Vorkuy1Who we are
The Vorkuy service ("we", "us", "our") decides why and how your data is processed and is responsible for processing it lawfully and in line with this policy.
For any question about your data, write to support@vorkuy.com. You can also use this address to exercise your rights (section 8): to find out what data we hold about you, to correct or delete it, or to withdraw your consent. A real person answers, not an automated system.
2In short
- You only need a phone number to sign inYour name, username, photo, "about" text and birthday are optional, and you can change or remove them at any time.
- Messages are encrypted on your devicesMessages, files, voice messages and reactions are encrypted before they are sent and are stored on the server in encrypted form. A breach of the server does not reveal their content.
- We keep an encrypted copy of your keyIt is used only under a court order — in that case we are obliged to hand over the correspondence. It is never used for support, moderation or any other purpose (section 5).
- No advertisingWe do not sell data, we do not show ads and we do not share data with ad networks or data brokers.
- We do not read your messagesNot for moderation and not to "improve the service". Moderators see only what was sent to them with a report.
- Usage statistics only with consentApp usage statistics are collected only if you agree, and they are not linked to your account or phone number.
- Delete at any timeYou can delete your account right in the app, without writing to anyone or waiting.
3What data we collect and why
Below is everything we receive about you and why we need it. The legal bases follow right after the table. We collect only what the service cannot work without or what it needs to stay safe.
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Phone number | signing in with a code sent by SMS; letting people who know your full number find you |
| Profile: name, username, photo, "about" text, birthday, language, time zone | so that people recognise you; birthday — for reminders to your loved ones; language and time zone — so that notifications arrive in your language and at your time |
| Settings: who sees your number, when you were last online and your birthday, whether you can be found by username, who can add you to groups, call you and send you urgent messages, notifications, quiet hours | so that the service works the way you set it up |
| Messages, files, voice messages, reactions | delivering them to the people you write to and keeping your history available on all your devices |
| Message metadata: who wrote to whom and when, in which chat, file type, size and name, edits and deletions, read receipts, group membership and member roles, group name, description and photo | delivering messages in the right order, syncing your devices, running groups |
| Calls: who called whom, when, how long the call lasted, voice or video | call history, connecting the people on the call |
| Devices and sessions: device name and model, operating system and its version, app version, push notification tokens, time of last activity | signing in on several devices, the device list in settings, delivering notifications, warning about outdated app versions |
| Encryption keys: public keys, a backup of your key protected by your 12-word phrase, a copy of your key for access under a court order, safety code verification marks | encryption, recovery on a new phone, verifying the people you talk to, complying with court orders |
| Reports: reason, comment, the text of the message you report and a screenshot if you attach one; the moderator's decision | moderation, protecting users |
| Warnings and bans | enforcing the terms of use |
| Suggestions and feedback: text, screenshot, device model, system and app versions, language | improving the service, answering you |
| Acceptance of the terms: version and time | proof that you accepted the terms |
| Activity by day: the days on which you used the service | overall statistics: how many people use the service each day |
| App usage statistics: which screens are opened, which buttons are tapped, loading speed, errors, device model, system and app versions, language | improving the app; only with your consent, without your number, name or account, without your IP address |
| IP address | protection against abuse (limiting sign-in attempts), signing in with a QR code; kept only in server memory, and for 2 minutes when signing in with a QR code |
What we do not collect: your phone's address book, your location, advertising identifiers, purchase data or browsing history. When you look someone up by phone number, the number is checked against our database and is not stored. People can find you by your full phone number and by the beginning of your username if username search is turned on in your settings; by name — only people you already share a chat with. Searching by part of a number is not possible, and results are limited so that search cannot be used to go through all users.
Crash reports (MetricKit on iOS) stay on your phone and are not sent to us.
What is not encrypted on the server. For the service to work, some data is stored unencrypted: your profile (name, username, photo, "about" text, birthday), group names, descriptions and photos, the metadata listed above, and reports and suggestions with their screenshots. They can be seen by the people you allowed in your settings, and by us — to run the service and moderate it.
