Privacy Policy
Last updated 2026-11-05
This policy explains what personal information Brickchat collects, why, how it is stored, used and shared, how long it is kept, and the rights you have over it. Brickchat is a neighbourhood messaging app: you chat with the people who are physically in your district, and you can choose to share your position with friends on a Map.
Who we are
Brickchat is operated by Ossyvara LLC, a limited liability company organised under the laws of the State of Wyoming, United States, which is the data controller for the information described here.
Registered address: Ossyvara LLC, 30 N Gould St, Ste N, Sheridan, WY 82801, United States.
Contact: support@brickchat.social, the Help & Support section of the app (which opens an email to us), or www.brickchat.social. If you no longer have access to the app, you can delete your account at www.brickchat.social/delete-account/.
Account information
Phone number: used to create your account and to reset your password (a verification code is sent by SMS) and, if you allow it, to let people who already have your number find you. For that matching the messaging service keeps only a one-way hash of your number.
Username, display name, short bio and profile photo: shown to other Brickchat users.
Password: stored only as a salted hash by our sign-in service; we never see it in clear text.
Age confirmation: you confirm you are 18 or over when you create your profile; we store the date you confirmed.
Your settings: privacy controls (who can send you message and friend requests, whether you can be found by number), notification preferences and language.
Messages, group chats and requests
District chat: the messages you post in your district’s group chat, with their time and district. Everyone currently in that district can read them.
Private messages and message requests: the messages you exchange with other users and their timestamps. Messages from people who are not your friends arrive as requests that you can accept or ignore.
Friend requests and friendships, the people you block or mute, and the reports you file.
Photos and Stories
Stories are the photos and videos you post to your district, with their caption, the replies and reactions they receive and who viewed them. A Story is visible for 24 hours. After that it is no longer shown to anyone, but the file and its record stay stored with your account (and appear in Download My Data) until you delete the Story or your account.
You choose each photo or video yourself, from the camera or your library. Brickchat only reads the items you pick.
Location
District (while using the app): Brickchat places you in a district from your device location. Each check sends your coordinates and their accuracy. To make faking a location harder, the server also compares them with an approximate location derived from your internet (IP) address. We log these checks (coordinates, accuracy, approximate IP location, district matched, whether it was accepted). Your own checks older than 30 days are deleted at your next check, and all of them when you delete your account. We also keep your latest verified district. The “While Using the App” permission is enough for the district chat, Stories and private messages.
Automatic district switching (optional, background): if you grant the “Always” permission, Brickchat can move you to the right district chat when you change district, even with the app closed. To name the district it may use your phone’s built-in place lookup (Apple or Google). You can turn it off at any time in your phone settings.
Friends Map (optional live location sharing): off by default. You start Invisible. If you choose to share, all your accepted friends see your position, either exact (Live) or approximate (Blurred, within about a few hundred metres), together with your battery level and when the position was last updated. Sharing on the Map uses the “Always” permission so your position stays current while your phone is locked; without it you stay Invisible. You can go back to Invisible at any time from the Map, which stops sharing at once. We keep only your latest shared position, not a history.
Shake ⚡ (meeting in person): when you use it, your position is used briefly to find the person next to you who is shaking at the same time, and the distance between you is stored with the friend request.
Your exact position is never shown in the district chat. We do not sell location data and never use it for advertising.
Contacts
Contact sync is optional and only runs when you choose Find Friends › Contacts and allow access in the system prompt. The phone numbers in your contacts are converted on your device into one-way hashes, and only those hashes are sent to be compared with the hashed numbers of people who allow being found by number. The hashes are not stored: we keep only the date and how many contacts were compared. Brickchat never sends friend requests or messages to your contacts on its own; it only shows you who is already on Brickchat, and you decide whom to add. You can turn contact sync off and delete that history in Privacy & Safety › Contact Sync.
Support and diagnostics
Support emails and bug reports you send us, including what you write, your email address, and the app version and device platform added to the message.
App usage statistics: the app records basic usage events (for example that the app was opened), with your device platform and operating system, under a random identifier that is not linked to your account. We use them only to understand how the app is used and to fix problems.
How we use information
To run the service: create and secure your account, place you in the right district, deliver messages, Stories and notifications, show your profile, and run the features you turn on.
To keep people safe: detect spam, advertising and off-platform solicitation, review reports, and enforce the Terms and Community Guidelines.
To support you: answer support requests and fix bugs you report.
Legal bases (GDPR): performance of our contract with you (running the service), our legitimate interest in keeping the service safe and preventing abuse, your consent for optional features (background location, the friends Map, contact sync, notifications), and legal obligations where they apply.
Automated moderation
District chat messages, private messages from people who are not yet your friends, and Stories (the photo or video and its caption) are checked automatically by an AI model, provided through our infrastructure provider Newly, to block advertising, spam, attempts to move people off the app and content that breaks the Community Guidelines. Messages between friends are not sent to this check. The content is processed only to make this decision and is not used by us to train models. Reports from users are reviewed by people.
Who we share information with
Other users see what you choose to publish: your profile, district messages, Stories, private messages with the people you write to, and your Map position with your friends if you share it.
Service providers that process data on our behalf: Newly and its infrastructure partners (hosting, database, file storage, sign-in, AI moderation and app usage statistics); Prelude (sends SMS verification codes, receives your phone number); OpenFreeMap (serves the map tiles, receives your IP address and the map area displayed); Apple and Google (device location services and, if you use automatic district switching, place lookup); and, when push notifications are turned on, our push provider OneSignal together with Apple and Google push services. Notifications carry message previews only if you leave Notification Preview on.
Your information may be processed in the United States and other countries where these providers operate. Where the GDPR applies, transfers rely on the safeguards those providers offer, such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.
Authorities, when the law requires it or to protect someone from serious harm.
We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for advertising.
How long we keep it
Location checks: 30 days (deleted at your next check after that, and all at account deletion). Friends Map: only your latest position, removed when you go Invisible for good or delete your account. Contact sync: only the date and count. Everything else, including messages and expired Stories: as long as your account exists, unless you delete it sooner.
When you delete your account, in the app or on the web, we immediately and permanently delete your sign-in account, profile, photos, messages, Stories, friendships, blocks, reports you filed or that concern you, location history, Map data, contact-sync history and support requests. Messages you sent are removed for the other person too. Copies may remain in our providers’ encrypted backups for a short period until they expire. We keep information longer only if the law requires it, for example to answer a valid legal request received before the deletion.
Your rights
Depending on where you live (including under the GDPR and US state privacy laws), you have the right to access your data, receive a copy of it (Account Settings › Download My Data), correct it (Edit Profile), delete it (Account Settings › Delete Account), object to or restrict some processing, withdraw consent at any time (turn the feature off), and complain to your data protection authority (in France, the CNIL).
To exercise any right, use the in-app settings above, or email support@brickchat.social.
Security
Connections are encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords and phone numbers used for matching are hashed. Access to data is limited to what is needed to run and moderate the service. No system is completely secure, and location checks make faking a position harder but cannot prevent it entirely.
Children
Brickchat is for adults (18+) only. We do not knowingly collect information from minors; accounts found to belong to a minor are removed.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app before the change applies. The date at the top shows the latest version.