What a Messaging App’s Server Can See

The Letter and the Envelope

Think of a letter. End-to-end encryption seals the envelope: no one along the way can read the letter. But the mail carrier has to see who it’s for, and along the way they also learn who it’s from, when it was sent and how much it weighs. Chats work the same way: the content is called the message, and what’s on the envelope is called metadata.

Metadata says a lot: who you talk to, at what times, how often. So besides asking whether a chat app encrypts, it’s worth asking what it keeps from the envelope and for how long.

Questions You Can Ask Any App

• What does it ask for to create an account? My number, my email, my contacts?
• Does it keep a copy of my messages in its cloud?
• How long does it keep what hasn’t been delivered yet?
• Does the phone notification show what people write to me?
• Does it make money from ads or from my data?

What TruchiChat’s Server Sees

To deliver your messages, our server sees:

• Your account: an identifier, the name you choose, your public keys and your session.
• Your profile photo, if you set one: it’s the only thing that isn’t end-to-end encrypted, and it only gives it to people who have a chat with you.
• Which account messages which, when, in which chat and the approximate size of what’s sent.
• The app version, the system version and the phone model.
• Your IP address while you’re connected, like any server you connect to.

It never sees the text, photos, videos, voice notes, files, calls or places you send. It doesn’t know your number or your email, because it doesn’t ask for them.

And How Long It Keeps It

• Whatever hasn’t been delivered yet is deleted after 24 hours at most.
• There’s no copy of your chats on any server: your history is only on your phone.
• If you delete your account, everything of yours is deleted, and the server’s backups expire within 8 days at most.

Notifications Count Too

Phone notifications go through Apple or Google. In TruchiChat they don’t carry the text. On iPhone, the sender’s name is sealed inside the notification and Apple doesn’t see it; on Android with Google Play, Google’s notification only wakes up the app; in the Android version without Google there’s no Google notification: the app has its own connection.

All of this, in more detail, in the privacy policy.