If someone is in immediate danger
Call the police first: 112 anywhere in the EU, or 110 for the police in Germany. That is the fastest way to help the person.
Who we are
JoinMe is an app for finding people to do activities with. It is operated by Jiacheng Wen, a sole trader based in Munich, Germany. Our full details are in the Imprint. JoinMe is for adults only (18+). JoinMe is run by one person, so please read this page before you write to us: a complete request is answered faster.
How to send a request
Send requests from an official email address of your authority to hello@joinmesocial.com. This is our single point of contact for authorities under the EU Digital Services Act (see the Imprint and the Terms of Service, section 8.4). You can write to us in German or English.
- Start the subject line with Authority request, or EMERGENCY if someone's life or physical safety is at risk.
- For suspected child sexual abuse material, tell us where it is (profile name, activity title or chat), but do not send the material itself. For child safety matters you can also use safety@joinmesocial.com (see our child safety standards).
- Please do not send requests through the app, social media or private email accounts. We cannot check those.
What a request should contain
- The name, position and official email address of the officer or official making the request.
- A telephone number of the authority that is publicly listed (for example the switchboard on the authority's website) where we can call back to check the request.
- The authority, the case or file number, and the date.
- The legal basis for the request (the law and section, or the court or prosecutor's order), and a copy of the order if there is one.
- Which account or content you mean, and as much identifying detail as you have: the email address or phone number used to sign up, the name shown in the app, a description of the activity or chat, and the dates and times involved. A name alone is often not enough to find an account.
- Exactly which data you ask for, and the time period it should cover.
- Whether you ask us not to tell the user, and the legal basis for that request.
- For an emergency: what the danger is and why it is immediate, and a number where we can reach you quickly.
How we check a request
Fake requests are used to find, stalk or harm people, so we check every request before we hand over anything.
- We look at the sender's email domain. We expect an official domain of the authority, not a free webmail address.
- We call back through a telephone number that we find ourselves in an official public source. We do not call numbers that appear only in the request.
- We check that the request names a legal basis and that the person asking is entitled to ask. We reply only to the official address.
- We may ask for more detail, narrow a request that is too broad, or refuse a request that is not valid.
We disclose only the data that is needed and that the law requires or allows us to disclose. We cannot promise a particular response time. Complete requests from an official address, with a number we can verify, are handled sooner.
Emergency requests
If a request says that a person's life or physical safety is under immediate threat, we deal with it first and without undue delay. We still check who is asking, but we do that as quickly as we can and we do not wait for a formal order. In such a case we disclose only what is necessary to protect that person, as set out in section 7.3 of our Privacy Policy. We keep a record of the decision.
We are not staffed around the clock. For anything that cannot wait, call 112 or 110 first, then send the emergency email.
Asking us to preserve data
If you need time to obtain a court order or other formal request, you can ask us in writing to preserve data about a specific account. We then keep a copy of the data we still hold at that time for 90 days, and a further 90 days if you ask again in writing before then. We cannot restore data that was already deleted. A preservation request is not a request for disclosure: we do not hand over the data until we get a valid request that meets the points above. Please include the same details as for a normal request.
Suspected child sexual abuse material is never copied. We take it offline and keep the original on our servers for the authorities.
What data we hold
The data we hold, and how long we keep it, is described in our Privacy Policy. In short: account and profile information that people give us, activities and messages in the app, reports about users, and technical data. We do not hold everything about every user, and some data is deleted when an account is deleted, so please name exactly what you need. Reports and the evidence connected with them are kept for longer periods.
Telling the user
Where the law allows, we may tell the affected user about a request for their data. We will not do so where the law or the request forbids it (for example under section 24 of the German TDDDG), or where telling them could put someone at risk or endanger an investigation. If you ask us not to tell the user, please say so and give the legal basis.
Authorities outside Germany
We are based in Germany, and German and EU law applies to our answers. If you are an authority in another country, we may ask you to send the request through the official channels for legal cooperation, such as a European Investigation Order, a European Production Order or mutual legal assistance, or through the competent German authority.
Orders under the Digital Services Act
If you send an order to act against illegal content or to provide information under Articles 9 and 10 of the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065), use the same address. We tell the authority what we did without undue delay.
Not for everyone
This page is for public authorities. If you are a private person and want to report another user, use the report function in the app. If you want to see your own data, see the Privacy Policy.