Data, privacy & deletion
This page summarises AChat's privacy page, which is the authority. Where they differ, the privacy page wins. The AChat team, based in Lahore, Pakistan, runs AChat and decides how the data it holds is handled.
What AChat collects
- Account: the name, email address and photo from your Google account, and your username. AChat never asks for your phone number.
- Anonymous rooms: the display name you pick in each room, the messages you send there and a device ID used in that room.
- Chats: your messages, files, voice notes and statuses, and who's in each chat.
- Contacts: people you've accepted, requests, and people you've blocked.
- Location: only in a chat with device and location history on, after you agree.
- Reports: the messages you select when you report.
- Payments: the plan you chose and what the AChat team needs to confirm your payment, such as its reference code. For a card payment, AChat keeps the subscription's status, plan, period, seats, amount and dates, and never receives your card number or your billing name or address.
- Contact form: your name, email address and message.
- Error reports and usage analytics: without message content, passwords, keys or precise locations.
- Screen recordings: masked recordings of two public pages, never of chats.
Who else handles it
| Service | Provided by | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-in | Your name, email address and photo come from it | |
| Error reports | Sentry | What went wrong, without message content, passwords, keys or precise locations |
| Usage analytics | Amplitude, and Google Analytics 4 once it's switched on | How AChat is used, with the same exclusions |
| Screen recordings | Microsoft Clarity | Masked recordings of two pages only: Join AChat and Keeping rooms. Text and images are hidden. Chats, rooms, contacts and statuses are never recorded |
| Push notifications | OneSignal, and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging on Android | A push token and the chat or sender name for each alert, never the message text |
| Card payments, when you pay by card | Polar Software, Inc. (privacy policy) | Your account's email address and an AChat account ID, sent when the payment page opens. Your name, billing country or address and card details, which Polar collects on its own page |
| Hosting, database, file storage and email | Listed on the privacy page | Your account, chats, files and the account emails AChat sends |
AChat doesn't show ads from ad networks and doesn't sell your personal data. It may show you other apps made by the AChat team.
How long it's kept
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Messages in personal chats and groups | Until someone deletes them, or the chat's disappearing timer |
| Messages in anonymous rooms | A set number of days after each is sent (10 by default), or until the kept-until date |
| Chats and messages in Trash | A set number of days (30 by default), then deleted permanently |
| Status updates | 24 hours |
| Location history | Until the chat is permanently deleted from Trash or expires |
| Your profile and username | Until you delete your account |
| Screen recordings | 30 days, except a small sample Microsoft keeps for up to 9 months. Heatmaps and recordings the team marks as favourites are kept for 9 months |
| Contact messages, reports, payment records, error reports and analytics, backups | A set time, shown on the privacy page |
| Chats saved on a device | Until you sign out or free up space there |
| An export you download | As long as you keep the file |
What you control
- Export: one file with your profile, contacts and the chats this device can read, built on your device.
- Online status and read receipts: see Personal chats & contacts.
- Status audience: your accepted contacts by default, with people included or left out.
- Usage analytics and screen recordings: on for everyone; there's no switch to turn them off. AChat says so once, in a notice bar at the bottom of the screen when you first open it. Analytics leave out message content, passwords, keys and precise locations; recordings cover two public pages only, with text and images hidden.
- Correct or remove: edit your profile or username, or delete your account. For anything else, write to the AChat team through the contact page.
Deleting your account
Deletion is immediate and permanent. Messages you sent stay with the people you sent them to, marked as from a deleted account. Steps and details: Kept rooms & your account.
What can't be taken back
Anything already read, copied, saved or exported. A later setting or policy change can't recall it.
Age
You need to be 16 or older to use AChat.