Epoch 0 (the “Service”) is a community platform for AI builders based in Japan, operated by Haikou Meilan Junyurui Information Consulting Studio (a sole proprietorship registered in China) (“we”, “us”). This policy explains what personal information we collect on the web app and in the WeChat mini program, how we use it, who we share it with, and how you can exercise your rights.
Our members are mainly resident in Japan, and the mini program is also available to users in mainland China. We therefore handle personal information with reference to both Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) and China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL).
What you give us: your avatar and display name (in the mini program these come from WeChat’s avatar-and-nickname control, chosen by you); role tags, skills, country and city, languages; social handles you choose to add (X, Xiaohongshu, WeChat ID); your current status (open to work, hiring, raising, open to acquisition); projects you publish (title, description, links, screenshots, video); needs and offers you post; backs and intros you give to other people’s work; answers you provide when registering for an event.
What the service generates as you use it: event registrations and on-site check-in records (including time and method); daily check-ins and streaks; your member level and the activity score computed from the behaviour above; read state of your inbox; operation logs kept for troubleshooting and abuse prevention.
Technical information at sign-up: the country and region inferred from your IP address. ⚠️ We do not store your IP address or browser identifier in the clear — only a salted SHA-256 digest, used to detect duplicate registrations and abuse. The original values cannot be recovered from it.
What third-party sign-in gives us: with WeChat login we receive an openid and unionid (identifiers only) — not your WeChat nickname, avatar, phone number or contacts. With Google, LINE or Apple we receive the account identifier and email address that platform provides.
Compensation expectations are treated as sensitive: collected only if you enter them, stored encrypted, and never shown in the member directory.
To identify you and keep you signed in; to issue your member code and check you in at the store and at events; to show the information you have chosen to make visible in the member directory, project lists, leaderboards and needs matching; to deliver activity that concerns you to your in-app inbox; to compute member levels and the perks attached to them; to screen content for safety; to troubleshoot, prevent abuse and protect accounts; and to send event reminders where you have subscribed to them.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for advertising unrelated to the purposes above.
Other members: your display name, avatar, roles, skills, city and published projects are visible to signed-in members. Your profile page is not open to signed-out visitors or search engines by default; it becomes public only if you turn that on yourself, and then only the fields listed above. Your email address, phone number, WeChat ID and compensation expectations are never shown in the directory.
Tencent (WeChat): to meet Chinese content-safety requirements, text and images you post are submitted to WeChat’s content-security API for automated screening. WeChat sign-in and subscription messages also go through Tencent’s APIs.
Google / LINE / Apple: only when you choose to sign in with that platform, for identity verification.
Email provider (Brevo): your email address is passed to our delivery provider when we need to send you a verification code or a notification.
Amazon Web Services: the Service’s servers and database are hosted in the AWS Tokyo region (Japan).
Sentry: when the application throws an error, the stack trace and the page it occurred on are sent there for diagnosis. It is configured not to capture form contents or request bodies.
Apart from the above, and where required by law or necessary to protect someone’s vital interests, we do not provide your personal information to any third party.
The primary database, uploaded images and backups are all held in Japan (AWS Tokyo region). Backups are stored in the same region and replicated, encrypted, to object storage in Japan.
If you use the Service from mainland China, your personal information is transferred to Japan for processing and storage. To meet PIPL’s requirements for cross-border provision, we explain this when you first enter the Service after signing in with WeChat; you can stop further processing at any time by deleting your account. For content screening specifically, the text and images concerned are submitted to WeChat APIs located in China.
We retain the information above for as long as your account exists. Database backups are kept for 14 days on the server and 90 days in object storage, then deleted automatically. Operation logs are kept for security auditing for no less than the life of the account.
You can view and correct your profile, withdraw content you have posted, and delete your account at any time.
What happens immediately on deletion: every third-party sign-in link (WeChat, Google, LINE, Apple) is removed, so you can no longer sign in with them; your display name, avatar, email address, phone number, WeChat ID, X and Xiaohongshu handles, city, compensation expectations, referral source and the technical digests described above are cleared; all sign-in credentials are revoked.
What remains after deletion: projects you published publicly, backs you gave to other people’s work, event registrations and attendance records, and operation logs. These are interlinked with other members’ records (leaderboard counts, attendance figures), so removing them unilaterally would corrupt other people’s data. We keep them, but they are no longer linked to your identity. If you want a published project removed as well, unpublish it before deleting your account.
Account deletion cannot be undone.
We store sign-in credentials and your language preference on your device, to keep you signed in and to show the right language. The Service uses no third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
The Service is intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16.
If we make a material change, we will publish it on this page and notify you in the Service. Continuing to use the Service means you accept the updated policy.
Operator: Haikou Meilan Junyurui Information Consulting Studio (a sole proprietorship registered in China), registered address: Room 1102, 6F, Jingu Building, No. 32 Haidian San Dong Road, Haidian Subdistrict, Meilan District, Haikou, Hainan, China.