Privacy Policy
1. The short version
Your messages, calls, photos, videos, files, voice notes, group names, Status updates and chat backups are end-to-end encrypted on your phone. Droot can’t read or hear them, and neither can anyone else outside the chat.
To run the service we hold a small amount of information about your account, listed below, and we keep each piece only as long as it is needed.
2. What we can’t see
Message content, media, call audio and video, group names, Status updates and backups are encrypted with keys that exist only on your devices. Our servers store and pass on ciphertext they cannot decrypt.
Encrypted media is deleted from our servers after 30 days; messages waiting for a device that is offline are deleted when delivered, or after 30 days. Status updates are deleted after 24 hours.
3. What we hold about you
Your phone number, which is how you sign in and how contacts find you.
Your profile: name, about line, @username and profile photo. These are visible to the people your privacy settings allow, and to our servers.
Your devices: their type and name, the time they were last active, and their public encryption keys.
Who is in each group and who its admins are (needed to deliver group messages), and your blocks.
If you choose “My contacts” for a privacy setting, the list of Droot Chat accounts in your phone’s contacts, kept only while a setting uses it.
When you were last online, if your settings show it, and short-lived technical data such as IP addresses used to limit abuse.
A push token from Apple or Google, so we can wake your phone for new messages. Pushes never contain message content.
4. Your contacts
To show which of your contacts use Droot Chat, your phone sends scrambled (hashed) versions of their numbers. We compare them and store nothing that was sent. You can use Droot Chat without giving access to your contacts.
5. Droot AI
Droot AI runs on your phone where it can. Voice-message transcripts are always made on your phone; the audio never leaves it.
Cloud AI is off until you turn it on for a particular chat, and everyone in that chat sees that you did. While it is on, when you ask Droot AI for help with that chat (for example to catch up or suggest replies), your phone sends the recent messages that task needs to our AI service, which passes them to Anthropic, PBC to produce the answer. Droot doesn’t store them or log their content. Anthropic processes them as our service provider under its commercial terms. You can turn cloud AI off for the chat at any time.
6. Reports, safety and grievances
If you report a chat, your phone sends us the last few messages from it so our team can review them; we can’t see your chats otherwise. Reports and moderation decisions are kept as records.
Complaints to our grievance officer are kept with their replies, as the law requires.
If the app crashes, it may send a crash report with technical details only (no account, phone number or content).
7. Who we share information with
Service providers who help run Droot Chat: our SMS provider (your number, to send sign-in codes), Apple and Google (push tokens), our hosting provider (encrypted data on our servers), and Anthropic (only for chats where you turned cloud AI on).
Authorities, when Indian law requires it. We can only hand over what we have, which never includes message content.
We don’t sell your information or use it for advertising.
8. How long we keep it
Account information: while you have an account. When you delete it, everything above is deleted at once, except your phone number, account ID and the dates, which the IT Rules require us to keep for 180 days after an account is closed; then they are erased automatically.
Encrypted media: 30 days. Waiting messages: until delivered, or 30 days. Status: 24 hours. Chat backups: until you turn backup off or delete your account.
9. Your rights
Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you can ask what we hold about you, have it corrected or erased, nominate someone to act for you, and complain to our grievance officer and then the Data Protection Board of India.
You can edit your profile in the app at any time, download a copy of what we hold about you (Settings › Download my data), and delete your account in Settings or at chat.droot.com/delete-account.
10. Children
Droot Chat is not meant for children. If you are under 18, you may use it only with the verifiable consent of a parent or guardian.
11. Changes and contact
If we change this policy we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect.
Questions or complaints: our grievance officer, at chat.droot.com/grievance.