SG Chat Privacy Policy
Last updated 29 July, 2023
1. Introduction
This Privacy Policy sets out how we, Cross Space Pte. Ltd. (“Cross”), use and protect your personal data that you provide to us, or that is otherwise obtained or generated by us, in connection with your use of our cloud-based messaging services (the “Services”). For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ refers to SG Chat, and ‘you’ refers to you, the user of the Services.
1.1 Privacy Principles
SG Chat has two fundamental principles when it comes to collecting and processing private data:
– We don’t use your data to show you ads.
– We only store the data that SG Chat needs to function as a secure and feature-rich messaging service.
1.2. Terms of Service
This Privacy Policy forms part of our Terms of Service, which describes the terms under which you use our Services and which are available at https://sgchat.org/termscondition/. This Privacy Policy should therefore be read in conjunction with those terms.
1.3. Table of Contents
This Privacy Policy explains the following:
the legal basis for processing your personal data;
what personal data we may collect from you;
how we keep your personal data safe;
what we may use your personal data for;
who your personal data may be shared with; and
your rights regarding your personal data.
1.4. EEA Representative
If you live in a country in the European Economic Area (EEA), the Services are provided by SG Chat, which for the purposes of applicable data protection legislation is the data controller responsible for your personal data when you use our Services.
2. Legal Ground for Processing Your Personal Data
We process your personal data on the ground that such processing is necessary to further our legitimate interests (including: (1) providing effective and innovative Services to our users; and (2) to detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud or security issues in respect of our provision of Services), unless those interests are overridden by your interest or fundamental rights and freedoms that require protections of personal data.
3. What Personal Data We Use
3.1. Basic Account Data
SG Chat is a communication service. You provide your mobile number and basic account data (which may include profile name, profile picture and about information) to create a SG Chat account.
To make it easier for your contacts and other people to reach you and recognize who you are, the screen name you choose, your profile pictures, and your username (should you choose to set one) on SG Chat are always public. We don’t want to know your real name, gender, age or what you like.
We do not require your screen name to be your real name. Note that users who have you in their contacts will see you by the name they saved and not by your screen name. This way your mother can have the public name ‘Johnny Depp’ while appearing as ‘Mom’ to you and as ‘Boss’ to her underlings at work (or the other way around, depending on how these relationships are structured).
3.2. Your Email Address
When you enable 2-step-verification for your account or store documents using the SG Chat feature, you can opt to set up a password recovery email. This address will only be used to send you a password recovery code if you forget it. That’s right: no marketing or “we miss you” bullshit.
From January 2023, we may ask some users to provide an email address to receive login codes via email instead of SMS (with an option to use ‘Sign in With Google’ / ‘Sign in with Apple’). In this case, we will receive an email address which will be stored separately from the recovery email, and will only be used to send you authentication codes when you log in to your account. The login email address will be stored until it is changed or the account is deleted.
3.3. Your Messages
3.3.1. Cloud Chats
SG Chat is a cloud service. We store messages, photos, videos and documents from your cloud chats on our servers so that you can access your data from any of your devices anytime without having to rely on third-party backups. All data is stored heavily encrypted and the encryption keys in each case are stored in several other data centers in different jurisdictions. This way local engineers or physical intruders cannot get access to user data.
3.3.2. Secret Chats
Secret chats use end-to-end encryption. This means that all data is encrypted with a key that only you and the recipient know. There is no way for us or anybody else without direct access to your device to learn what content is being sent in those messages. We do not store your secret chats on our servers. We also do not keep any logs for messages in secret chats, so after a short period of time we no longer know who or when you messaged via secret chats. For the same reasons secret chats are not available in the cloud — you can only access those messages from the device they were sent to or from.
3.3.3. Media in Secret Chats
When you send photos, videos or files via secret chats, before being uploaded, each item is encrypted with a separate key, not known to the server. This key and the file’s location are then encrypted again, this time with the secret chat’s key — and sent to your recipient. They can then download and decipher the file. This means that the file is technically on one of SG Chat’s servers, but it looks like a piece of random indecipherable garbage to everyone except for you and the recipient. We don’t know what this random data stands for and we have no idea which particular chat it belongs to. We periodically purge this random data from our servers to save disk space.
3.3.4. Group Chats
In addition to private messages, SG Chat also supports public channels and public groups. All public chats are cloud chats (see section 3.3.1 above). Like everything on SG Chat, the data you post in public communities is encrypted, both in storage and in transit — but everything you post in public will be accessible to everyone.
