PixoChat is made by Rare Theory LLC. This page explains what we collect when you use the PixoChat website and the PixoChat app for iPhone, why we collect it, who else touches it, how long we keep it, and how to get rid of it.
The short version: we collect what it takes to run a drawing chat between friends and nothing more. We do not collect usage analytics. We do not track you across other apps or websites. We do not show ads. We never sell your data.
Who we are
Rare Theory LLC is a limited liability company in Wisconsin, United States. We are the data controller for everything described here. You can reach us about anything on this page at hello@pixochat.app.
The website
This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics. It remembers a few choices you make on it, such as sound on or off, the light or dark look, and a language if the site offers one, in your browser's local storage, which stays on your device and is never sent to us.
The site's fonts are served by Google Fonts. When your browser loads a page, it requests those font files from Google, which means Google receives your IP address and browser details as part of that request, the way it would for any web font. Our hosting provider, Hostinger, keeps ordinary server logs (IP address, page requested, time) for security and operations.
If you join the mailing list, you give us your email address and we store it with Kit, our email provider, together with the language you were reading the site in. We use it for one thing: telling you when PixoChat is out, and occasionally what is new. You have to confirm your address by email before you are added. Every message we send has an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing removes you. Joining the mailing list does not create a PixoChat account.
The app: what we collect
Your account. You sign up either with Sign in with Apple or with an email address and password. Either way we hold a user ID and an email address. If you use Sign in with Apple and choose to hide your email, we only ever see the private relay address Apple gives us. Passwords are handled by Firebase Authentication and are never visible to us.
Your age. When you sign up you enter your date of birth. We keep two things from it: an age range (13 to 15, or 16 and up) and the month and day of your birthday, so your friends can see a small birthday note on the day. We do not store the year. If the date you enter shows you are under 13, no account is created, the sign-in you just made is deleted, and nothing about you is kept.
Your profile. A display name, a handle if you set one, a friend code, and the small drawing you choose as your status. Whether your handle can be looked up by other people is a setting you control. Your friends can see your profile. Nobody else can.
Profile photo (optional). If you choose one, you pick a single picture through Apple's photo picker, so we never see the rest of your photo library. That picture is checked automatically for safety before it appears (using Google Cloud Vision), stored so your friends can see it as your avatar, and replaced or removed whenever you change it.
Photo prints (optional). You can also post a single picture to your status, which your friends see for a day. It goes the same way as a profile photo: picked through Apple's photo picker, checked automatically for safety before it appears, stored so your friends can see it, and removed when the status expires or when you take it down.
What you make. The messages and drawings you send in chat, the doodles you choose to save, and the notes you keep for yourself. Group rooms are temporary: when everyone has left, the room closes and its messages are gone from our servers. A direct chat between you and a friend is kept, so you can both scroll back through it. Things you deliberately save, and your direct chats, stay until you delete them or delete your account.
Your friends. Who you are friends with, friend requests you send and receive, who you have blocked, who you have muted, and any reports you file. These are needed for the app to work and to keep it safe.
Presence. Whether you are online right now, and when you were last seen, so your friends know when you are around. You can go invisible.
Notifications. If you allow notifications, a push token for your device so we can deliver them. It is removed when you sign out or turn notifications off.
Crash reports. If the app crashes, Firebase Crashlytics sends us a report with the technical state of the app at the time (device model, iOS version, memory, what the app was doing). It is keyed to an installation identifier, not to your account. This is the only diagnostic data we collect and it exists so we can fix bugs.
App integrity. The app uses Apple's App Attest through Firebase App Check to prove to our servers that requests come from a genuine copy of PixoChat. This checks the app, not you.
Weather (optional). If you turn it on, the app asks your permission once for your approximate location, and only while you are using the app. After that, each time the home screen appears, it reads your approximate position and sends only the latitude and longitude to Apple's WeatherKit to fetch the current conditions. Nothing that identifies you or your device goes with it, and we do not store the location. Weather is optional: if you say no, the app works the same and simply does not show it. You can change this any time in iOS Settings, under Privacy and Security, then Location Services.