Push notifications are delivered by Apple and Google. A notification contains the sender's name, the chat name and the kind of message ("New message", "Photo", "Voice message"), and for a call — the caller's name. If a person has no name, "User" is shown instead; phone numbers never go into notifications. The text of your messages does not pass through Apple or Google: on iPhone the app decrypts it itself, on the device.
Who else receives data. We share data only with those the service cannot work without, and only as much as they need: hosting of our servers and database in the EU, file storage, push notification delivery services (Apple and Google), the SMS provider that sends sign-in codes, and a server monitoring service (technical metrics only, no personal data). Each of them processes data on our instructions and does not use it for their own purposes. Data is given to public authorities only under a court order (section 5) or where the law expressly requires it. Where a recipient is outside the EU, the transfer relies on a European Commission adequacy decision or on the EU standard contractual clauses.
Legal bases — for those covered by the GDPR:
- Performance of a contractphone number, profile, settings, messages and message metadata, calls, devices and sessions, encryption keys: without them we cannot provide the service you chose when you accepted the terms of use
- Legitimate interestsreports, warnings and bans, suggestions, activity by day, IP address: protecting users and the service, moderation, overall statistics; we have assessed that these interests do not override your rights, and you can object (section 8)
- Legal obligationthe copy of your key for access under a court order and the record of your acceptance of the terms: complying with court orders and legal requirements
- Consentapp usage statistics and news notifications; you can withdraw consent in settings at any time, which does not affect what was done before you withdrew it.
4Encryption
Messages, files, voice messages and reactions are encrypted on your devices before they are sent. They are stored on the server in encrypted form, and a breach of the server or the database does not reveal their content. The connection between the app and the server is additionally protected by TLS, so data cannot be read on the way either.
Every chat has its own keys. When someone leaves a chat, the keys change, and the person who left cannot read new messages. A new group member sees earlier history if the group's settings allow it.
The encryption key of your account is kept on your devices, in the system's secure storage. You can restore it on a new phone in three ways:
- through iCloud Keychain — on iPhone this happens automatically if it is turned on; Apple stores it encrypted;
- by signing in with a QR code from another of your devices — the key is passed between the devices encrypted;
- with the 12-word phrase the app shows when you sign up; write it down and keep it in a safe place.
Support cannot restore your key and does not know your phrase. If none of these ways is available, you can start over with a new key. Your old history will then not open on the new device, and the people you talk to will see in "Security" that you started over — this protects them from someone who might have taken over your number.
The safety code in a contact's profile lets you check, when you meet, that you are really talking to that person and not to someone pretending to be them.
5Access to messages under a court order
When you sign up, a copy of your account key is sent to the server in encrypted form. It can be opened only with a separate key that we keep offline — not on the server and not in the service's management system. So even if someone breaks into the server, this copy is useless to them.
We use the copy only under an order of a court that has jurisdiction over the operator of the service, or on a request received through international legal assistance. In that case we are obliged to provide the keys and the messages of the chats named in the order, including earlier history still stored on the server (section 6). Messages deleted when their retention period ended cannot be recovered.
How access works:
- the request is checked for lawfulness; only the chats and the period named in the order are provided;
- every export requires two independent confirmations;
- every action is recorded in a log that cannot be changed or deleted;
- the export is handed over encrypted and is decrypted only outside the server.
We do not notify chat members about an export: with court requests this is usually prohibited.
For any other purpose — support, moderation, account recovery, improving the service — the key copy is never used.
6How long we keep data
We keep data no longer than needed for the purposes in section 3 or than the law requires. When a period ends, the data is deleted automatically, without anyone's involvement. Periods are counted separately for each message and file — from the moment it was sent.
| Data | Period |
|---|---|
| Messages and call history | 5 years from sending |
| File attachments | 1 year from sending; the message itself stays, marked "File deleted" |
| Deleted chats and groups | six months after deletion, then erased for good; earlier — on request to support |
| Profile, settings, keys | as long as the account exists |
| Sessions | deleted after 90 days without activity, or immediately when you sign out |
| SMS codes | valid for 5 minutes, deleted within a week |
| App usage statistics | 90 days |
| Activity by day | 400 days |
| Closed reports and warnings | 3 years after the moderator's decision; a ban stays recorded while the account is banned |
| Suggestions | 2 years |
| Log of access under court orders | 5 years |
| Database backups | 14 days |
| Server logs | a few days, overwritten in rotation; phone numbers in them are hidden |
Deletion from the server does not touch what is already on phones: the history stays with you and the people you talk to until you delete it. A new device will no longer download that old history from the server.
