Privacy policy

You don't sign up, give an email or hand over a phone number to use Banter. Each person picks a name when they join a room, and that name only lives as long as the room does.

When you join, your phone also tells the room a random id it made for this install of Banter. It isn't linked to your name, number or anything else about you; it's there so a host's ban sticks if someone rejoins under a different name.

Messages, replies, the pinned announcement, photos, videos, voice notes, PDFs, captions and file names are encrypted on the sender's phone with a key that only the people in the room have. That's true in rooms on a phone's Wi‑Fi or hotspot and in private online rooms (Banter rooms are the exception; see "Banter rooms are public" below). The phone running the room and Banter's server pass these along but can't read them. Room info shows a safety code: if everyone in the room sees the same code, nobody is listening in between.

To run the room, some things aren't encrypted, so whoever runs it (the host's phone, or Banter's server for an online room) can see them: who is in the room and their names, the room's name and picture, when something is sent and roughly how big it is, reactions, polls (the question, the options, the counts and, in polls that aren't anonymous, who picked what), anonymous questions and their answers (never who wrote an answer), game moves and scores, and notices that someone took a screenshot.

This section is about private rooms. Banter rooms are kept on Banter's server for longer (up to 7 days, or more if staff extend them); see "Banter rooms are public" below.

In a room on a phone's Wi‑Fi or hotspot, everything stays on the phones in the room. When the room ends (after 24 hours at the latest), its messages, photos, videos, voice notes and files are deleted from every phone in it.

Private online rooms go through Banter's server so people can join from anywhere. While an online room is open, the server keeps its latest 100 messages and the pinned announcement, in memory only and still encrypted, so people who reconnect catch up. Photos, videos, voice notes and PDFs are uploaded once, already encrypted, and kept in a temporary folder so everyone can download them; the server never has the key to open them. When the room ends, the server deletes all of it, and phones delete their copies too.

You can choose to save photos and videos people send you to your phone's gallery (Settings › Photos and videos). Those copies are yours and stay after the room ends. View-once photos and videos are never saved.

Banter rooms are public rooms run by Banter's staff, and anyone aged 13 or over can join from the app or from a web browser. They are not end-to-end encrypted: Banter's server can read the messages, voice notes and photos sent in them, and Banter can read them to keep the room safe. The app says so in the room. Everything else on this page about encryption is about private rooms.

While a Banter room is open, the server keeps its text messages, voice notes (up to 60 seconds) and photos (up to 2 MB, shown blurred until someone taps), so people who join later can scroll back. Voice notes and photos are stored on the server's disk. A Banter room runs for a day, 3 days or 7 days, and staff can extend it. When the room ends, Banter deletes all of it: messages, voice notes, photos, reports and bans (the record of moderation actions below is kept).

To keep the room safe, Banter keeps a hashed version of the random install id your phone or browser made (hashed with a secret salt, so the raw id isn't stored) next to the things you send. It is used to enforce bans and per-room blocks and to count reports. Anyone in the room can report a message or photo. Banter keeps the report, with the hashed install id of the person who reported, until the room ends. To count how many different people reported a message, Banter also uses the reporter's IP address, only hashed and only in the server's memory: it is never saved, and it is forgotten once staff deal with the reports or the room ends. Staff can see reports and the messages and photos in a room, and can delete them, mute people and ban them. Bans are saved so they hold if Banter's server restarts, and are deleted when the room ends.

Banter also keeps a record of moderation actions: what staff did, when, and the display name involved (for example, who was muted or banned). We keep it for safety and legal reasons, and it isn't deleted when the room ends.

Banter staff sign in to the admin page with an email link. That keeps their email address and a record of what they did (an audit log). Visitors to a Banter room never need an account or an email.

A laptop on the same Wi‑Fi or hotspot can join a room on a phone by opening http://banter.local:8080. That page comes straight from a phone in the room over your local network, not from the internet, and the browser encrypts and decrypts messages the same way the app does. Because the page itself isn't sent over https, only join from a computer on Wi‑Fi you trust, and compare the safety code with someone's phone. Rooms that block screenshots can't be joined from a computer.

Banter only uses your location if you turn on "Find rooms near me" or choose to list an online room as nearby. Even then your position is rounded to about 110 metres, enough to spot a room at the same venue, not enough to find a person. Rough locations aren't kept after the room ends.

If you turn on "Share usage counts" in Settings, Banter sends daily totals: how many messages were sent, photos shared, games played and so on. These totals are tied to a random install id, not to you. There are no names, no message contents and no room names in them. You can switch this off any time in Settings.

If you turn on "Send crash reports" in Settings, Banter sends crash reports to Sentry when something breaks in a release build. A report can include the error, a stack trace, the app version and which screen you were on. It never includes your name, messages or room names. You can switch this off any time in Settings. Sentry processes this data for us under its own privacy policy.

Banter's server sends its own crash reports to Sentry too, when something breaks on the server. Those have request contents, invite links, keys and tokens removed before they're sent, and never include chat messages.

If you activate a licence key (for example to unlock games), it's tied to a random install id (the same kind used for usage counts) so one key can't be shared forever. That link is just an activation, not an identity.

This site uses Vercel Web Analytics: page views and visitor counts, no cookies and no personal profiles.

If you put your email in the "Notify me" box, it goes on Banter's contact list, with what you'd use Banter for and your phone if you tell us. We use it to email you about the launch and Banter news, sent through Resend. Every email has a one-tap unsubscribe link. Nothing else: we don't sell it or share it. Ask us to delete it any time and we will, at dahcrowntechnologies@gmail.com.

Banter asks for a few permissions, and each one has a job:

• Camera and photos so you can send snaps, videos and PDFs.
• Microphone so you can record videos and voice notes with sound.
• Local network and nearby Wi‑Fi devices so your phone can host or find a room on Wi‑Fi or its own hotspot, with no internet needed, and so computers on the same Wi‑Fi can join.
• Location (Android) for hotspot and Wi‑Fi rules, and for nearby rooms if you turn that on.
• Notifications so you hear about replies, tags and announcements when you're not looking at the app.

Banter isn't made for children under 13, and Banter rooms are for ages 13 and over. Some game packs are 18+ and spicy; the person starting the game has to confirm they're old enough before it can be played.

If this policy changes in a big way, we'll say so in the app or on this page. For anything about your privacy, email dahcrowntechnologies@gmail.com and a human will reply.

Written in plain English on purpose. It should still be reviewed by a lawyer before Banter goes on the app stores.