Privacy Policy

Last updated October 31, 2026

Chatw is built to know as little about you as possible. There is no sign-up, no email, no phone number, and no advertising profile. This page lists exactly what the site stores, why, and for how long.

1. Who is responsible

The operator of chatw.org is the data controller for the information described here. You can reach the operator through the contact page at /contact (choose “Privacy or data request”).

2. What we store and why

Everything below is stored with the company that hosts the site.

• Anonymous identity: a random ID, a display name, a colour, and optional gender and age tags, bio and profile picture. Created so your messages can be attributed to the same name while you are here. Kept until 45 days after your last visit, then deleted.
• Account (optional): a username and a salted, hashed password. No email or phone number. Kept until you stop using the site for an extended period or ask us to delete it.
• Account logins: for optional accounts, each login stores the browser’s user-agent string, the country derived from your connection, and when that device was last active — nothing more — so you can review your signed-in devices and sign the others out from your account settings. Entries are deleted 45 days after the device was last active; signed-out entries after 30 days.
• Messages: text and attachments you send to the public room and in private messages. Each room keeps only its most recent 250 messages; private conversations keep their last 200 messages and are deleted entirely after 30 days without activity. Deleting a message deletes its pictures and videos too.
• Uploaded media: pictures and videos are stored with our host under random names and removed together with the message they belong to.
• Perk purchases (optional): payments are handled by outside payment companies for cards and crypto, which see the payment but not your chat identity. We keep which perk your account bought, the price, the payment reference and when it was paid, for as long as the perk and our accounting records need it.
• Voice intro (optional): a recording of up to 30 seconds that you make with your microphone on your profile. Anyone who opens your profile can play it. Kept until you remove it, record a new one, or delete your account.
• Reports: when someone reports a message we keep a copy of the reported text, who reported it and who sent it, until the operator closes the report.
• Bans: the banned identity’s ID, display name, and the reason, kept until the ban is lifted.
• Moderation audit log: a record of each operator action (bans and lifts, deleted messages with a short copy of their text, voice-check decisions, ad changes) with the time it happened, kept for 90 days.
• Blocks and private-message preferences: the list of people you blocked and whether you accept private messages from anyone or by request.
• Contact form: the email address and message you send us, kept until answered and archived, then deleted 90 days later.
• Bot check: before a new visitor’s first message, they complete a short check. The server keeps whether you passed. Details of a failed try are kept so the check can be improved, and are deleted after 14 days.
• Spam and bot protection: the site keeps signals about messages and connections (not your IP address) to catch spam bots. These are deleted after 14 days; copies of message wording used for this are deleted after 7 days.
• Public groups: the name of a group set to public is shown to everyone in Find groups. A group password is stored only as a salted, one-way hash.

2a. When staff can read private and group chats

Staff do not browse private conversations. When an account is reported or matches bot patterns, staff can open that account’s recent private and group chats, both sides of each conversation, to decide whether it is a bot or breaking the rules. Each time staff do this, it is recorded in the moderation audit log. Reported messages are also seen by staff, as described under Reports.

3. Ban enforcement

To stop banned people from coming back, the site keeps one-way coded signals from your device and network connection. They cannot be turned back into an address or a device description, and they are not shared with anyone.

Raw IP addresses are never written to the database. These signals are deleted 30 days after they were last seen.

4. Voice checks

• Voice verification is optional. The recording is raw audio of you reading a random phrase.
• Recordings that fail the automatic checks are rejected immediately and are never stored.
• Clean recordings are transcribed by our host’s speech-recognition service to confirm the phrase. The clip and transcript are then held for the operator to listen to once. The clip is deleted the moment a decision is made and in any case after 7 days.
• A passed check stores only an expiry date for your badge (60 days). We do not keep a voiceprint and do not use voice data for anything other than this check.
• Peer voice checks in private messages are handed to the requesting user exactly once and deleted by the server at that moment, or after 10 minutes if never played. The operator never receives them.

4a. Translation

• When someone taps Translate on a message written in another language, the text of that message (room, private or group) is translated by our host’s translation service. Who wrote it is not sent with it.
• The translation is kept in our host’s cache for up to 7 days, so the same text is not translated twice. You can turn translation off for what you read in Settings, under Translate messages into.

5. Technical data used but not kept

• IP addresses are used in memory to rate-limit sending, uploading, ad counting and the contact form. Those counters expire within one hour.
• Ad impressions and clicks are counted per placement per day as totals only; nothing links a view or click to you.
• Voice and video calls in private and group chats go directly between the people on the call. The site only passes along the messages that set up the connection; it never receives, sees, hears or records the sound or the camera picture.
• Our host processes connection data (IP address, request headers) to deliver the site and defend it against attacks.

6. Cookies and local storage

Chatw itself sets no cookies. It keeps your identity token and a “welcome shown” flag in your browser’s local storage. Details, and the limited cases where our host or an advertiser may set a cookie, are in the Cookie Policy.

7. Third parties

• Our hosting provider runs the application, storage, speech recognition, translation and, when enabled, the human check. Data stays within its network.
• Payment companies handle perk purchases by card or crypto.
• GIF services supply the GIFs in the GIF picker and pasted GIF links; your browser fetches those images and searches directly from them.
• Advertisers: ad creatives are shown inside an isolated frame. If an advertiser’s snippet loads resources from their servers, those servers see your IP address and browser information like any website you visit.
• We do not sell personal information and do not share it with data brokers.

8. Legal bases (for people in the EU/UK)

• Running the chat, delivering messages and keeping your identity between visits: performance of the service you asked for.
• Moderation, ban enforcement, hashed traces and rate limiting: our legitimate interest in keeping the site safe and lawful.
• Voice checks and the contact form: your consent, which you give by choosing to use them.

9. Your rights and how to exercise them

Because identities are anonymous, we usually cannot tell which data belongs to you unless you are using the same browser identity or account. With that in mind:

• Access and deletion: clearing your browser’s site data discards your identity; its remaining records expire automatically. For account deletion or a copy of what we hold against your identity, write to us through the contact page from the browser you use to chat and include your display name or username.
• Correction: your name, tags, bio and picture are editable from your profile at any time.
• Objection and complaints: you may object to processing based on legitimate interest, and you may complain to your local data-protection authority.

We answer within 30 days.

10. Children

The site is for adults only. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor is using the site, report the message or contact us and we will remove them.

11. Security

All traffic is encrypted in transit. Identity tokens are signed so they cannot be forged. Passwords are stored only as salted one-way hashes. Third-party ad code runs in a sandbox that cannot read your identity token. No system is perfectly secure; do not post anything you would not want seen.

12. International transfers

Our host operates a global network; your data may be processed in data centres outside your country. It provides standard contractual safeguards for such transfers.

13. Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Check back now and then; continued use after a change means you accept it.

Back to the homepage