Privacy policy

Who we are

Kiwi is made by Jon Bell (Lot23) in Wellington, New Zealand. Contact: jb@lot23.com.

What we collect

Nothing. There is no sign-up, no email or phone number, and no analytics, advertising or tracking in the app. We run no server that receives your messages, location or identity, so we have nothing to hand over, sell or lose.

What stays on your phone

• Your nickname, your identity keys (in the iOS Keychain) and your settings.
• Recent messages, people you have verified or favourited, and your mute, hide and block lists.
• The “reading” features: folding repeats, summaries, people's profiles and the topic read on a person are worked out on your phone from messages you have already received.

You can erase all of this at once with panic wipe in Settings, or by deleting the app.

Nearby chat (Bluetooth)

Nearby messages travel directly between phones over Bluetooth and may be passed along by other phones in range. Messages in the Nearby room can be read by anyone in range, and your nickname is visible to them. Private messages between people are end-to-end encrypted (the Noise protocol); phones that relay them cannot read them.

Public rooms for places

To suggest rooms for where you are, Kiwi uses your approximate location (with your permission, and only while you use the app) to work out a geohash, a short code for an area such as a neighbourhood or city. This is calculated on your phone. Your exact coordinates are never put in a message.

Messages you post in a public room are published to public Nostr relays: servers run by other people, such as relay.damus.io, nos.lol, relay.primal.net and offchain.pub, plus relays chosen by proximity or added by you in Settings. Posts are signed with a key specific to that room, so your posts in different rooms are not linked to each other. Anything you post in a public room is public. Relay operators and other people may keep or copy it, and we cannot delete it.

Relays can see the network address a connection comes from. Kiwi sends internet traffic through Tor by default so relay operators see Tor's address instead of yours; you can turn this off in Settings, which exposes your address to the relays you connect to.

Translation and summaries

Auto-translate uses Apple's on-device Translation. Text is not sent anywhere to be translated, but iOS may download language packs from Apple the first time you use a language. Any short summary of a busy room or person is produced on your phone, by the on-device Apple model where your phone supports it, and is never sent to us.

Camera, microphone, photos and notifications

• Camera: only to scan a QR code to verify a person.
• Microphone: only when you record a voice note.
• Photos: only for pictures you choose to send.
• Notifications: are produced on your phone. Turn on “hide message previews” in Settings to keep their text off your lock screen.

What you send in a message goes to the people in that room or conversation, as described above.

Sharing

We do not share your information with anyone, because we do not have it. The only parties that can see what you post are the people in the room, and, for public rooms, the relays they travel through.

Your choices

• Decline location access: Nearby chat and typing in a place by hand still work.
• Mute, hide or block anyone, and set each room to Mentions only, Filtered or Everything.
• Use panic wipe to erase your messages, keys and identity.
• Turn Tor routing off or add your own relays in Settings.

Because we hold no data about you, there is nothing for us to access, correct or delete on your behalf. If you posted publicly and want something removed, contact the relay operators.

Children

Kiwi is a chat app with strangers and is not directed at children under 13. If you believe a child is using it, tell us at jb@lot23.com.

Changes

If this policy changes we will update this page and its date. The current version always lives at this address.

Questions

Email jb@lot23.com, or see Support and the community rules.