Privacy | Rent Thai Friend

Last updated: 21 October 2026

Rent Thai Friend isn't a company: it's run by one person, trading under that name, who is the data controller for the personal data described here. We follow Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562 (PDPA), since our members and friends meet in Thailand, and Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act 2012. Contact: hello@rentthaifriend.com.

Adults only: 18 and over

Rent Thai Friend is only for adults. Members and friends must be 18 or over, and friends who join drinks or nights out must be 20 or over, Thailand's legal drinking age.

We don't knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18.
Every member gives their date of birth when they sign up, and must be 18 or over. While we run ID checks, we also check it against their ID.
We check every friend's ID card or passport before their profile goes live, and record who checked it and when.
If we find that someone under 18 has an account, we close it at once and delete their personal data, keeping only what we need to protect them or to report it to the police.
If you think someone under 18 is using Rent Thai Friend, email hello@rentthaifriend.com straight away.

What we collect

From Google or LINE when you sign in: your name, email address and profile picture. LINE shares your email only if you allow it on LINE's own screen. We use your email to run your account and to send you booking updates. We don't get your Google or LINE password, and we never post anything for you. You can swap the picture for one you upload, or remove it, in Settings; without one you get a generated cartoon avatar. Only you and our team see your picture.
To check your account: your full name, date of birth, phone number, the country you're from, race or ethnicity (in your own words), the email address you want our messages sent to (we fill in the one from your sign-in, and you can change it in Settings), and the city and country you signed up from, which we look up from your IP address. When we ask for an ID check, or you choose to add your ID, also a photo of your ID document (passport, Thai ID card or driving licence) and a selfie of you holding it. We remove the photos' location and camera data when we receive them.
When you use the site: your age confirmation, language preference, saved friends, booking requests (friend, activity, date, time, hours, meeting point, notes), reviews, and the messages and photos you send us in the chat (including which friends you ask about). Photos are stored privately and only you and our team can see them. We also log what you do on the site, such as which friends' profiles you view and your bookings and wallet activity, with the browser and IP address you used.
LINE messages: if you sign in with LINE and add our LINE Official Account as a friend, we keep your LINE user ID and whether you've added us, and send your booking updates there too. Switch it off in Settings, or block the account on LINE.
Your Thailand trip: if you tell us when you're in Thailand and where you're going, or that you live here, we keep it with your account. Our team may also note it from what you tell us in a chat. You can change or delete it in Settings.
Payments: Stripe processes card payments and refunds. We receive the payment status and amount, not your full card number.
Technical data: basic server logs (IP address, browser, pages requested) to keep the site secure and working.
Visit counts: we use Umami, an analytics service that uses no cookies and doesn't identify you, to count which pages are viewed and which buttons are pressed (such as opening a friend's profile or starting a booking), with the browser, device type, country and the site you came from. It never gets your name, email or messages. When you sign up, our team can open the visit you signed up in, to see how you found us and which pages you looked at; Umami itself still doesn't know who you are. We don't use advertising trackers.

Why we use it

To run your account and bookings, and to email you about them or message you on LINE (contract).
To suggest friends who are free while you're in Thailand, from your trip dates (legitimate interests), and, only if you tick the box for it, to email you around your trips: which friends are free a week before you land, a hello on the day, and a note to add your next trip a few days after (consent, which you can withdraw in Settings at any time).
Only if you ask for it, in Settings or with "Tell me when they join" on the friend list, to tell you by email and LINE when a new friend joins (consent, which you can withdraw in Settings at any time). Our team can also turn it on for you if you ask us in the chat.
To keep members and friends safe: checking that every friend is 18 or over against their ID card or passport before their profile goes live (20 or over for drinks and nights out; we record when the check was done and who did it), checking who our members are and that they're 18 or over, approving accounts, handling reports, preventing prostitution, human trafficking and harm to anyone under 18, and stopping people whose accounts we closed from signing up again (legitimate interests; for your race, ID photo and selfie, your explicit consent, which you give on the sign-up form and can withdraw by deleting your account).
To protect friends' photos and videos: the photos and videos you view carry your email address as a faint watermark, so a copied photo can be traced to the account that copied it (legitimate interests).
To take payments, make refunds and keep financial records (contract and legal obligation).
To see which pages and steps work, and fix the ones that don't, from visit counts that don't identify anyone (legitimate interests).
We don't send marketing messages without your consent.

