Privacy Policy

The short version

Sivo keeps the information it needs to run a chat app: your account, your profile, and the messages and files you send. We do not sell your information, show you adverts, or use tracking or analytics tools.

Sivo is run by its owner, who is responsible for your information. Contact: sivosupport@gmail.com.

What we collect

• Account details: your email address, and your Google account’s name and email if you sign in with Google.

• Your birthday, which we ask for to check you are old enough to use Sivo.

• Profile details: your username, display name, profile picture and banner, and anything else you choose to add, such as a bio, status or pronouns.

• What you share: messages, pictures, files, voice notes, reactions, polls, games and the chats you are in.

• Activity: when you were last online, whether you are online now, and typing indicators — shown to people you chat with, depending on your settings.

• Device details: a name for each device you sign in on (such as “Chrome on Windows”) so you can see and sign out your devices, notification settings if you turn notifications on, and error reports when something goes wrong in the app.

• Premium: if you pay for Premium, a record that you paid and for how long. PayPal handles the payment itself; we never receive your card or bank details.

How we use it, and why we are allowed to

• To run Sivo — deliver messages and calls, show your profile to people you talk to, keep your account signed in. This is needed to provide the service you signed up for.

• To keep Sivo safe — look into reports, stop abuse and spam, protect accounts. This is in the legitimate interests of everyone who uses Sivo.

• To send notifications you have turned on. You can turn them off at any time.

• To fix bugs and improve the app, using error reports.

• Where the law requires it.

We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not sell it or share it with anyone for their own marketing.

Who can see your messages

Your messages are shown to the people in the chat you send them to. Nobody at Sivo reads conversations out of curiosity.

When you report a message, Sivo’s owner can see the message you reported. Without that, a report could not be looked into at all.

Beyond reports, Sivo’s owner has safety tools that can reach messages in a chat, including ones that have been deleted. They are there for the situations that need them: looking into a report, protecting someone who is being harassed or put at risk, dealing with a serious breach of the Terms of Service, answering a lawful request, or helping you with a support problem you have raised. They are not used to read ordinary conversations, and we would rather tell you they exist than leave you to guess.

Messages are not end-to-end encrypted, so please do not use Sivo for anything that must stay completely private.

Calls

Calls connect your devices as directly as they can. To find a route between you, your device asks Cloudflare and Google servers for its public internet address. On some networks, calls are passed through Cloudflare’s relay servers so that they can connect. Calls are not recorded by Sivo.

Services we rely on

• Vercel hosts the Sivo website.

• Supabase provides the database, sign-in, file storage and live updates. Your account, messages and files are stored on its servers in Sydney, Australia.

• Google: if you choose “Continue with Google”, Google signs you in. Sign-in codes are emailed from a Gmail address. GIF search is powered by Google’s Tenor, so the words you search for, and your device’s internet address, go to Google when you use it.

• Cloudflare helps calls connect (see Calls).

• Your browser’s maker (such as Google, Apple, Microsoft or Mozilla) delivers push notifications if you turn them on.

• PayPal handles payments, if you pay for Premium.

• When you post a link, Sivo’s server fetches that page to show a preview. The website sees Sivo’s server, not you.

These services process information for us so that Sivo can work, under their own privacy and security terms. Some of them are in other countries than you are; we only use well-established providers that protect information properly.

How long we keep things

We keep your information for as long as your account exists. Disappearing messages are removed automatically. When you delete your account, you have 30 days to change your mind and restore it; after that it is deleted. Some information may be kept longer where it is needed for safety, to deal with abuse, or where the law requires it, such as payment records.

Your rights

You can see and edit your profile, choose whether others see when you were last online, delete messages you have sent, turn notifications on or off, leave chats, download a copy of your data and delete your account, all in the app.

You can also ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, to delete it, or to stop using it for something, by emailing sivosupport@gmail.com. We will answer within a month. If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you can complain to the data protection authority where you live.

Children

Sivo is not for children under 13. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we will close it and delete its information. If you are a parent and think your child under 13 has an account, email us.

Keeping information safe

We use access controls so that people only see the chats they are in, limit who can reach account information, and connect only over encrypted connections (HTTPS). No online service can be perfectly secure, so please keep your email account safe, since that is how you sign in.

Cookies

Sivo only uses the cookies and storage it needs to work: keeping you signed in, and remembering your settings on your device. There are no advertising or tracking cookies. The Cookie Policy has the details.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy. If the changes are important, we will tell you in the app.