Privacy policy
KidoChat · Effective 31 October 2026
KidoChat is a messaging app for children and the adults around them. This policy says what information the app collects, why, who else handles it, how long it is kept, and how to see or delete it. KidoChat is run by the KidoChat team as a small private project, currently tested by family and friends. Contact: kidochat@atanyco.com.
Children
A child's account can only be created by a parent, inside the parent's own account. The parent enters the child's full name and the name they are shown by (for example "Bart"), and a secret code, sets up the child's phone, and stays in control: they approve every contact, can read every message the child sends and receives, approve any profile picture, and can delete the child's account at any time. KidoChat does not show ads to anyone, and does not let children share photos, videos or voice notes with other children.
Who sees your full name
Everyone is shown by their shown name. A full name is seen only by the person, their family, and people they are connected with through KidoChat: friends and their parents, the people in their groups, and grown-ups they are connected with (and a parent deciding whether to approve a request). It stops being shown when the connection ends. Nobody can look anyone up by their full name, and it is never sent to the safety filter or in a notification. KidoChat staff (admins) can see it when handling accounts and reports.
What we collect
| About | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Children | Full name and shown name, secret code (stored only in scrambled form), avatar or approved selfie, chosen theme, quiet hours and time zone; what they call each parent ("Mom"); the phones and tablets they're set up on (a random id, the kind of device and when it was last used) | To sign in, to show friends who they are talking to, and so parents can sign them out of a device |
| Adults | Full name and shown name, and how they sign in: email address, Apple or Google account, or phone number (WhatsApp sign-in); a cartoon character or a photo they choose | To sign in, and so other adults and parents can recognise them |
| Groups | A group's name and, if a parent of a kid in it chooses one, a group photo | To show the group to its members |
| Everyone | Messages: text, emoji, voice notes, and the pictures and videos sent between adults or between a child and their own parents | To deliver them, and so parents can see their child's conversations |
| Everyone | A location, only when someone shares it in a chat, a child presses SOS, or a parent asks where their child is | To show it to the chat or to the child's parents |
| Everyone | Approvals and requests (who asked to be friends, and who said yes), and read receipts | To run the approval steps and show when a message was seen |
| Everyone | Reports: when someone reports a message, who reported it, a copy of the message and who sent it (with their full name) | So we can look into it; a child's report is also shown to their parents |
| Everyone | A notification token for each phone | To send notifications |
KidoChat does not use advertising, analytics or tracking tools, and does not collect contacts, browsing history or a continuous location history.
Who else handles it
- Supabase stores all of the above, in the European Union (Frankfurt, Germany), and runs the app's server code.
- Mistral AI (France) checks messages before delivery: messages between children, and messages between a child and an adult who is not their parent. It receives the new message and a few recent messages from the same chat, with no names: people appear only as "Kid A", "Grown-up B" and so on. We use Mistral's paid service, under which it does not train on what it receives. Messages between a child and their own parents, and between adults, are not sent to it.
- Google Firebase Cloud Messaging delivers notifications to Android phones, and through Apple to iPhones. Notifications contain no message text, names or locations: only phrases like "New message".
- Apple or Google, if an adult chooses to sign in with them: they confirm the adult's identity and share their name and email address with KidoChat.
- Meta (WhatsApp), if an adult chooses to sign in with their phone number: the adult sends a one-time code to KidoChat's WhatsApp number and gets a confirmation code back, so WhatsApp handles those two messages and their number.
The app also loads its fonts from Google Fonts the first time it runs, which shows Google the phone's internet address, and opening a shared location opens Google Maps.
A few KidoChat staff (admins) can see accounts, sign-ins, chats and reports, to look into reports, keep children safe and run the service. They can pause or delete accounts and remove messages that break the terms.
We do not sell personal information or share it with anyone else, except where the law requires it.
How long it is kept
- Messages and profiles are kept until the account is deleted.
- Video files are deleted 7 days after the person they were sent to first watches them, or 30 days after they were sent if never watched. The message itself stays, marked as removed.
- One-time sign-in codes expire after 10 minutes and are deleted within a day.
- Reports are kept while we look into them, and are deleted with the account of the person who reported.
- When an account is deleted, its profile, messages and files are deleted straight away, including the files in its chats with its own parents or children and with other adults. One exception protects children: what an adult wrote to someone else's child stays in that child's parents' log, under the adult's name. Copies may remain in backups for a short time before they are overwritten.
- We keep a weekly backup copy of the database, encrypted, for up to a month (the four newest copies), so the service can be restored after a failure. Only the KidoChat team can open it.
Your choices and rights
- Parents can delete their child's account in the app, on the child's page, and any grown-up can delete their own account in the app, under My profile (or by writing to kidochat@atanyco.com). Deleting a parent's account also deletes any child who has no other parent.
- Anyone can ask to see, correct or delete their information, or a child's information if they are the child's parent, by writing to kidochat@atanyco.com. We answer within 30 days.
- If you are in the European Union you may also complain to your data protection authority.
Security
Access rules in the database decide who can read what, so a child can only see their own approved chats, and files can only be opened by people allowed to read the message they belong to. Connections are encrypted, and PINs are stored only in scrambled form.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. Important changes will also be shown in the app.