Cookie Policy
JoinHeyBella.com
Last updated: 11 August 2026
Effective date: 11 August 2026
1. About this Cookie Policy
This Cookie Policy explains how Hey Bella Group (“Hey Bella”, “we”, “us” or “our”) uses cookies and similar technologies when you visit or use JoinHeyBella.com, the Hey Bella progressive web application (“PWA”), and related Hey Bella services.
This Cookie Policy should be read together with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
Hey Bella provides cookie and privacy controls to visitors regardless of the country from which they access the Service. This means that our cookie-consent controls may be presented even where local law would not otherwise require the same form of consent.
Our contact details are:
Hey Bella Group
454 Collins St.
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia
Privacy enquiries: privacy@joinheybella.com
General support: support@joinheybella.com
2. What are cookies and similar technologies?
Cookies are small files or pieces of information that a website may store on or access from your browser or device.
We may also use similar technologies, including:
- local browser storage;
- session storage;
- device or session identifiers;
- pixels or tags;
- software-development technologies;
- consent-management storage; and
- other technologies that store information on, or retrieve information from, your browser or device.
In this Cookie Policy, we refer to these technologies collectively as “cookies and similar technologies.”
Some technologies are necessary for Hey Bella to operate securely. Others, such as analytics technologies, are optional and are controlled through our cookie-consent system.
3. Our cookie-consent system
Hey Bella provides a site-wide cookie-consent mechanism on:
- desktop computers;
- tablets;
- mobile browsers; and
- the installed Hey Bella PWA where technically applicable.
When no valid cookie preference is stored for your browser or device, you will be given the opportunity to:
- Accept All;
- Reject Non-Essential cookies; or
- open Cookie Settings to manage available categories.
Essential technologies remain enabled where they are reasonably necessary to provide, secure or operate the Service.
Non-essential technologies requiring consent are not activated until the appropriate consent has been given.
Choosing Reject Non-Essential will not prevent you from accessing the core Hey Bella Service, although optional functionality dependent on a particular technology may operate differently or be unavailable.
You can change or withdraw your choice at any time through Cookie Settings, which is available from the Hey Bella website footer.
4. Cookie categories
4.1 Essential / Strictly Necessary
Essential technologies are used where reasonably necessary to operate and secure Hey Bella.
They may support functions including:
- authentication and login;
- maintaining an authenticated session;
- application and account security;
- fraud, abuse and bot prevention;
- protecting forms and account-access processes;
- network security;
- load balancing and reliable technical delivery;
- maintaining your cookie and privacy preferences;
- checkout and payment security;
- maintaining essential PWA functionality; and
- other core Service functionality requested by you.
These technologies cannot generally be switched off through Cookie Settings because doing so may prevent Hey Bella from functioning securely or correctly.
Essential technologies are not used simply for advertising or optional analytics.
Providers involved in essential functionality may include, depending on the particular function being used, Hey Bella and third-party providers that actually use cookies or similar browser/device storage for authentication, security, checkout or other necessary functions.
Not every provider used by Hey Bella places a cookie or uses browser/device storage on every visit.
4.2 Analytics
Hey Bella may use analytics technologies to understand how people use the Service and to improve performance, reliability, usability and engagement.
Our analytics provider may include Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
Analytics information may include information such as:
- pages or screens viewed;
- approximate device and browser information;
- general usage and interaction information;
- approximate region or country;
- referral information;
- timestamps;
- session information; and
- technical performance information.
Where analytics consent is required under our consent system, analytics technologies will remain disabled until you choose to allow them.
If you reject Analytics or withdraw consent, optional analytics tracking will remain disabled for future activity covered by that choice.
Hey Bella does not intend to send verification selfies, private message content or complete payment-card details to Google Analytics.
5. Advertising and marketing technologies
Hey Bella will not treat advertising or marketing technologies as essential cookies.
If Hey Bella introduces advertising, cross-site tracking, behavioural advertising, advertising pixels or similar technologies in the future, those technologies must:
- be identified separately where appropriate;
- be added to this Cookie Policy and/or Cookie Settings;
- remain disabled until the consent or other choice required by applicable law has been obtained;
- respect applicable opt-out preference signals; and
- not be introduced merely by treating them as “essential.”
