Report a concern
Open the relevant profile or conversation and choose Report. Tell us what happened and include only information you can share safely. Do not send passwords, verification codes, or financial information.
Safety at SHY
Safety is part of the product.
SHY is designed for intentional connection. That only works when people can set boundaries, get help, and report conduct that crosses a line.
If anyone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services first. SHY support cannot provide emergency response or replace local authorities.
Block contact
Use Block when you do not want further contact. Blocking removes that person from your view and prevents direct contact through SHY.
Reach the safety team
For a concern connected to SHY, including an issue that happened after an in-person meeting, email the safety team. Share the account details or context you have without putting yourself at risk.
Ask for a review
If you believe an account restriction was made in error, follow the appeal instructions in the account notification or email support with the subject “Suspension Appeal.”
Before a first meeting
Keep the next step yours to choose.
- Keep personal details private until you are ready. Do not share a one-time code, password, bank information, or a payment to prove interest.
- Meet in a public place and tell someone you trust. Make your own travel plan and leave if something feels wrong.
- Consent is ongoing. A match, message, or plan is never permission to ignore a boundary.
- Report what happened. SHY can review a concern only when it is brought to us. Reports may lead to a warning, content removal, feature limits, suspension, or removal under our guidelines.
Need a different kind of help?
We will point you to the right team.
Use Help for account support, Privacy Rights for an information request, and Community Guidelines for the rules that apply to every account.
What keeps SHY safe — by name
Every mechanism below ships in the product today.
- Live-capture identity verification. Verification uses a live camera capture — not an uploaded photo — so the badge means a real person completed a liveness check. Verified accounts are prioritized in discovery; new accounts get a short grace period to verify. Verification confirms liveness at capture time; it is not a background check.
- Whisper opens only on mutual interest. Nobody on SHY can cold-message you: the server refuses message delivery between people without a mutual connection. This is enforced in backend code, not just hidden in the interface.
- Gravity is deliberate consent. Interest is a press-and-hold with tiers — never an accidental swipe — and there is no public compatibility score on anyone.
- Blocking is total and two-way. A block removes each of you from the other's discovery, connections, and messaging, enforced server-side. If a block fails to load, the system fails closed — it never errs toward showing you someone.
- Report goes to a human. Every report is reviewed by a person; the enforcement ladder is published, and appeals are always available.
- Your data stays yours. Review, export, and delete your data in-app — deletion actually erases your records, and we prove it in testing. See your privacy rights.
Resources outside SHY
These independent, free resources exist beyond any app. SHY is not affiliated with them — they are simply the right doors to know about. SHY cannot provide emergency response and does not replace local emergency services; if anyone is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number first.
- RAINN — National Sexual Assault Hotline · 800-656-4673
- National Domestic Violence Hotline · 800-799-7233
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline · call or text 988
- FTC: what to know about romance scams
- Find A Helpline (international)
- NCMEC CyberTipline — report child exploitation