025

1. Introduction

Bluesky Social, PBC ("we", "us", "our") respects your privacy and we are committed to protecting any of your Personal Data we process. Bluesky owns and operates a microblogging mobile application ("Bluesky App" or "the App") and desktop application (available at bsky.app and bsky.social; each a "Site"; the App and Sites, collectively, "Bluesky") that run on the Authenticated Transfer Protocol ("AT Protocol"). Your use of Bluesky's Find Friends Feature is subject to this supplement privacy policy ("Supplemental Policy") as well as the Bluesky Terms of Service, the Bluesky App Privacy Policy ("Platform Privacy Policy"), Community Guidelines, and Copyright Policy.

This Supplemental Policy explains what we do with the Personal Data users provide when they opt in to our Find Friends Feature. This Supplemental Policy supplements the Platform Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and all other terms that apply to you and that form part of your agreement with us.

We process the Personal Data you provide when you opt in to the Find Friends Feature to provide the Find Friends Feature service that we offer via Bluesky (the "Service"). We are a "data controller" of the Personal Data that we process in connection with the Service. This means that we decide why and how we process the Personal Data you provide.

If you have any questions about this Supplemental Policy or our processing of your Personal Data, please see Section 18, Contact Us, of the Platform Privacy Policy.

2. If you do not want to provide Personal Data for the Find Friends Feature

The Find Friends Feature is optional. If you do not want to share your data, you may still use Bluesky without this Service. If you do want to use the Service, we need to collect certain Personal Data so the Service is effective.

3. Updates to this Supplemental Policy

We may update this Supplemental Policy from time to time, and any updates will be effective when we post the revised Supplemental Policy on Bluesky. We will use reasonable efforts to notify you of any material updates to this Supplemental Policy, by sending you a message in the App or on the Site, or at the email address you provide to us.

If you opt in to the Service, you should review this Supplemental Policy every time you access any of the Bluesky App Services.

4. Personal Data We Collect for the Find Friends Feature

The Find Friends Feature requires that you provide us with certain Personal Data, which we collect. We only collect data for the Find Friends Feature with your express consent. That data includes the following.

Phone Number Verification. We collect your phone number and use it to verify that it belongs to you.

Contacts Import. We collect your contacts' phone numbers and use them to find other users on Bluesky who have opted in to the Find Friends Feature.

Contact Matching. We hash and securely store unmatched combinations of contacts so we can make matches when users opt in to the Find Friends Feature. When matches are found, we delete the paired hashes and store pairs of Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) to represent the matches until users choose to follow each other, opt out of the feature, or delete their account.

Personal Invitation Feature. If you choose to personally invite non-matching contacts to join Bluesky, we provide a draft message for you to edit, personalize, and send. We do not store the phone numbers of invitation recipients or send any messages ourselves.

5. How We Use Personal Data for the Find Friends Feature

We will only use the Personal Data you provide for the Find Friends Feature for the purpose of offering the Service unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.

6. How We Share the Personal Data Provided for Using the Find Friends Feature

Sharing to Provide the Service. Bluesky may share your Personal Data to verify your phone number.

Other Users You Match With. By suggesting matches, other users will know that you shared your Personal Data with Bluesky.

Third-party Services You Share or Interact With. Bluesky may link to or allow you to interface, interact, share information with, direct us to share information with, access and/or use Third-party Services as part of the Service. If you do, the information you share will be subject to any Third-Party Service's privacy policy.

Service Providers. We may share Personal Data with our third-party service providers and vendors. This includes service providers and vendors that provide us with IT support and related services.

Sharing to Protect Us or Others. We may access, preserve, and disclose any information we store if we, in good faith, believe doing so is required or appropriate to:

• comply with law enforcement, regulatory, or national security requests and legal process, like a court order or subpoena;
• protect your, our, or others' rights, property, or safety;
• enforce our policies or contracts;
• collect amounts owed to us; or
• assist with an investigation or prosecution of suspected or actual illegal activity.

Sharing with other Bluesky Companies. We may share with parent or subsidiary companies to coordinate and manage our business, in accordance with the purposes set out in this Supplemental Policy. These recipients will process Personal Data in the same way as set out in this Supplemental Policy.

Sharing in the Event of Merger, Sale, or Other Asset Transfers. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, receivership, purchase or sale of assets, transition of service to another provider, or other similar corporate transaction, your personal information may be processed as part of such a transaction.

7. Your Privacy Rights

In addition to the Privacy Rights listed in our Platform Privacy Policy, you may opt out of the Find Friends Feature and ask us to delete the data you provided for purposes of using the Service at any time.

For the personal invitation feature, since we do not store recipient phone numbers or send ongoing messages, traditional opt-out mechanisms do not apply. You are in complete control of who receives any invitations you choose to send.

8. Retention of Personal Data

We keep the Personal Data we collect for as long as you use the Bluesky App Services, or as necessary to fulfill the purpose(s) for which we collected it. There are also other reasons why we may keep personal information. They may include, but are not limited to, providing Bluesky and Services, resolving disputes, establishing legal defenses, conducting audits, pursuing legitimate business purposes, enforcing our agreements, for trust and safety purposes, and complying with applicable laws.

Phone Number Verification

We retain your phone number temporarily for verification and only for as long as required to enforce rate limits (which prevents abuse of this Service).

We also use a proprietary one-way hashing process that combines your phone number with other numbers, including a secure, separately stored number that is known only to Bluesky. Storing your number this way means that there is no easy way for us to check to see if we have your number in our data set.

Contacts Import

When you provide your contacts' phone numbers, we immediately hash them using the process described above. Storing your contacts' numbers this way means that we cannot easily check to see if we have your contacts' numbers in our data.

Contact Matching

We conduct contact matching by comparing the hashes for the contacts you provide to the hashes in our data set.

We do not know what number combinations make these hashes, we can only tell if the hashes match.

For any matching hashes, we permanently delete the hash from our data set and create a separate record of matching DIDs without any phone number data.

We retain unmatched hashes for later use, but only for as long as you want to maintain your account and use the Find Friends Feature.

We also save matching DIDs (without phone number data), but only until you follow a match, delete your account, or opt out of the Find Friends Feature.

Personal Invitation Feature

We do not store the phone numbers of people you choose to invite through the personal invitation feature. We only provide message templates that you can customize and send yourself.

Supporting Logs

We keep records of your consents and your use of the Find Friends Feature so we can review them later and so we can associate non-matching hashes and matching DIDs with your account and suggest future matches. If you opt out of the Find Friends Feature, we will maintain records showing that you once used the feature but will not track non-matching hashes, matched DIDs, or which accounts we suggested to you as a result of that use.