This privacy policy applies to users of the official Snikket mobile apps developed by the Snikket Team. This document details the data arising from your use of the Snikket apps, and in particular does not represent the policies of any network services that you may register with and/or interact with while using the apps - please review the relevant policies of those services separately, e.g. before registering an account or interacting with a service.
The services you use with the app may be provided by us, or by a third-party. We have no control over third-party services, even if they are utilizing our software, so please ensure you trust operator and agree with their own privacy policies before using any service with the Snikket app.
As you probably hear many organizations say - we take your privacy seriously. In the case of Snikket, privacy is actually the primary reason the project exists. We want to ensure that people have usable alternatives to communication platforms that sustain themselves by collecting and processing personal data for commercial gain.
Transparency, and giving you a choice of service operator, are important ways we work to implement this mission.
As a general rule, we minimize the information that the Snikket app will share with us as developers.
There are two cases where the app may send data to us:
The data described in this section is processed on a lawful basis of legitimate interest. The data is necessary for us to provide you with a working and reliable app.
The Snikket developers operate a push service that is used by your Snikket service to notify your Snikket app using your mobile OS vendor’s push notification infrastructure when you receive incoming messages. This is used to overcome battery optimisations implemented by most mobile operating systems and is a common feature of modern messaging apps.
Note: Some versions of the Snikket app, such as the version distributed through F-Droid do not have push notification support, and this section does not apply to them.
The Snikket Android app will register with the Snikket push service, which stores three identifiers:
Our push service never sees your IP address and does not store your Snikket username. Furthermore, none of these token/IDs are linked to your identity. A Snikket server will never share the content or metadata of any of your messages with the push service. The Snikket Android app fetches messages directly from the Snikket service where your account is registered.
Currently for diagnostic purposes the Snikket push service also stores the domain of the Snikket service where the push registration came from.
The Snikket iOS app will register with the Snikket push service, which stores a “device token”. This token is generated by Apple’s iOS operating system on your device and provided to the Snikket app. Apple requires us to provide them this token when we generate notifications, so they can identify which device to send the notification to. The token is unique to each installation of the Snikket app, and it cannot be used to link your identity between different apps on your device.
Our push service never sees your IP address, and the device token does not reveal, and is not linked to, your identity.
The following data is stored by the iOS app push service:
The following data may be included in push notifications, but encrypted with a key (AES128 GCM or stronger) known only to your app and your Snikket service. This encryption protects message contents and metadata from both the Snikket push service and Apple’s notification servers.
This section is purely informational in nature, and describes the kind of data that may be sent to your chosen service provider while using the Snikket app.
The Snikket app connects directly to any services that you register an account on. Be sure to review the privacy policy for your chosen service. If you use Snikket hosting provided by us, please refer to the Snikket Hosting privacy policy.
Data that goes through your service operator includes:
There may be additional data that you provide within the app to be shared with services, such as group chat names, membership lists, and other kinds of information.
Data that is not shared with your service operator includes:
Once again, refer to your provider’s privacy policy to learn how they store, handle and process data that you share with their service through using the Snikket app.
The app has the ability to encrypt message contents and file uploads when this feature is enabled. We encourage you to keep this feature enabled, and to use the in-app verification functions, if you want to ensure your communications stay private even in the event of a malicious or compromised service.