3.4. Phone Number and Contacts
SG Chat uses phone numbers as unique identifiers so that it is easy for you to switch from SMS and other messaging apps and retain your social graph. We ask your permission before syncing your contacts.
We store your up-to-date contacts in order to notify you as soon as one of your contacts signs up for SG Chat and to properly display names in notifications. We only need the number and name (first and last) for this to work and store no other data about your contacts.
Our automatic algorithms can also use anonymized sets of phone numbers to calculate the approximate number of potential contacts an unregistered phone number may have on SG Chat. When you open the ‘Invite friends’ interface, we display the resulting statistics next to your contacts to give you an idea of who could benefit most from joining SG Chat.
You can always stop syncing contacts or delete them from our servers in Settings > Privacy & Security > Data Settings.
If you are using Android, SG Chat will ask you for permission to access your phone call logs (READ_CALL_LOG). If you grant this permission, SG Chat will be able verify your account by transmitting a phone call instead of asking you to enter a code. SG Chat uses this permission only to confirm receipt of the confirmation call by verifying the number in the call log.
3.5. Location Data
If you share a location in a chat, this location data is treated like other messages in cloud or secret chats respectively.
If you share your Live Location in any chat or turn on ’Make Myself Visible’ in Peoples Nearby, SG Chat will use your data to display your location to those users with whom you are sharing it, even when the app is closed – for as long as you keep these optional features activated.
3.6. Cookies
The only cookies we use are those to operate and provide our Services on the web. We do not use cookies for profiling or advertising. The cookies we use are small text files that allow us to provide and customize our Services, and in doing so provide you with an enhanced user experience. Your browser should allow you to control these cookies, including whether or not to accept them and how to remove them. You may choose to block cookies with your web browser, however, if you do disable these cookies you will not be able to log in to SG Chat Web.
4. Keeping Your Personal Data Safe
4.1. Storing Data
Your data is stored in data centers in the Google Datre Centres. We are using google’s firebase storage . These are third-party provided data centers in which SG Chat rents a designated space. However, the servers and networks that sit inside these data centers and on which your personal data is stored are owned by SG Chat. As such, we do not share your personal data with such data centers. All data is stored heavily encrypted so that local SG Chat engineers or physical intruders cannot get access.
4.2. End-to-End Encrypted Data
Your messages, media and files from secret chats (see section 3.3.2 above), as well as the contents of your calls and the data you store in your SG Chat are processed only on your device and on the device of your recipient. Before this data reaches our servers, it is encrypted with a key known only to you and the recipient. While SG Chat servers will handle this end-to-end encrypted data to deliver it to the recipient – or store it in the case of SG Chat data, we have no ways of deciphering the actual information. In this case, we neither store nor process your personal data, rather we store and process random sequences of symbols that have no meaning without the keys which we don’t have.
4.3. Retention
Unless stated otherwise in this Privacy Policy, the personal data that you provide us will only be stored for as long as it is necessary for us to fulfill our obligations in respect of the provision of the Services.
5. Processing Your Personal Data
5.1. Our Services
SG Chat is a cloud service. We will process your data to deliver your cloud chat history, including messages, media and files, to any devices of your choosing without a need for you to use third-party backups or cloud storage.
5.2. Safety and Security
SG Chat supports massive communities which we have to police against abuse and Terms of Service violations. To improve the security of your account, as well as to prevent spam, abuse, and other violations of our Terms of Service, we may collect metadata such as your IP address, devices and SG Chat apps you’ve used, history of username changes, etc. If collected, this metadata can be kept for 14 days maximum.
5.3. Spam and Abuse
To prevent phishing, spam and other kinds of abuse and violations of SG Chat’s Terms of Service, our moderators may check messages that were reported to them by their recipients. If a spam report on a message you sent is confirmed by our moderators, your account may be limited from contacting strangers – temporarily or permanently. You can send an appeal using @Spambot. In case of more serious violations, your account may be banned. We may also use automated algorithms to analyze messages in cloud chats to stop spam and phishing.
5.4. Cross-Device Functionality
We may also store some aggregated metadata to create SG Chat features (see section 5.5 below) that work across all your devices.
