UsChat exists to give people a place to talk without being watched, profiled, or sold. This policy walks through what that means in practice — what we collect, what we don't, and what happens to the information that does pass through our systems.
If you only read one section, read this one:
Account basics. When you sign up, we store the handful of details needed to identify your account — for example, [a username, a display name, an avatar, and optionally an email address or phone number if you choose to add one for recovery]. We try to keep required fields to a minimum.
Authentication data. We store a stretched (cryptographically transformed) form of your password so that we can verify you without ever seeing the password itself.
Group and contact metadata. If you create or join a group, we record that the group exists, who is in it, and when it was created. We need this so the right messages reach the right people.
Encrypted message content and files. Anything you send through UsChat — text, photos, video, voice, attachments — is encrypted on your device before it leaves you. Our servers store and forward those encrypted blobs but cannot decrypt them.
Service logs. To keep the network running and detect abuse, we temporarily collect technical data such as IP addresses, device type, operating system, and basic connection events. We retain this for [X days] and then discard it.
Support conversations. If you write to our support team, we keep the thread long enough to help you and to learn from recurring issues.
The information above is used to:
Each UsChat account generates its own cryptographic key pair on your device. The private half never leaves your devices; the public half is what other people use to send you encrypted messages. When you send something, it is locked with the recipient's key before it leaves you and only opens on their device. We carry the envelope. We never see the letter.
Infrastructure providers. We rely on [list your hosting and infrastructure providers] to run the service. They handle encrypted data on our behalf and are bound by contractual confidentiality obligations.
Legal requests. If we receive a valid legal demand, we may have to produce the limited account information we hold. Because message content is end-to-end encrypted, we cannot produce what we don't have access to. Where the law allows, we will tell you about requests that affect your account.
Safety exceptions. We may share information without prior notice if we believe it is necessary to prevent imminent harm, serious injury, or large-scale abuse of the service.
Business changes. If UsChat is ever acquired, merged, or restructured, your information may move with the business. We will tell you before that happens, and any successor will be bound by a privacy policy at least as protective as this one.
We do not share your personal information with third parties for their own marketing.
If you run UsChat on infrastructure you control, your data lives on your servers, under your policies. This document describes the hosted UsChat service operated by us; self-hosted instances are governed by whoever runs them.
Hosted UsChat data is processed and stored in [region(s)]. If you reach us from another region, your data is transferred to those locations subject to appropriate safeguards under applicable law.
You can:
We take reasonable steps to protect what we hold, including TLS for data in transit, client-side encryption for content, restricted internal access, two-factor authentication for staff, and regular review of who can deploy changes. No system on the internet is perfectly secure, but we treat security as a core feature, not an afterthought.
UsChat is not designed for children under [age], and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will remove it.
If we change anything that meaningfully reduces your privacy, we'll tell you through the app or by email before it takes effect. Smaller edits — clarifications, fixed typos, updated contact details — will be posted here with a revised "Effective" date.
Questions, complaints, or data requests: privacy@uschat.com. We aim to respond within 30 days.