Privacy Policy

This policy describes the personal data Qwing processes, the lawful basis for it, how long it is kept, who it is shared with, and the rights you have over it. It is written to match what the software actually does. Qwing is an end-to-end encrypted messenger: what you write, send and say in calls leaves your device only in a form your recipient alone can decrypt. The end-to-end layer uses hybrid encryption, which combines classical and post-quantum algorithms; the connection to our server (TLS) and the outer layer of calls use standard, non-post-quantum cryptography.

1. Data controller

Qwing is developed and operated by CODEARMORY, MB, a private limited liability company registered in the Republic of Lithuania (European Union), legal entity code 306047013, registered address Šumsko g. 166, LT-02196 Vilnius, Lithuania. For the purposes of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), CODEARMORY, MB is the data controller for the limited personal data described in this policy.

You can reach the controller about any privacy matter, including data-subject requests, at privacy@qwing.app.

2. The short version

• Message text, file content, voice notes, call audio and video, profile names and avatars are end-to-end encrypted on your device. The server only ever sees ciphertext — with one exception: a profile photo set with an earlier version of the app was uploaded unencrypted, and that copy can still be on our server (see §4.1).
• You sign up with no phone number and no email — your identity is a set of cryptographic keys generated on your device.
• The server can work out who is messaging whom. Since Qwing 2.0, a stored message carries no sender ID and no sender hint. But we see the IP address and timing of each request, which can be matched to your connection, and some traffic is sent with your login, so we see who it is from and to. Your messages to a contact go with your login whenever your app does not hold a working permission (a delivery token) from that contact's app: in a new conversation, until the contact's app comes online and replies with that permission, and after a permission stops working (for example because it was withdrawn), until a new one arrives. If a send with the permission is refused, the app resends that message with your login; because the server decides whether such a send succeeds, it can make this happen. Fetching a contact's keys also goes with your login, and calls are set up through our server under the caller's login, so we see who calls whom. Versions before Qwing 2.0 also attached to each message a sender hint that can be recomputed from public keys. Treat who-talks-to-whom as visible to us.
• The server keeps the minimum routing data needed to deliver a message and deletes the ciphertext about five minutes after delivery, or 30 days after it was sent if it is never delivered.
• We run no advertising SDKs, no analytics trackers, and no fingerprinting in the app. The Android app includes a crash reporter that stays off unless you turn it on (see §7).
• You can delete your account from inside the app; the deletion cascades on the server.

3. What is end-to-end encrypted (and never visible to us)

Everything you send to a contact is encrypted on your device before it leaves, and is decryptable only on your recipient's device: text, photos, videos, voice notes, files, replies, reactions, read receipts, profile names and avatars (except a profile photo set with an earlier app version — see §4.1), and any wallet address you choose to share. Voice and video calls are encrypted end-to-end and routed peer-to-peer where the network allows. Link previews are built on your own device, only for links you send: your device fetches the page from the linked site, which sees your IP address. The cryptographic primitives are:

• X25519 + ML-KEM-1024 — hybrid key exchange, classical and post-quantum (ML-KEM: NIST FIPS 203)
• Ed25519 + ML-DSA-87 — hybrid identity signatures, classical and post-quantum (ML-DSA: NIST FIPS 204)
• XChaCha20-Poly1305 — symmetric encryption of each message, with keys from a ratchet that renews them as messages flow
• AES-GCM — encryption of call audio and video, with keys from the call's hybrid key exchange

The following are technically impossible for us to access, because we never hold the keys: message, call and file content, and the contents of files in your encrypted Vault, which are encrypted on your device before they are uploaded. Who you talk to is not hidden from us (see §2).

4. What the server processes

To deliver messages and route calls, the server processes a small amount of data. To be truthful about it: the server sees opaque ciphertext envelopes, delivery metadata (for much of the traffic, who sends to whom — see §2), push tokens, and the IP address of your device when it connects.

