strangers

house rules

Short, plain, and not optional.

Anonymous video chat with strangers has gone badly before. These rules are why this is not that.

  1. Adults only, checked.

    You must be 18 or older, and we verify it before your first call with an ID and a selfie check, not a checkbox. One verified person per account. Bans follow the person, not the SIM card.

  2. What is recorded, and for how long.

    Audio, one track per person. Video is not recorded unless you opt into training (below). Your own words are turned into a transcript and a short list of things you like talking about. We never keep health, sexuality, religion, politics or ethnicity even if you mention them, and we do not make voiceprints.

    what we keep
    whatkeptthen
    Your audio30 daysthen deleted, unless part of a report or legal hold
    Your transcript30 daysthen deleted; the interests drawn from it stay until you remove them
    Your interestsuntil you delete themvisible and editable any time
    Your face video, only if you opted into trainingup to 1 yearthen deleted; also when you turn training off or delete your account
    Report evidenceuntil resolvedlonger only where the law requires it
    Matches and blocksuntil you delete your accountblocks are kept as a hash so they survive a new account

  3. Report in one tap or one text.

    Press report on the web, or text report last. The call ends, they are blocked, and the last few minutes of audio and transcript are held for a person to review. Nudity and harassment are also caught as they happen: the other side’s video drops, then the call ends. Apparent child abuse material is reported to NCMEC, as the law requires.

  4. Face video for training is a separate yes.

    If you opt in, we may use face video from your video calls to train our models. Only face video: never your voice or audio, texts, transcripts, interests or anything else. It's separate from matching and recording, off unless you say yes (in places where the law doesn't ask for a separate yes, it's part of the signup terms), and never needed to use strangers.

    We never recreate or synthesise anyone's face. Any face in something we generate is not a real person and must not be taken as one.

    Face video is biometric data. We use it only for training, keep it for up to 1 year, never sell or share it, and delete it when you turn this off or delete your account. Turning it off removes your video from future training runs; models already trained aren't retrained.

  5. Matching is opt-out.

    Say no to recording and you join the random pool: paired only with others who said no, at random, with no recording, no transcript, no interests and no saved matches. You can still report, but there is no audio to back it up.

  6. Nobody sees who you are.

    Your number and Apple ID never reach the other person. Matches get a handle like quiet-heron that means nothing to anyone else. Your transcript is yours; the other person never sees it.

  7. Delete means delete.

    Text delete and your account goes, along with your audio and transcript lines from every call. Because each voice is its own track, deleting yours never touches theirs. Any training video goes too. The only exception is anything held for an open report or a legal hold.