5.5. Advanced features
We may use some aggregated data about how you use SG Chat to build useful features. For example, when you open the Search menu, SG Chat displays the people you are more likely to message in a box at the top of the screen. To do this, we calculate a rating that shows which people you message frequently. A similar rating is calculated for inline bots so that the app can suggest the bots you are most likely to use in the attachment menu (or when you start a new message with “@”). To turn this feature off and delete the relevant data, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Data Settings and disable “Suggest Frequent Contacts”.
5.6. No Ads Based on User Data
Unlike other services, we don’t use your data for ad targeting or other commercial purposes. SG Chat only stores the information it needs to function as a secure and feature-rich cloud service.
SG Chat offers a tool for advertisers to promote their messages in public one-to-many channels, but these sponsored messages are based solely on the topic of the public channels in which they are shown. No user data is mined or analyzed to display ads or sponsored messages.
6.Explore
6.1: Friendships
Friendships is for the interaction between friends, to view the latest status update and share the beautiful happenings in your friend’s life. You may also meet more people in the comment section of your friend’s status by interacting with their comment or add them as a friend.
Users can delete their Friendship status. The status will be available for 7 days and will be automatically deleted after 7 days.
We do not store the data for Friendship in our server. When a user publish their Friendship status, the data is released through an underlying blockchain technology link, so if the server is being hacked, user information and data will not be leaked, and thus effectively protecting your personal privacy.
6.2:Headlines
The headline column is a free function for users to browse news media from all over the world. All the data has been reviewed by us to ensure that it will not bring harm to users. We use the RSS function of accessing news media websites, including titles/pictures and media URLs are all derived from the media’s own RSS. Users can browse news from all over the world without infringing copyright.
6.3: People Nearby
The person function in the attachment, the user can choose to open this function, and find other users who use SG Chat nearby, of course, these users need to enable this function to see it. Adding a user requires the consent of the other party, otherwise you will not be able to communicate with the other party.
6.4: Others
We have been working hard to provide users with more local services. These services are sure to be audited. These services are from third parties.
7. Third Party Payment Services
7.1. Payment Information
The Payment Platform for Bots is available to users as of SG Chat 2.0. SG Chat does not process payments from users and instead relies on different payment providers around the world. It is the payment providers that handle and store your credit card details. Neither SG Chat nor the merchants on the platform (bot developers) have access to this information. Although we work with payment providers they are completely independent from SG Chat. Please study their relevant privacy policies before making your data available to them.
7.2. Credit Card Information
When making a purchase, you enter your credit card details into a form supplied by the payment provider that will be processing the payment, and this information goes directly to the payment provider’s server. Your credit card information never reaches SG Chat’s servers. We do not access and do not store your credit card information. When you save your credit card info, it is saved on the respective payment provider’s servers and the payment provider gives SG Chat a token that you can reuse for future payments. It is not possible to reconstruct your credit card info from the token.
7.3 Shipping Information
When you enter shipping information in the process of placing an order, we send it directly to the merchant bot developer. We can store your shipping information for you if you choose to save it for future purchases. We will delete this information immediately if you ask us to.
7.4. Clearing Payment Information
You can clear all payment information associated with your account at any time by going to SG Chat > Me > Settings > Data Settings and selecting ‘Clear Payment & Shipping Info’. If you choose to remove your payment information, we will delete your stored shipping info and payment tokens from all providers and ask the payment providers to remove your credit card information that they store.
7.5. Payment Disputes
Due to the fact that SG Chat doesn’t store any credit card details or transaction information, it is impossible for us to handle complaints or cashbacks – any disputed payments are the responsibility of the bot developers, payment providers, and banks that participated in the exchange.
8. Who Your Personal Data May Be Shared With
8.1. Other SG Chat Users
Note that by entering into the Terms of Service and choosing to communicate with such other users of SG Chat, you are instructing us to transfer your personal data, on your behalf, to those users in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We employ all appropriate technical and organizational measures (including encryption of your personal data) to ensure a level of security for your personal data that is appropriate to the risk.
8.2. SG Chat’s Group Companies
To provide, improve and support our Services, we may share your personal data with: (1) our parent company, SingHot Ltd, located in Singapore. We will implement appropriate safeguards to protect the security and integrity of that personal data. This will take the form of standard contract clauses approved by the European Commission in an agreement between us and our relevant group companies. If you would like more information regarding these clauses.
8.3. Law Enforcement Authorities
If SG Chat receives a court order that confirms you’re a terror suspect, we may disclose your IP address and phone number to the relevant authorities. So far, this has never happened. When it does, we will include it in a semiannual transparency report published at: https://sgchat.org.