4.1 Account / identity

• A randomly generated user ID (UUID) — no phone number or email is collected.
• Your public keys, public by design: your identity keys (Ed25519 and ML-DSA-87) in a signed statement, and signed prekeys (X25519 + ML-KEM-1024) that let others start a conversation with you. A one-time prekey handed out to someone is deleted 7 days later.
• An optional username, only if you set one and choose to be discoverable.
• An encrypted profile blob (display name, avatar) that the server cannot decrypt.
• Your block list: which accounts you have blocked, and when. It is stored in readable form so the server can refuse delivery between you and a blocked account.
• Reports you file: the reported account, the reason you chose, any details you add and when you filed it.
• A legacy profile photo, if you set one with an earlier version of the app. Earlier versions uploaded the profile photo unencrypted; the server stores it under your user ID and serves it to any signed-in Qwing user who asks for it, except users you have blocked or who have blocked you. Current versions put the photo inside the encrypted profile blob and never upload it unencrypted. They ask the server to delete the old copy when you change or remove your photo or switch to an emoji, and deleting your account deletes it. Until one of those happens, the old unencrypted photo stays on the server.
• If you publish a bot: its listing — the bot's name, description, @username and picture — is stored in readable form. That is deliberate: people have to be able to recognise a bot before they add it, and at that moment there is no shared key with anyone. Conversations with a bot are end-to-end encrypted exactly like any other chat. The bot holds its own keys and runs on its developer's own machine; the server sees only ciphertext and cannot read a single message you exchange with it. Only the public listing is readable — never what you say to the bot, and never what it says back.

4.2 Message routing

• Queued ciphertext envelopes, padded to fixed sizes, until the recipient's device fetches them.
• A recipient ID, which routes the envelope. When your app holds a delivery token from your contact, the server finds the recipient from the token and is not told who sent the message; otherwise the message is sent with your login (see §2). Since Qwing 2.0 the stored envelope contains no sender ID and no sender hint; the server can read only its type (for example a message, the start of a conversation, or a call) and its size class. Messages sent by versions before 2.0 carry a sender hint computed from public keys, which can reveal the sender to us.
• The time the envelope arrived and the time it was delivered. Messages sent by versions before 2.0 also carry an optional self-destruct timer value; since 2.0 the timer travels inside the encrypted message.

4.3 Media and Vault

Attachments are encrypted on your device with a per-file key carried inside the encrypted message. The server stores the ciphertext so the recipient can fetch it; it cannot decrypt it. Files you put in your Vault are encrypted on your device (AES-256-GCM, with a key the server never receives) and stored on the server as ciphertext until you delete them. The file name is encrypted too; the server sees each Vault file's size, a hash of its ciphertext, when it was uploaded, and how many files you keep.

4.4 Push tokens

Your most recent Apple (APNs) or Google (FCM) push token, used to wake your device for incoming messages and calls. The push payload contains no message content.

4.5 Connection metadata

When your device connects to the server, the server (and our reverse proxy) necessarily observes your IP address for the duration of the connection and in short-lived, rotating access logs used for abuse and denial-of-service protection. There is no per-user IP history table.

4.6 Calls

To set up a call, your app sends encrypted, signed call messages through our server under your login, so the server sees who calls whom and when, but not the call type or the connection details. A call offer for a phone that is not connected is kept for about 30 seconds, while it rings. Calls go directly between the two phones where the network allows, and each phone then sees the other's IP address. If the network prevents a direct connection, the encrypted audio and video pass through our relay (TURN) server, which sees both IP addresses but cannot decrypt the call.

4.7 Moving to a new phone

When you move your account to a new phone, the old phone shows your account — identity keys, recovery phrase, contacts, groups, message history, app settings and wallet keys — as a series of QR codes that the new phone scans with its camera. It is encrypted to a key the new phone created (X25519 + ML-KEM-1024, then XChaCha20-Poly1305), and the old phone encrypts it only after you type the 12-digit code the new phone shows. This data moves directly between your two phones; none of it is uploaded to our server. Afterwards the new phone signs in and uploads its own new prekeys; the server then stops serving the old phone and deletes its push tokens, and your contacts' apps set up new sessions with the new phone.

4.8 Incoming calls on your phone

Qwing rings through your phone's own calling system (CallKit on iPhone, the Android telephony framework). By default the incoming-call screen shows the caller's name from the contacts on your phone, and Qwing calls appear in your phone's call history (on Android, from Android 9); on iPhone, iCloud may sync that history to your other Apple devices, under Apple's terms. The name comes from your own device, never from our server or the push message. If you turn on Private calls (Settings → Privacy on iPhone, Settings → Security on Android), the call screen shows “Encrypted call” instead of the name and Qwing calls are kept out of your phone's call history.

