Privacy policy

In short

• Messages, calls, photos, video and files are encrypted end to end. zuno.chat can't read them.
• An account on zuno.chat is a username, a password and an email address. The email confirms sign-up and resets a forgotten password, and nobody you talk to sees it. Zuno never asks for a phone number.
• No ads, no trackers and no analytics, in the app or on this website. Crash reports are off unless you turn them on.
• zuno.chat does see who talks to whom, and when. To keep your account secure, it keeps the IP addresses your devices connect from, for up to 30 days after a device was last used.
• Messages are deleted from zuno.chat after one year. Backups stay with zuno.chat and are gone after 7 days.

What Zuno collects, and why

Your account

A username, a password, which is stored only as a hash, and an email address. A display name and profile picture are optional, and only people who share a room with you can see them. Legal basis: providing the service you signed up for (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation, the GDPR).

Your email address

Signing up on zuno.chat takes an email address, confirmed with a code sent to it. After that, it's used for one thing: a link to reset your password, sent only when you ask for one. Nobody you talk to sees it, nobody can find you by it, and you sign in with your username, not your email. You can change it on your account page at auth.zuno.chat. Emails are sent through Brevo, which keeps a record of each one, with your address, for one month. Accounts made before sign-up asked for an email have none until one is added on the account page. Legal basis: Article 6(1)(b), and legitimate interests in stopping automated sign-ups (Article 6(1)(f)).

The sign-up check

Signing up on zuno.chat includes a check by Cloudflare Turnstile, which tells people apart from automated sign-ups. Cloudflare receives your IP address and details of your browser for it. It runs only when you create an account. Legal basis: legitimate interests in stopping automated sign-ups (Article 6(1)(f)).

Messages, calls, photos, video and files

Encrypted on your device before they're sent. zuno.chat stores and forwards them without the keys to read them. Photos and videos lose their GPS location and EXIF data first; other files are sent as they are. Legal basis: Article 6(1)(b).

What zuno.chat needs to deliver messages

Which chats and rooms your account is in, who sent each message and when, read receipts, the people you've blocked, and your signed-in devices, each named after its operating system, such as “Zuno on Android”. This can't be encrypted, because zuno.chat uses it to deliver messages to the right people. Legal basis: Article 6(1)(b).

Encrypted backup

If you turn it on, zuno.chat stores your message keys, encrypted with your recovery code. The recovery code never leaves your device. Legal basis: Article 6(1)(b).

IP addresses and connection details

The IP address each of your devices connects from, and which app or browser it is. This is for your security: Settings and your account page show where each device last connected from, so you can spot one that isn't yours and sign it out. It also lets Zuno stop abuse, such as repeated sign-in attempts. Logs on zuno.chat record IP addresses too. They're kept in a small, fixed amount of space and overwritten as it fills: within days when zuno.chat is busy, longer when it's quiet. Legal basis: legitimate interests in security (Article 6(1)(f)).

Notifications

A notification carries only a message identifier, never the content or the sender. On an iPhone it reaches your device through the Apple Push Notification service. On Android it goes through Google Firebase Cloud Messaging, through a UnifiedPush distributor you choose, or through no push service at all if you pick that in Settings. A push service sees a device token and that something arrived. Legal basis: Article 6(1)(b).

Location pins

Only when you send one. A pin is an encrypted message like any other. On zuno.chat, the map around it loads through zuno.chat itself, so the map provider never sees your device, though zuno.chat sees which map area was requested. Legal basis: Article 6(1)(b).

Calls

Audio and video are encrypted on your device and relayed through Cloudflare, so calls connect on any network. Cloudflare handles your IP address to connect the call, but can't decrypt it. Legal basis: Article 6(1)(b).

Abuse reports

When you report a message, a person or an invitation, zuno.chat stores your username, who or what you reported, the room, the reason you chose and anything you wrote. The message itself isn't included, because zuno.chat can't read it. Reports go to the people who run zuno.chat, not to the owners of a room, and are used only to act on abuse. Legal basis: legitimate interests in keeping Zuno safe (Article 6(1)(f)), and legal obligations where illegal content is involved (Article 6(1)(c)).

Crash reports

Off unless you turn them on in Settings. While they're on, an error in the app sends a report to Sentry, a crash reporting service: the error, the app version, details of your device such as its model and operating system version, and a random ID made only for this. Sentry also counts app sessions under that ID, to show how often the app crashes. No username is attached, and usernames, room and message identifiers and sign-in tokens are removed from the error text before it leaves your device. Sentry handles your IP address to receive a report. Turning crash reports off stops them. Legal basis: your consent (Article 6(1)(a)), withdrawn by turning them off.

Feedback

Feedback you send from Settings goes to Sentry, with the app version and your device's operating system version. It's anonymous: no username and no ID of any kind is attached, which is also why Zuno can't reply. Usernames and other identifiers in the text are removed before it's sent. Everything else you write is sent as written. Sentry handles your IP address to receive it. Legal basis: legitimate interests in fixing and improving Zuno (Article 6(1)(f)).

