Privacy Policy

This policy explains what Blackout Chat, the operator of the Service and BlackOutChat.com, actually handles. It is written to state our limits. It is not a promise of anonymity, and it is not a promise that no one can ever read a message. The Terms of Service control if the two ever conflict, except where a privacy law that applies to us says otherwise.

Message text is sealed on the devices before it is stored. Blackout Chat is not built to read those messages, and we do not use message text to train AI, to advertise, or to sell profiles. We do not sell personal information.

We do not receive your device passphrase. Nearby messages that stay on a direct device link are not uploaded to us. A recovery code is shown to you. We store a wrapped key, not a copy we can open by ourselves.

"We cannot read the sealed text" is a description of the design. It is not a warranty. Read the Terms. A person who has your unlocked device, passphrase, recovery code, or passkey is outside this sentence.

When you use an account, we store what the Service needs to run:

your name, email, and password credential (stored as a hash, not as the password you type); your handle and display name; public keys, prekeys, and the public key history; the wrapped private key and its recovery wrap; sealed message payloads and the fact of a conversation, including who is in it and when messages are stored or set to expire; and the email you give us if you ask for app updates.

The server can see relationships and timing even when it cannot see the words. That metadata is not ciphertext. Do not assume it is hidden.

We also receive ordinary technical data your browser sends, such as a truncated address in server logs, the time of a request, and the kind of browser, where our host records it. We use that to operate and defend the Service, not to build an advertising profile.

We use this information to:

create and protect your account; deliver sealed messages and public keys between the people in a thread; enforce burn timers and our key checks; send the app updates you asked for, and nothing else, to an updates email; detect abuse, breakage, and risk to Blackout Chat; and comply with law that actually applies to us.

We do not use your information to train AI. We do not let a large company mine the conversation, because we do not have the conversation in a readable form, and we do not grant anyone that right.

We share information only in these cases:

with the people and devices your account is talking to, which is the point of the Service; with vendors who host the database or deliver the app, and only so they can perform that job for us; if we sell or reorganize the Service, in which case this policy still describes the data; and when we believe in good faith that the law, a court, or a government request requires it, or that disclosure is needed to protect Blackout Chat, our users, or the public from harm or fraud.

A legal request can reach account data, metadata, public keys, and ciphertext. It cannot make us produce plaintext we do not have. We decide, in our own judgment, what a request requires. We have no duty to challenge a request, to tell you about it, or to keep a request secret from the requester when the law forbids notice.

We keep account data, keys, and sealed messages while the account or the thread needs them, including until a burn timer deletes a payload. We may keep records longer when we need them for security, to enforce the Terms, or to meet a legal duty. Update emails stay until we delete them.

Deleting the key on one device does not delete sealed copies stored for the account. Closing a browser does not close the account. We decide retention. We are not a backup service.

Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to access, correct, delete, or export personal information, or to appeal a denial. Those rights cover information we actually hold. They do not require us to decrypt messages, recover a lost passphrase, or rebuild a thread.

Send a request from the email on your account and describe what you want. We will respond only as a law that applies to us requires. We may refuse a request that is unlawful, unreasonable, or that would weaken the Service or another person's privacy. We will not discriminate against you for making a lawful request. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

The Service is for adults. We do not want accounts from anyone under 18. If we learn an account belongs to a child, we may delete it without notice.

We use ordinary technical measures, including the encryption described in the product. No measure is perfect. You use the Service knowing that devices get lost, software has bugs, and people make mistakes. Our liability for any of that is limited by the Terms.

We operate from the United States. If you use the Service from somewhere else, you send your information to the United States, where the rules may differ from your own. You accept that transfer.

We may update this policy by posting a new version. The new version applies when it is posted. Continuing to use the Service after that means you accept it, to the extent the law allows that form of acceptance.