What we do not collect
Your contacts. Your microphone or camera. Your photo library beyond the single pictures you pick as your profile photo or a photo print. Payment details: there is nothing to buy in PixoChat. Usage or behavioral analytics. Advertising identifiers. Anything for the purpose of tracking you across other companies' apps or websites.
How we use it
To deliver messages and drawings between you and your friends. To show who is online. To show the weather where you are, if you turn that on. To send notifications you have asked for. To enforce the age minimum and the safety rules, including an automatic check of any photo you upload before other people see it. To handle blocks and reports. To fix crashes. To operate, secure, and improve the service. That is the list.
Who we share it with
We do not sell personal data and we do not share it with advertisers. The companies below handle data on our behalf, only as needed to run PixoChat.
- Google Firebase (Google LLC, United States) runs our backend: accounts, database, cloud functions, file storage for the photos you upload, push delivery, app integrity checks, and crash reporting. Data is stored in Google's us-central1 region in the United States.
- Google Cloud Vision (Google LLC, United States) checks each photo you upload for safety before it is shown to anyone. The check runs from our backend in the same region; the photo is sent to the service for that check and nothing else.
- Apple (Apple Inc.) provides Sign in with Apple, push notification delivery, App Attest, and, if you turn weather on, WeatherKit, which receives your approximate latitude and longitude and returns the current conditions.
- Kit (formerly ConvertKit) stores the mailing list for the website.
- Hostinger hosts this website.
We will disclose information if the law requires it, for example to comply with a valid legal process, or if it is necessary to protect someone's safety. Where we are allowed to, we will tell you about a legal request that affects your account.
If Rare Theory LLC is ever sold, merged, or reorganized, your account data may transfer to whoever takes over PixoChat, and it stays under this policy when it does. We will tell you before that happens.
How long we keep it
Account data stays as long as your account exists. Group room messages are deleted when the room closes. Direct chats, saved doodles and notes stay until you remove them. The mailing list keeps your address until you unsubscribe.
Safety records are the exception. If a report is filed about you or by you, the report and the moderation decision are kept for up to two years after the fact so that repeated behavior can be recognized and decisions can be reviewed. After you delete your account these records are no longer connected to a person we can identify.
Deleted data can linger in our backups for up to 30 days before those backups are overwritten. It is not used for anything in the meantime.
Deleting your account
Open Settings in the app and choose Delete Account. Your account is disabled immediately and you are signed out everywhere. Within 30 days we permanently delete your account, your profile, any photos you uploaded, your friend list, your saved doodles and notes, your push token, and your presence data. Your friends will no longer see you, though a friend's copy of a direct chat you had with them remains in their app. This cannot be undone.
If you cannot get into the app, email hello@pixochat.app from the address on your account and we will do it for you.
Your rights
You can see and change your profile, handle, birthday, and notification settings in the app. You can delete your account in the app. For anything else, including a copy of the data we hold about you, a correction, or an objection to how we use it, email hello@pixochat.app. We answer within 30 days.
Before we act on a request about your data, we may need to confirm it is really you asking, usually by writing back to the address on your account. We will ask for no more than that takes.
If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or another place with its own privacy law, you may have additional rights under that law, including the right to complain to your local data protection authority. We will honor them.
Children
PixoChat is for people 13 and older and is not directed at children under 13. The age gate at sign-up does not create an account for anyone under 13 and stores nothing about them. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we delete it promptly. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, email hello@pixochat.app.
Security
Data travels encrypted between the app and our servers. Access to the backend is limited to what each part of the app needs, and administrative access is limited to the people who run PixoChat. No system is perfectly secure, and we will tell you if something goes wrong with your data.
Where your data lives
PixoChat is operated from the United States and your data is stored there. If you use PixoChat from somewhere else, your data is transferred to and processed in the United States.
Links to other services
This website and the app may link out to other services, for example Apple's, or to a page a friend shares with you. Those services have their own privacy policies, and this one does not cover them.
Changes to this policy
When we change this policy we update the date at the top of the page. If a change matters to you, meaning it changes what we collect or what we do with it, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.
Contact
Rare Theory LLC
hello@pixochat.app