Law Enforcement & Government Request Guidance (Public)

1. About this guidance

This page explains how law-enforcement agencies and government authorities can make requests to The Third Connection ("TTC"), operated by RELAYLANE LABS LTD, a company registered in England and Wales. It is guidance for authorities, not legal advice, and it does not create any rights for third parties. Requests are handled under our internal law-enforcement request procedure.

TTC is a UK-based dating and social-events service. User data is held in the United Kingdom. We take both our users' privacy and our legal obligations seriously: we disclose user data to authorities only where legally required or as described in this guidance, and we scrutinise every request for legal validity, jurisdiction, and proportionality.

2. How to serve a request

• Email: safety@thethirdconnection.com, with the subject line marked "Law Enforcement" (or "EMERGENCY" where section 5 applies). Requests sent to general support channels may be delayed while rerouted.
• Post: RELAYLANE LABS LTD, Lavender Cottage Hazelden Farm, Marden Road, Cranbrook, England, TN17 2LP
• Requests must come from an official agency address, identify the requesting officer, agency, and a means of verification (we verify call-back details independently), and attach the legal instrument relied on.
• Please identify the account as precisely as possible (email address on the account is the most reliable identifier; display names are not unique).

3. What we require — UK requests

We require valid UK legal process appropriate to the data sought before disclosing user data. Depending on the data and the power relied on, that will typically be a court order, a warrant, a production order, or another instrument with proper legal authority compelling or permitting disclosure (for example under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, or data-protection law exemptions for the prevention and detection of crime, applied case by case). A bare request without legal authority will normally be refused or met with a request for proper process.

We disclose only the data specified and legally required — no broader than the instrument compels.

4. What we require — overseas requests

Requests from authorities outside the United Kingdom should be made through mutual legal assistance (MLAT) or other UK international cooperation routes, addressed via the UK authorities, rather than served on us directly. We do not disclose user data in response to foreign legal process served directly on RELAYLANE LABS LTD unless UK law permits or requires it.

5. Emergency disclosure

Where there is an imminent risk of death or serious physical harm to any person (for example a credible threat to life, an ongoing abduction, or an imminent risk of serious harm to a child), a law-enforcement agency may request emergency disclosure without prior legal process.

• Use the channel in section 2 and mark the request EMERGENCY.
• Include: the nature of the emergency, why the risk is imminent, what data is needed, and why that data is needed to address the emergency, plus officer and agency verification details.
• We assess emergency requests urgently and may disclose the minimum data necessary where we believe in good faith that disclosure is needed to prevent death or serious harm. We record every emergency disclosure and may ask the agency to follow up with formal process.

6. Preservation requests

Authorities may ask us to preserve specified account data pending legal process. On receipt of a valid preservation request from a verified agency we will preserve a snapshot of the specified, existing data for 90 days, extendable once on request, pending service of valid legal process. Preservation does not disclose any data; disclosure still requires the process described in sections 3–4. Note that data deleted in the ordinary operation of the service before a preservation request is received may not be recoverable.

7. User notice

We may notify users of requests concerning their data unless we are legally prohibited from doing so or notification would risk harm — for example where notice would endanger a person, prejudice an investigation, or concern child safety. We do not commit to notice in every case; each request is assessed under our internal procedure and any applicable statutory secrecy obligations.

8. Child-safety reporting

Independently of requests we receive, we report apparent child sexual abuse material to the relevant authorities, including the UK National Crime Agency and/or the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as applicable, in line with the duty under section 66 of the UK Online Safety Act 2023 (in force since 7 April 2026). Agencies contacting us about child-safety matters should still use the channel in section 2 and may mark the request as an emergency where section 5 applies. See also our Child Safety Standards (document 06).

9. What data exists

Our Privacy Policy describes the categories of data we hold. In broad terms: account and profile data, event ticket and attendance records, messages between matched users, safety reports, and service/security logs. We do not hold users' precise location (no GPS collection), card numbers (payments are processed by Stripe), or the content of push notifications beyond generic alerts. See section 6 on preservation of existing data.

10. Transparency reporting

We do not currently publish periodic aggregate statistics on government and law-enforcement requests. If that changes, this page will be updated.

11. Costs and abuse

We do not charge for responding to lawful requests at current volumes but reserve the right to seek cost recovery where the law allows. Requests that are fraudulent, or that impersonate law enforcement, are themselves offences and will be reported.