Safety & privacy
What actually protects you here.
Every claim on this page names something the product really does. Where we cannot protect you, it says so instead. A safety page you cannot rely on is worse than no safety page at all.
Before anyone can reach you
- Everyone checks their ID
- Before any profile goes live, the person on it photographs their passport or licence and then their face. The document is read, checked for tampering, and matched against a live face, not a photo of a photo, and against their main photo. Until it passes you cannot search and nobody can find you. One ID can only ever run one account.
- And a person looks
- A person on our team looks over every new profile the same day it goes live. Anything the ID check finds odd, such as a different age or name on the ID, or the same face on another account, is held until a person has looked. When a parent makes the profile, it goes live only once their son or daughter has checked their own ID.
- Nobody can ring you out of the blue
- A call is only possible between two people who have already accepted each other, and you can switch calls off completely while still being able to write. A call always starts as voice. If somebody wants to turn cameras on they have to ask mid-call and you have to agree, because that is the moment a private photograph stops being private.
- No unsolicited messages, ever
- Nobody can write to you until you have accepted their interest. Not a setting, not a premium tier — the message route refuses it outright. An interest itself has to carry at least forty characters someone wrote by hand, so nobody can bulk-send either.
- You choose who can find you at all
- Every approved member, only people who match your preferences, or only Rishta matchmakers. On the default, people outside your preferences cannot see you, so they cannot contact you.
Your photos
- Private until you say otherwise
- Photos are hidden by default, for men and women alike. You approve one person at a time, and you can withdraw that access later without them being told.
- Visible, private, or none at all
- Keep photos private and approve people one at a time, make them visible to everyone who can find you, or show no photo and let your profile carry your initial instead. Your call, whoever you are.
- Enlarged photos carry the viewer’s number
- When somebody opens your photo full size, their own member number is stamped across it, not yours. If that picture turns up somewhere it should not, the number on it names the account that opened it.
- Never public, never indexed
- Photos are served only to a signed-in member the owner has approved. There is no public URL and no shareable link, and search engines are refused the whole member area.
Your contact details
- Never displayed, at any price
- No phone number and no email appears on any profile, at any membership level. There is no upgrade that reveals them, because there is nothing to reveal — we do not put them there.
- Shared by you, one person at a time
- When you decide to give someone your number, you type it yourself inside a conversation you already accepted.
- Passwords kept properly
- Your password is stored only as a slow, salted hash that cannot be turned back into it, guessing is limited to a few tries, and you can always sign in with a code sent to your email instead. Setting a new password signs you out everywhere else.
When something goes wrong
- Block, and they are gone both ways
- A block is immediate and works in both directions. They cannot find you, open your profile, or write to you, and you will not see them either.
- Reporting blocks first, then a person reads it
- The moment you report someone they are blocked, before anybody has reviewed anything. You never have to keep seeing somebody while we make up our minds.
- Hide yourself entirely
- One switch and nobody can find you, open you, or write to you. While you are hidden you cannot browse or write to anyone either — it is a pause, not a one-way mirror. Nothing is deleted, and conversations you already accepted carry on.
- Delete means delete
- One tap removes your profile, your photos, your messages and your interests. No thirty-day grace period and no "reactivate your account" email six months later.
Where we stop
The things we cannot do for you.
We cannot stop somebody screenshotting a photo. Any site that shows you an image can have that image captured, and a platform that tells you otherwise is selling you a feeling. We make it traceable instead.
We do not run criminal record checks, and our identity check is not one. It confirms that a real person is holding a genuine document. It says nothing about who they are as a person.
We cannot stop somebody recording a call either, voice or video. The audio goes straight between the two phones and never through us, which is good for your privacy and means we could not produce a recording if we wanted to — but it also means we cannot tell you whether the other person made one.
We cannot vouch for anybody once you meet them. Meet in a public place the first few times, tell somebody where you are going, and do not send money to anyone you have met here, whatever the story. Nobody genuine will ask.
Your data
Stored in Oceania
Profiles, messages and photos are kept in Cloudflare’s Oceania region, not in India, the US or Europe. The few outside services we use, for email, the ID check and the mobile code, see only what they need, and the Privacy Policy names them.
Sessions you can actually end
Signing out genuinely ends the session on our side. It is a record we delete, not a token that stays valid until it expires.
We do not sell anything about you
No data broking, no advertising network, no selling of member lists. Men’s memberships are the entire business model, which is why there is not a second one.
The full detail is in our Privacy Policy.
Questions about safety
How do you stop fake profiles?
Everyone checks their ID before going live: a code to their mobile, then a government document read and matched to a live face, and nobody can search or be found until it passes. Internet and throwaway phone numbers are turned away, one ID cannot run two accounts, and a person looks over every new profile the same day. We do not claim to catch everything — no platform honestly can — so we also make reporting instant and blocking immediate.
Can someone screenshot my photo?
Yes. Any site that shows you an image can have that image captured, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. What we do instead is make it traceable: an enlarged photo carries the member number of the person looking at it, so a leaked picture names the account it came from.
Will my profile appear in Google?
No. There are no public profile pages on Rishta. The entire member area is closed to search engines, and profiles are served only to signed-in members you have chosen can find you.
Do you check people against police or sanctions databases?
No, and we would rather say so plainly than imply otherwise. Our identity check confirms a real person holds a genuine document. It is not a criminal record check, and it is not a character reference.
What if my matchmaker knows my family?
You are never assigned a matchmaker from your own city, and if a matchmaker recognises you they should hand your file to somebody else. You can also ask for a different matchmaker without giving a reason.
What happens to my data if I leave?
It is deleted, including your photos, messages and interests. Not archived, not anonymised and kept, not held for a retention window.