The short version
- We never sell your data and never use your messages to target ads.
- We never train A.I on your content. Masa's answers come from DeepSeek's A.I service, which receives only what is sent to Masa (see Masa A.I).
- Your phone number is never shown to other people — they find you by username.
- Notes, Docs and your A.I conversations stay on your device unless you choose a backup.
- Honest about encryption: messages are encrypted in transit and stored on our servers. This version of the app does not use end-to-end encryption.
- You can delete everything, immediately, from Settings → Delete my account.
Who is responsible
ChatterHub is the responsible party (under POPIA) and the controller (under the GDPR, where it applies) for the personal information described here. Write to our Information Officer at legal@chatterhub.co.za.
What we collect and why
| What | Details | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Phone number, username, first name and surname, email address, profile picture and status line. Optional: age, gender, and a disability you choose to tell us about. | To create your account, let people find you, contact you about your account, and — for disability — switch on accessibility features such as captions and haptics. |
| Devices and security | Device name, platform and model, a device identifier, sign-in times and security events. | To show your linked devices and warn you when a new one signs in. |
| Messages and media | What you send: text, voice notes, photos, videos, files, statuses, reactions, polls, and the groups you are in. | To deliver them and keep them in sync across your devices. |
| Calls | Who called whom, when, for how long, and the quality your plan allows. Call audio and video pass through our call server; we do not record calls. | To connect calls and apply plan limits. |
| Contacts (only if you allow) | Your phone turns each number in your address book into a one-way hash and sends only the hashes; we check them and keep nothing. A contact you share in a chat is sent to that chat. | To show which of your contacts use ChatterHub. |
| Location (only when you share) | The live location you choose to share in a chat, for as long as you share it. | To show it to the people in that chat. |
| Plans and billing | Your plan, period and renewal dates; Google Play purchase tokens or Paystack references, and a card's type and last four digits. | To run your subscription. Card numbers go to Paystack and never reach us. |
| Usage counters | Masa tokens used per day, storage used, HD call minutes, rewarded ads watched. | To apply the limits of your plan. |
| Diagnostics | Which screens are opened and a few key events (Firebase Analytics); crash reports with device model and system version (Firebase Crashlytics). | To find bugs and learn which features people use. |
| Invites (if you use a code) | Whose invite code you entered and when you joined. | To give the friend who invited you their free month. We never look at your contacts for this. |
| Invoices & quotes (Pro, Business) | The number, client name, items and totals of each invoice or quote you create. The PDF goes into the chat like any file. | To keep one running number sequence for your business. |
| Business verification (Business) | Business name, CIPC registration number and a business email address. | To check the CIPC register and show the verified ✓ next to your name. |
| Workspace tools (profession packs) | What you enter in a Workspace tool — logs, registers, checklists, photos, signatures, GPS check-ins, uptime addresses. Patient notes and wellness check-ins stay on your phone only. | To keep your records, remind you before due dates, share them with the group you choose and check your sites. Weather feeds use your location rounded to about 1 km. |
| Quick replies & away message (Plus and up) | The shortcuts and answers you save, your away message and business hours, and when it last answered each chat. | To offer your saved answers on every device and to reply for you while you are away. |
| Support | Whatever you send us under Help and feedback, or by email. | To answer you and fix what you report. |
What stays on your phone
Chatter Notes, Chatter Docs, your Masa conversations, personas, snippets and knowledge documents, drafts and your chat-lock settings are stored on your device, separately for each account. They reach our servers only if you choose to: a chat backup (Settings → Backups) or, on paid plans, the Verse Cloud Vault.
Encryption and security
Everything between the app and our servers travels over TLS. Call media is encrypted in transit (DTLS-SRTP). Our servers are reachable only by the people who run them, over encrypted connections, and every administrative action on user data needs an operator key. Media marked 18+ or matching a list of known illegal material is stored in a separate, access-restricted area for review (see Acceptable use).
Masa A.I
Masa's answers are written by DeepSeek's A.I service (Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd., China). When you ask Masa something — or tap Catch me up, Translate or Rewrite, or write @masa in a chat — your question, and the messages you chose (for @masa: the recent messages of that chat), go to our server, which passes them to DeepSeek only to write the answer. DeepSeek does not get your phone number or account details from us. We keep the number of tokens used, not the conversation, and we never use your content to train any model. DeepSeek handles requests under its own privacy policy, which says it stores data in China and may use it to improve its models, so do not send Masa anything you would not want to leave the app. Noesis, our own model, will run on our own servers.
Who helps us run ChatterHub
We share only what each provider needs to do its job, under contracts that oblige it to protect the information:
| Provider | What it does | What it sees |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner (Germany) | Cloud servers that run the ChatterHub API, database and call server. | Everything stored on our servers, encrypted in transit. |
| DeepSeek (China) | Writes Masa's answers. | What is sent to Masa: questions, and chat messages for Catch me up, Translate and @masa — not phone numbers or account details. |
| Cloudflare (R2) | Storage for photos, videos, voice notes and files. | The files you send. |
| Twilio | Sends the SMS sign-in codes. | Your phone number. |
| Play Billing (Android subscriptions), AdMob (rewarded ads on Free), Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics. | Purchase records; your device's advertising identifier; screen views, events and crash reports. | |
| Paystack | Card payments on the web and desktop. | Your card details and email address, on Paystack's page. |
| GIPHY | GIF search. | Search words, sent by our server — not your phone number or IP address. GIF images load from GIPHY's servers. |
Some of these providers process information outside South Africa. When they do, we rely on the safeguards POPIA requires — binding agreements or laws that give comparable protection.
Advertising
Ads appear only on the Free plan and only when you choose to watch one — a rewarded video that tops up Masa or unlocks an extra Chatter Doc. There are no banners and no ads in chats, calls or documents. Google AdMob may use your device's advertising identifier; you can reset or limit it in your phone's settings. Paid plans have no ads. More in Ads.
How long we keep it
- Your account and messages: for as long as your account exists.
- Signed out and gone: signing out of every device schedules your account for deletion two years later; signing in again cancels it.
- Deleted accounts: erased immediately — see Deleting your account.
- Billing and financial records: for the period tax and financial law requires, without your name attached once the account is gone.
- Server backups: nightly copies are rotated out within 14 days, so deleted data disappears from them too.
Your rights and choices
- See and take your data: Settings → Export my data.
- Correct it: edit your profile at any time; change your number without losing your chats.
- Delete it: Settings → Delete my account.
- Withdraw permission: turn off contacts or location access in your phone's settings; stop sharing a live location with one tap.
- Object or complain: write to legal@chatterhub.co.za. You may also complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za) or your local data-protection authority.
Children
ChatterHub is not for children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, tell us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
When we change this policy in a way that matters, we tell you in the app before the change applies. The date at the top always shows the latest version.