If the addition materially changes what a user previously consented to, Hey Bella will request a new cookie choice where appropriate.
Hey Bella does not use verification images or sensitive dating information to create third-party advertising profiles.
6. Your choices
You may use Hey Bella’s cookie controls to:
- accept non-essential cookies;
- reject non-essential cookies;
- enable or disable individual optional categories where available;
- change a previous choice; or
- withdraw consent for future non-essential tracking.
You may access these controls at any time by selecting Cookie Settings in the Hey Bella website footer.
Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that was lawful before your withdrawal.
Your browser may also allow you to delete or block cookies or other locally stored website information.
Deleting your browser data, using a different browser or device, using private-browsing functionality or resetting your device may remove your saved Hey Bella cookie preference. If this occurs, Hey Bella may ask you to make your cookie choice again.
7. How long we remember your cookie preference
Hey Bella generally stores your cookie-consent preference for six months from the date on which you make or update your choice.
This applies whether you:
- accept non-essential cookies;
- reject non-essential cookies; or
- select individual cookie categories.
After approximately six months, Hey Bella may ask you to confirm your preferences again.
We may ask you sooner where:
- the cookies or similar technologies we use materially change;
- a new non-essential purpose is introduced;
- the available consent categories materially change;
- applicable law requires renewed consent;
- your stored preference is deleted or becomes unavailable; or
- a technical or security change means the previous consent record can no longer reliably be applied.
We store a consent version and date or equivalent information so that the Service can determine whether an existing preference remains current.
The cookie preference itself is treated as an essential technology because it allows Hey Bella to remember and respect your privacy choice.
8. Changing your mind
Giving consent does not mean that your choice is permanent.
You can change your preference at any time by selecting Cookie Settings in the Hey Bella website footer.
If you previously accepted Analytics and later disable it, Hey Bella will stop initiating future optional analytics tracking covered by that setting.
Changing your cookie preference does not necessarily delete information already lawfully collected before the change.
9. Global Privacy Control and other privacy signals
Where applicable law requires Hey Bella to recognise a valid browser-based privacy preference signal, including Global Privacy Control (GPC) or another legally recognised universal opt-out mechanism, we will process that signal as required by the applicable law.
These signals may apply particularly to activities legally classified as the sale or sharing of personal information, targeted advertising or similar regulated processing.
Where Hey Bella does not conduct the regulated activity concerned, receiving such a signal does not create that activity.
10. Third-party technologies
The implementation audit for the current Hey Bella Service identified the following third parties that use cookies or similar browser/device technologies in connection with live functionality:
- Supabase — essential first-party authentication cookies used to maintain and renew member sessions; and
- Cloudflare Turnstile — an essential, short-lived challenge token used for bot and abuse protection on protected forms when Turnstile is enabled.
The audit did not identify an active Google Analytics 4, advertising, marketing or cross-site tracking technology in the current implementation. The current Hey Bella application does not load a Stripe browser script or set a Stripe identifier on JoinHeyBella.com, so Stripe is not included in the current register. A separately hosted Stripe Checkout page, if enabled and opened in the future, may use provider-controlled technologies on Stripe’s separate origin and will require review when that flow is activated.
Cloudflare Turnstile issues a one-time token by default. Hey Bella does not list the optional `cf_clearance` cookie because Turnstile pre-clearance was not identified in the application implementation or configuration audited for this policy.
The broader list of Hey Bella’s infrastructure and service providers is disclosed in our Privacy Policy.
Third-party providers may update their technologies from time to time. Hey Bella will update its disclosures where a change materially affects our use of cookies or similar technologies.