4.9 What the server never stores

• Plaintext of messages, calls, attachments, voice notes or profile content (apart from a legacy profile photo, §4.1).
• Your contact list in readable form — contacts live on your device; the server keeps only an end-to-end encrypted contact backup it cannot read, and routes presence using in-memory declarations that are never written to disk. (The contact table that older app versions filled on the server was deleted in September 2026; database backups taken before then still contain it until they expire, at most 30 days later.)
• Message history archives. (Our encrypted backups of the server database do contain the database as it was when they were taken, including queued ciphertext — see §6.)
• Read receipts or typing indicators as separate records — they are encrypted control messages dropped on delivery.

5. Lawful basis for processing

We process the limited data above on the following GDPR Article 6 bases:

• Performance of a contract — Art. 6(1)(b). Processing your account identifiers, ciphertext envelopes, routing data and push tokens is necessary to provide the messaging service you asked for.
• Legitimate interests — Art. 6(1)(f). Short-lived connection logs and rate-limiting data are processed to keep the service secure and available and to prevent abuse, spam and denial-of-service attacks. We have balanced this against your interests and limited it to the minimum and shortest retention practical.

6. Retention periods

We keep personal data only as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected, then delete it.

7. Third parties & recipients

Qwing minimises third-party processing. The third parties that may receive data are:

• Apple Push Notification service (APNs) and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) — the operating-system push channels that wake your device. They receive a push token and a minimal payload that contains no message content, no contact name and no preview.
• Apple iCloud — on iPhone, while Private calls is off, Qwing calls are in the phone's call history, which iCloud may sync if you use iCloud (see §4.8).
• Blockchain RPC providers — if, and only if, you use the in-app wallet, the third-party node that broadcasts your transaction necessarily receives your wallet address and the IP address you broadcast from. See §8 and the Wallet Disclosure.
• Google Firebase Crashlytics — Android only, and only if you turn on Crash Reporting in Settings (off by default). When it is on, crash reports and recorded errors go to Google: the stack trace and error message, device model, OS version, an app-installation identifier and the first 8 characters of your Qwing user ID. Google keeps them under its own terms. The iOS app has no crash reporter.
• Websites you link to — when you send a link, your device fetches a preview from that site, which receives your IP address.
• Hosting / infrastructure provider — the server, including encrypted attachments and Vault files, runs on infrastructure located in the European Union. The provider has no access to message plaintext.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with advertising networks or data brokers.

8. Wallet & blockchain networks

Qwing includes a self-custodial wallet. Your wallet keys are derived from your recovery phrase and stored only on your device. When you send a transaction, the app signs and broadcasts a real transaction to public blockchain networks through third-party RPC providers. At broadcast time those providers can see your wallet address and IP address, and the transaction is recorded permanently and publicly on-chain. Transactions are irreversible. Full detail is in the Wallet Disclosure.

9. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• Access — be told what personal data we hold about you; email the controller.
• Rectification — correct inaccurate data. Most fields (profile name, username) you edit directly in the app.
• Erasure — delete your account and the personal data tied to it (see §10).
• Portability — receive your server-side personal data in a structured, machine-readable format. Because content is end-to-end encrypted, an export contains only the limited non-content data the server holds (e.g. your UUID and public keys); request it from the controller.
• Objection / restriction — object to processing based on legitimate interests (§5).

To exercise any right, contact privacy@qwing.app. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority; in Lithuania that is the State Data Protection Inspectorate (Valstybinė duomenų apsaugos inspekcija).

10. Account deletion

You can delete your account at any time in the app (Settings → Delete account). This calls the server's account-deletion endpoint, which removes your account row, your public keys and prekeys, queued envelopes addressed to you, your Vault files and uploaded attachments, your encrypted contact backup, your block list and reports, delivery tokens and push tokens, and wipes the app's local data on the device. Full detail and timeline are on the Account Deletion page.

11. Data breaches

End-to-end encryption means a server compromise exposes ciphertext, not your messages. Nonetheless, if a personal-data breach occurs that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify the competent supervisory authority without undue delay and, where the law requires it, within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, and we will inform affected users where the breach is likely to result in a high risk.

12. Children

Qwing is not directed at children. You must be at least 17 years old to use it (see the Terms of Service). We do not knowingly process data from anyone under that age; if you believe a minor has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

13. Jurisdiction & transfers

Qwing is operated from the European Union and its server infrastructure is hosted in the EU. Lithuanian and EU law apply to this policy. The push providers (Apple, Google) and any blockchain RPC providers you choose to use may process data outside the EU under their own terms and safeguards.

14. Changes

Material changes to this policy are published on this page. The “Last updated” date at the top reflects the most recent change.

15. Contact

For any privacy question or data-subject request, contact the data controller at privacy@qwing.app.