8.4. Translation of Chats, Channels and specific Messages at the Request of the User
Users can choose to translate a specific text message into a different language by tapping “Translate” in the action menu of the message (to enable this option, a user should first turn on Translation services in the Settings > Languages section of the SG Chat application). SG Chat Premium users can also optionally enable automatic live translation on any chat, group or channel.
Since SG Chat may rely on a third-party, Google LLC, subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, for automatic translation of messages, the text of any message or set of messages that users choose to translate may be shared with Google in order to obtain their translated versions. Google will only access the data to provide a translation and will not use it for any other Google products, services, or advertising.
8.5. Transcription of Voice and Video Messages at the Request of the User
Some users can choose to convert a voice or video message to text by tapping on the Voice-to-Text icon (“->A”) displayed on eligible messages (to be able to use this option, users should subscribe to SG Chat Premium in the Settings >SG Chat Premium section of the SG Chat application).
Since SG Chat may rely on a third party, Google LLC, subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, for voice-to-text conversion, the audio data of voice and video messages that users choose to convert to text may be shared with Google in order to obtain their transcribed versions. Only audio data may be shared for this purpose (no other data, such as the user’s IP address or any information about their account is shared). According to the agreement between SG Chat and Google, SG Chat will pay for the transcriptions on behalf of its users and Google will only access the audio data to provide a transcribed version – it will not log audio data or transcripts, and will not use the data for any other Google products, services, or advertising.
9. Your Rights Regarding the Personal Data You Provide to Us
9.1. Your Rights
Under applicable data protection legislation, in certain circumstances, you have rights concerning your personal data. You have a right to: (1) request a copy of all your personal data that we store and to transmit that copy to another data controller; (2) delete (see section 10 below) or amend your personal data; (3) restrict, or object to, the processing of your personal data; (4) correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold on you; and (5) lodge a complaint with national data protection authorities regarding our processing of your personal data.
9.2. Exercising Your Rights
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, kindly use the contact details in section 12 below.
9.3. Data Settings
You can control how your data is used (e.g., delete synced contacts) in Settings > Privacy & Security > Data Settings (using one of our mobile apps).
Sadly, if you’re not OK with SG Chat’s modest minimum requirements, it won’t be possible for us to provide you with our Services. You can delete your SG Chat account by proceeding to the deactivation page.
10. Deleting data
10.1. Accounts
If you would like to delete your account, you can do this on the deactivation page. Deleting your account removes all messages, media, contacts and every other piece of data you store in the SG Chat cloud. This action must be confirmed via your SG Chat account and cannot be undone.
10.2. Messages
In secret chats, deleting a message always instructs the app on the other end to delete it too.
In cloud chats, you can choose to delete a message for all participants within at least 48 hours after sending. Otherwise, deleting a message will delete it from your message history. This means that a copy will stay on the server as part of your partner’s message history. As soon as your partner deletes it too, it’s gone forever.
As of version 1.2.4, any party can choose to delete any messages in one-on-one chats, both sent and received, for both sides. There is no time limit. Any party can also opt to clear the entire chat history for both parties, in which case the apps will be instructed to remove all messages in that chat, regardless of how many messages are retained by either of the participants.
In supergroups and channels, deleting a message removes it for all participants. Note that deleted messages and original versions of edited messages from supergroups are stored for 48 hours after deletion in order to be shown in the admins log.
10.3. Self-Destructing Messages
Messages in Secret Chats can be ordered to self-destruct. As soon as such a message is read (2 checks appear), the countdown starts. When the timer expires, both devices participating in a secret chat are instructed to delete the message (photo, video, etc.). Media with short timers (less than a minute) are shown with blurred previews. The timer is triggered when they are viewed.
10.4. Account Self-Destruction
By default, if you stop using SG Chat and do not come online for at least 6 months, your account will be deleted along with all messages, media, contacts and every other piece of data you store in the SG Chat cloud. You can go to Settings to change the exact period after which your inactive account will self-destruct.
11. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We will review and may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on this page https://sgchat.org/sg-chat-privacy-policy/. Please check our website frequently to see any updates or changes to our Privacy Policy, a summary of which we will set out below.
CONTACT US
If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at: Cross Space Pte. Ltd.
Email: support@sgchat.sg
Cross Space Pte. Ltd.
29 July, 2023