The friend you book sees your first name, the plan and the meeting point. Friends never see your ID, selfie, full name, date of birth, race, phone number or chat messages; only our team does.
Service providers acting for us: Railway (hosting, database and file storage, in Singapore), Stripe (payments), Resend (email), Google and LY Corporation's LINE (sign-in, and LINE messages), IPinfo (finding the city and country of the IP address you sign up from), Umami (visit counts) and DeepSeek (translating chat messages between English, Thai and Chinese for our team; it gets the messages and your first name, never your contact details). Some of them store data outside Thailand, in Singapore, the United States, Japan or China; we use them under terms that protect personal data as the PDPA requires.
The Royal Thai Police and other authorities, when Thai law requires it, or when we suspect prostitution, human trafficking, harm to anyone under 18, or a threat to someone's life or safety.
If Rent Thai Friend is sold or merged, the new owner, under this same policy.

We don't sell personal data.

Friends' data

We hold friends' real names and contact details privately for arranging bookings, and record that we checked their ID card or passport, when and by whom. Their public profiles show a nickname and blurred photos only, and for a video only its first frame, blurred. Approved members see unblurred photos and can play the videos, and must not copy or share them. Videos sit in private storage, with their location and phone details removed when we receive them. We use Anthropic's Claude to help write friends' profile text from their public profile details, photos and the first frames of their videos, and DeepSeek to translate that text between English, Thai and Chinese; their private details are never sent to either.

Friend applications

If you apply to be a friend on our Become a friend page, we collect what you put on the form: your full name, nickname, date of birth, gender, height and weight, your measurements if you give them, whether you're a student, whether you have tattoos (and where, if you tell us), city, phone number, the languages you speak, what you like doing, when you're usually free, what you tell us about yourself, your Instagram or TikTok if you give it, 6 photos, with your confirmation that they're real photos of you and not made or changed with AI, and a photo of your Thai ID card or passport, which we use only to check that you're 18 or over and that we can legally list you. When you connect LINE on the form, we also get your LINE name, profile picture and LINE user ID, and whether you've added our LINE Official Account. We record the IP address you sent the form from.

We use it to decide on your application and to contact you, on LINE and by phone (your consent, which you give on the form).
Only our team sees it. Your photos and your ID sit in private storage, and we remove their location and camera data when we receive them. Your ID is never copied to a friend profile.
We keep the LINE messages between you and our LINE Official Account with your application.
We delete an application, with its photos and messages, 6 months after you send it. If you become a friend, the details we need move to your friend record (see Friends' data).
To withdraw your application sooner, message us on LINE or email hello@rentthaifriend.com, and we'll delete it.

How long we keep it

Your account and personal data while your account is open.
To delete your account, message us in the chat and we'll do it for you; we email you when it's done and why. Once it's deleted, it's closed and you're signed out for good. Any upcoming bookings are cancelled. We erase straight away what you gave us with your consent, your race, ID photo and selfie, delete your profile picture and your trip dates, and take your reviews and saved friends off the site. Your Google or LINE account is unlinked, so signing in with it again starts a new account.
We keep the rest of the closed account for 5 years after you delete it, seen only by our team: your name, email, phone number, sign-up location, bookings, credit history, chats with us and the log of what you did on the site. We keep it because tax and accounting rules require financial records, to refund unused credits, to handle disputes and safety reports, and to recognise a new account as yours if you sign up again. After 5 years we erase it.
Stripe keeps its own records of your card payments and refunds.
The log of profiles you view: 180 days.
Copies of the emails we send you, so we can check what went out: 180 days.
Friend applications: 6 months after they are sent.
Server logs: up to 30 days.
If we close an account for breaking our rules, we keep it, closed, so the same person can't sign up again.

Your rights

Under the PDPA you can ask to see, correct, move or delete your data, object to some uses, and withdraw consent. To delete your account, message us in the chat or email hello@rentthaifriend.com and we'll do it for you. If you want the record we keep after that erased sooner, ask us and we'll erase whatever the law doesn't require us to keep. For anything else, email hello@rentthaifriend.com and we'll reply within 30 days. You can also complain to Thailand's Personal Data Protection Committee or Singapore's Personal Data Protection Commission.

Keeping it safe

Only our team can see your sign-up details, ID photo and selfie. ID photos and friends' original photos sit in private storage and are never public, and everything travels over HTTPS.

Cookies and device storage

We use only the cookies needed for signing in and keeping you signed in. Your browser also stores your language and the sign-in method you used last, so the site opens in your language and marks that method. There are no advertising or analytics cookies: Umami counts visits without them.

Changes

We'll update the date above when this policy changes, and email members about big changes.