This website

Served by Cloudflare Pages, which handles your IP address to deliver the pages. The website sets no cookies and runs no analytics. Legal basis: legitimate interests in running the website (Article 6(1)(f)).

Donations

Bitcoin and XRP donations are recorded on their public networks, as every transaction is. A donation through GoFundMe is handled by GoFundMe under its own privacy policy, which is where any name, email address and payment detail goes; Zuno sees only what GoFundMe shows the fundraiser. Zuno doesn't link donations to accounts.

What Zuno doesn't collect

• No phone number.
• No contacts or address book.
• No analytics, advertising identifiers or trackers.
• No crash reports, unless you turn them on.
• No location, except a pin you choose to send.

Nothing is sold, and nothing is used for advertising.

How long data is kept

Messages

Deleted from zuno.chat, with the information about them, one year after they're sent. A message you delete is removed within 7 days.

Photos, video and files

Stored encrypted, and deleted 90 days after anyone last opened them. A profile picture is kept for as long as it's on a profile.

Your email address

Kept with your account until you change it or delete the account. Records of a sign-up or a password reset, which include the address, are deleted within 30 days. Brevo keeps its record of each email, with your address, for one month.

IP addresses and connection details

The IP addresses your devices connect from are kept for 5 days, except each device's latest one, which is kept until 30 days after that device was last used. Which app or browser a device uses is kept until it's signed out, and for 30 days after. The IP address and browser you signed up with are kept for 30 days. Logs are overwritten as they fill a fixed amount of space: within days when zuno.chat is busy, longer when it's quiet.

Abuse reports

Stored on zuno.chat, with no automatic deletion at the moment.

Crash reports and feedback

Deleted by Sentry after at most 90 days.

Your account

Until you delete it.

Backups

Made every night, kept with zuno.chat itself and deleted after 7 days. They aren't copied anywhere else. Anything deleted from zuno.chat is gone from the backups 7 days later. Backups exist to repair zuno.chat after a failure; Zuno can't restore a single account or chat from them.

Deleting your account

Delete account in the app's Settings opens your account page at auth.zuno.chat, where you confirm with your password. The account page also works in any browser, without the app. Deleting signs out every device and removes your password, your email address, your encrypted backup and the settings stored with your account. The account leaves every chat and room, and the username can't be used again.

Before you confirm, the account page offers to hide all your messages from new joiners. Only if you choose that are your display name and profile picture removed, and your messages hidden from anyone who joins a room later. Copies already delivered to other people stay on their devices either way.

Only you can delete your account: Zuno doesn't delete accounts on an emailed request. Delete your account says what is deleted, and when.

Who else is involved

• A hosting provider, which runs zuno.chat in the European Union.
• Cloudflare, which carries every connection to zuno.chat, relays calls, runs the sign-up check and serves this website.
• Apple, which delivers notifications on an iPhone.
• Google, if your notifications use Firebase Cloud Messaging.
• The UnifiedPush distributor you choose, if you use one.
• A map tile provider, which only ever sees zuno.chat.
• Brevo, which sends zuno.chat's emails: sign-up codes and password reset links. It's based in France.
• Sentry, which receives crash reports, if you turn them on, and any feedback you send. It stores them in the European Union.
• GoFundMe, which runs the fundraiser on its own account if you donate there.

None of them receives message content, which stays encrypted. Apple, Cloudflare, Google and Sentry are based in the United States; data they handle for Zuno is transferred under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and standard contractual clauses.

Requests from authorities

Zuno hands over data only when a valid legal order requires it, and only what exists: a username, the email address on it, the rooms it's in, when it sent messages, the IP addresses and connection details still kept, and abuse reports it made or that were made about it. Message content can't be handed over, because zuno.chat can't read it. Zuno tells the affected person about the request, unless the law forbids it.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your data, and to restrict or object to how it's used. Several of these are already in your hands: change your display name in Settings or your email address on your account page, sign out devices, turn crash reports off, or delete your account.

Crash reports and feedback aren't tied to an account, so Zuno can't find yours among them.

For anything else, write to hello@zuno.aleeas.com from the email address on your account, so Zuno can confirm the request is yours. An account with no email address can add one on its account page first. Deleting an account is up to its owner, never an emailed request. Every request gets an answer within one month.

If you believe your data is mishandled, you can complain to the Data Protection Commission in Ireland.

Children

Zuno is for people aged 16 and over.

Security and its limits

Everything the app sends travels over an encrypted connection, on top of the end-to-end encryption of what you say. Passwords are stored only as a hash.

Anyone who can read your email can reset your password, so keep that account safe too. A reset doesn't unlock your messages: reading them on a new device still takes your recovery code or another signed-in device.

Encryption protects what people say, not everything around it. A screenshot, or a device someone else controls, is beyond Zuno's reach. If a breach ever affects your data, Zuno will report it as the GDPR requires.

Changes

Any change to this policy appears on this page, with a new date at the top.

Who is responsible

Alex, an individual based in Ireland, builds Zuno and runs zuno.chat, and decides how this data is used: the data controller under the GDPR.

For any privacy question or request, write to hello@zuno.aleeas.com.