Privacy policy

About this document

This policy describes how the Depesha messenger (the web version, the Android and desktop apps) handles your data. It is written from how the service actually works and changes together with it.

Personal-data requests: irshat653@gmail.com. The details of the service operator will be added to the final version after legal review. Contact: irshat653@gmail.com.

What we store

• Account: phone number, name, username, bio, profile photo, account number, last-seen time.
• Messages and files of regular (cloud) chats, groups and channels: text, attachments, reactions, edit history. They are kept on our servers so they are available on all your devices.
• Feed: your posts, replies, reposts, likes, follows, close friends, hidden words and sources.
• Devices and sessions: device name, platform, app version, IP address and the approximate country and city derived from it on our server (no external service).
• Contacts: only people you added and the names you gave them. If you let the app read your phone book, its numbers are matched against Depesha accounts; numbers without a match are not stored.
• Privacy, notification and chat settings, folders, scheduled messages.
• Reports and moderation decisions (see “Moderation”).

We do not collect advertising identifiers, do not track viewing time or scrolling and do not build advertising profiles.

Encryption

Connections to Depesha servers are protected with TLS. Regular (cloud) chats are not end-to-end encrypted: the server can read stored message text, and we do not claim otherwise.

Secret chats (a beta feature on Android and desktop) keep only encrypted data and delivery information on the server; an encrypted message is deleted from the server once delivered. An independent security review has not been completed yet, so we make no end-to-end encryption claim until it is.

Why we use data

• to deliver messages, posts and notifications and keep your devices in sync;
• to sign you in with an SMS code and protect the account (session list, new-login alerts, rate limits);
• to show the feed and recommendations — from explicit actions (follows, likes, “Not interested”) and public counters, without hidden tracking;
• to handle reports and fight spam and rule violations.

What goes to whom

External services receive only the minimum they need:

• The SMS provider — your phone number and the code text when you sign in or change your number.
• Push services (Google, Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft) — a fixed-size encrypted packet only your device can decrypt; names, text and chat titles never pass through them.
• File storage (Cloudflare R2 or a compatible S3 service) — the uploaded files, with metadata (EXIF, location, document author) removed where supported; file keys are random.
• An error-reporting service (if enabled) — anonymised technical reports without message text, phone numbers or tokens.
• When you send a link, our server fetches the page for the preview itself — without cookies and without any data about you.
• Automated moderation (if enabled) — only public posts and reported posts, as cleaned-up text and downscaled images, with no names or identifiers; it is off by default, and a model on our own server is preferred.

We do not sell data and do not share it with advertisers.

How long data is kept

• Messages are kept until deleted. “Delete for everyone” erases the text and attachments and leaves a “deleted” marker. Earlier versions of edited messages are currently kept even after deletion — we are working on it.
• Revoked and expired sessions are deleted after 30 days, sign-in codes after a day.
• Files are removed from storage once no message refers to them.
• Copies of reported content are kept for 180 days after the decision (longer while a restriction from that report is in force).
• Database backups are kept for up to three months; deleted data leaves them as they age out. Encrypted secret-chat messages are not included in backups.

Moderation

Moderators do not read conversations. The only content they see is a copy of a message or post reported by someone who could see it. In secret chats the server cannot read messages; when reporting, you decide which text to disclose.

Automated measures are limited to hiding pending review and excluding from recommendations; accounts are never restricted automatically. You are notified about every measure and can appeal it.

What other people see

Your name, photo, username and account number are visible to other users. Who sees your phone number and last-seen time, and who can find you by number, is up to you in Settings → Privacy. Feed posts are seen by the audience you chose (everyone, followers or close friends).

Your rights and options

• Download your data: Settings → Account → Export my data (once a day; the archive is kept for 7 days).
• Delete messages, posts, contacts, folders and individual sessions at any time — how to do it.
• Delete your account: deletion happens after 7 days, and signing in during that time cancels it. It erases your profile, phone number, feed posts, contacts, sessions and export archives. Messages you sent to chats stay with the other members, shown as from a “Deleted account”. Step by step, and exactly what is deleted and what is kept: Deleting your Depesha account.

Where data is stored

The servers and the database are in Finland (Helsinki); files are in the configured object storage.

Changes

When we change what we store or whom we share it with, we update this policy and the date at the top of the page.