Guide
Privacy and its limits
What poqop protects
- No chat list. The app opens to a keypad. Each room opens with its own passcode, and there’s no list of who you talk to.
- Decoy rooms. A passcode you haven’t set opens an empty room that looks just like a real one. There’s no lockout after wrong guesses, which would give a real passcode away.
- End-to-end encryption. Text and photos are encrypted on your phone with a key for that room. Our servers can’t read them.
- No phone number or email. Your account is a random ID made on your phone.
- Blank notifications. Notifications don’t say who sent what or which room it’s in. You can change the wording to anything you like.
- Hidden in the background. When you leave the app, it returns to the keypad, and the app switcher doesn’t show the room.
- Screenshots. Blocked on Android. On iPhone, the other person is told when you take one, and the room is hidden while the screen is being recorded.
- Optional icon. You can switch to another plain icon in Settings. The app’s name stays the same.
What our servers can see
To deliver messages, our servers handle a small amount of information:
- Your anonymous ID, and which anonymous IDs share a room while you’re connected
- When each message was sent and read (kept no longer than 3 hours and 5 minutes)
- The address for push notifications, and whether you have Plus
We can’t see the content of messages or photos, your name, your phone number or your contacts. The app doesn’t record your IP address. For details, read the privacy policy.
What poqop can’t do
- Stop a second camera. Anyone can photograph the screen with another device.
- Hide that poqop is installed. The icon is on your home screen, even if you change it.
- Delete instantly from an offline phone. An unsend or a disconnect reaches the other phone when it next connects.
- Recover a forgotten passcode or a lost phone. Nothing is backed up to the cloud. You’d need to connect again.
- Tell you who someone really is. Only connect with people you know and trust. If you used an invite code, compare the safety code.
- Hide reported messages from us. If someone reports you, the messages they choose are sent to us in readable form, with their consent.
If something feels wrong, read Staying safe.