11. Cookie register
The following register reflects the cookies and similar technologies identified in the current Hey Bella implementation as at 11 August 2026. Conditional technologies operate only when the relevant feature is enabled or used.
| Name / identifier | Provider | Storage type | Purpose | Category | Duration | Optional consent / pre-consent operation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| `hey-bella.cookie-consent` | Hey Bella | First-party local storage | Remembers categories, consent version, decision time and expiry | Essential | Six calendar months from the most recent choice | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
| `meet-bella-access-token` | Hey Bella / Supabase | First-party cookie | Maintains the signed-in member session and protected-feature access | Essential | Browser session when not remembered; 7–365 days with the configured Remember Me option; some authentication refresh and fallback flows use up to 400 days | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
| `meet-bella-refresh-token` | Hey Bella / Supabase | First-party cookie | Renews an authenticated member session | Essential | Browser session when not remembered; 7–365 days with the configured Remember Me option; some authentication refresh and fallback flows use up to 400 days | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
| `meet-bella-auth-token` | Hey Bella / Supabase | First-party cookie | Browser-session fallback if the primary Hey Bella session hand-off cannot complete | Essential | Up to 400 days under the installed Supabase SSR cookie default | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
| `__Host-hey_bella_site_lock` | Hey Bella | Secure HTTP-only first-party cookie | Remembers successful access to a password-protected preview while the site lock is enabled | Essential | 12 hours | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
| `__Host-hey_bella_site_lock_attempts` | Hey Bella | Secure HTTP-only first-party cookie | Rate-limits failed preview-access attempts while the site lock is enabled | Essential | 15 minutes | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
| `turnstileToken` | Cloudflare Turnstile | One-time in-memory challenge token | Protects the private-preview gate and application forms from automated abuse when enabled | Essential | Up to 5 minutes and one server-side validation | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
| `meet-bella.application-form-draft` | Hey Bella | First-party session storage | Keeps an in-progress application during the current tab session and removes it after successful submission | Essential | Current browser-tab session or until successful submission | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
| `meet-bella-active-conversation-poller` | Hey Bella | First-party local storage | Coordinates message polling between tabs | Essential | While an active conversation is mounted; may remain until site data is cleared if a tab closes unexpectedly | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
| `meet-bella-static-v8` | Hey Bella | First-party Cache Storage | Caches named static brand assets for installed-PWA and repeat-visit delivery | Essential | Until the service-worker cache version is replaced or browser site data is cleared | No optional consent required; may operate before optional consent |
No optional Analytics, advertising, marketing or cross-site tracking identifier is present in the audited implementation. Enabling a material new optional technology requires an updated register, a new consent version and renewed choice before that technology can run.
12. Security and authentication cookies
Some cookies or browser-storage technologies may be required to:
- identify an authenticated session;
- protect login or authentication processes;
- prevent unauthorised access;
- detect abusive or automated traffic;
- apply security controls;
- protect payment processes; or
- remember security-related settings.
These technologies may operate without optional analytics consent where they are genuinely required to deliver or secure the Service.
13. Do we use cookies to make membership decisions?
Hey Bella does not use cookie-consent choices to determine whether an applicant should be accepted, waitlisted or declined.
Rejecting optional cookies does not reduce your eligibility for membership.
Application decisions are handled as described in our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.
14. International visitors
Hey Bella is based in Australia but may be accessed by people in other countries.
Rather than providing a consent interface only in selected countries, Hey Bella’s operating approach is to make its cookie controls available site-wide to visitors from all countries.
Where a particular jurisdiction gives you additional privacy rights, those rights continue to apply.
Further information about Australian, European, UK, United States and Canadian privacy rights is available in our Privacy Policy.
15. Updates to this Cookie Policy
We may update this Cookie Policy if:
- our technologies change;
- a provider changes;
- we introduce or remove a cookie category;
- our analytics practices change;
- applicable law or regulatory guidance changes; or
- we otherwise materially change how cookies or similar technologies are used.
If a change materially affects a previous cookie consent, we may invalidate the previous consent version and ask you to make a new choice.
The date at the top of this Cookie Policy will show when it was last updated.
16. Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions
For more information about how Hey Bella collects, uses, stores, discloses and protects personal information, please read our Privacy Policy.
For the contractual terms governing applications, membership and use of Hey Bella, please read our Terms and Conditions.
Both documents should contain a link back to this Cookie Policy.
17. Contact us
For questions about this Cookie Policy, cookies, analytics, privacy choices or personal information, contact:
Hey Bella Privacy Officer
Hey Bella Group
454 Collins St.
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia
privacy@joinheybella.com
For general service enquiries:
support@joinheybella.com