If data is subject to a court order or a legal duty to preserve it, we keep it for as long as that duty applies.
7Deleting your account
You can delete your account in the app's settings. Deletion cannot be undone, so the app asks you to confirm it.
Immediately after deletion:
- your number, name, username, photo, "about" text, birthday, settings, all your files, devices and sessions, read receipts, your reactions and the phrase-protected key backup are deleted;
- you leave all chats; groups you owned pass to other members;
- your messages stay with the people you wrote to, signed "Deleted account", and are erased at the general periods (section 6) — they are part of those people's history.
What we keep and why:
- An encrypted fingerprint of your numberit cannot be turned back into the number, but it lets us find the account if a court names the number
- The key copy for access under a court orderas long as your messages are kept
- Reports and moderation decisionsfor the periods in section 6, so that a banned person cannot come back as a new one.
If you simply do not open Vorkuy for a long time, your account is not deleted, but your sessions expire after 90 days — then you need to sign in by SMS again.
8Your rights
You can:
- Accessfind out what data we hold about you, why, and who we share it with, and get a copy
- Rectifyinaccurate data — most of it right in the app
- Erasedelete your account (section 7) or ask us to erase specific data
- Restrictprocessing while the accuracy of the data or your objection is being checked
- Objectto processing based on our legitimate interests
- Withdraw consentto usage statistics or news notifications — in the app's settings
- Portyour data — receive it in a machine-readable format
- Complainto the data protection authority in the country where you live or work.
To exercise your rights, write to support@vorkuy.com. Include the number linked to your account and what you would like us to do. To make sure it is really you, we may ask you to confirm the number. We will reply within one month; if the request is complex, this may be extended by up to two more months — we will let you know in advance. Requests are free of charge.
Much of it you control yourself: who sees your number, when you were last online and your birthday, whether you can be found by username, who can add you to groups, call you and send you urgent messages, notifications and quiet hours. You can block anyone — they will not be able to message or call you. A person you share no chats with can only write to you with a request, and you decide whether to accept it.
We do not sell personal data and do not share it for advertising, including within the meaning of US privacy laws. The rights in this section are available to all users equally, whatever their country, and we do not treat anyone differently for using them.
9Children
You can use Vorkuy from the age of 13.
If the age at which you can consent to data processing yourself is higher in your country (for example, 14 in Bulgaria, Italy and Spain, 16 in Germany, Poland and Hungary), you need the consent of a parent or legal guardian. On iOS the app may ask for your age range and a parent's permission through Apple's family features; the answer stays on the device and we do not store it.
A parent or legal guardian can write to us to find out what data we hold about their child and to correct or delete it.
We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe such a child has signed up, write to us — we will check and delete the account.
10Security
We protect data in several ways at once:
- messages are encrypted on your devices, and the connection to the server is protected by TLS;
- sign-in codes and session tokens are stored only as hashes;
- the key copy for access under a court order can be opened only with a key kept offline;
- phone numbers are hidden in server logs;
- only authorised people have access to the service's management system, and sensitive actions require an extra confirmation and are logged;
- our servers are located in data centres in the EU.
No system is completely secure. If a breach occurs that puts your rights at risk, we will notify the supervisory authority and you within the time the law requires.
You can help too: never show anyone your 12-word phrase or your SMS codes, set a passcode on your phone, check the device list in settings from time to time and end any sessions you do not recognise.
11Changes to this policy
We update this policy when the service or the law changes. Each new version is published on the website with its date and version number; earlier versions are available on request.
We tell you about significant changes in the app: a "We've updated the terms" message appears with a short summary of what changed. You can continue using the service once you accept the new version. If you do not agree, you can delete your account — your data will then be deleted as described in section 7.
12Contact
For any question about your data or this policy: support@vorkuy.com.