MixTalk ("the app") is a cross-language chat and language-partner social app. This policy states item by item what we actually collect, why, which third parties receive it, how long we keep it, and how you can turn it off. This policy ships with the app and matches the version shown in the app.
Account data: email address, phone number, password hash; if you sign in with Apple or Google, also the account identifier and (where you allow it) the email address returned by that platform. Profile data: nickname, avatar, gender, date of birth, country, city, native and learning languages, bio, verification status and notes. Used to create and sign in to your account, display your profile, and match language partners. Kept until you delete your account.
Your one-to-one messages, group messages, voice messages, images and videos, moments and comments, and text messages posted in voice rooms are stored on our servers so they can be delivered to the recipient and shown as history on your devices. After you delete a message or view-once item in the app, it is no longer shown in either party's chat; whether the server immediately destroys the original depends on whether the conversation involves a user in China, as explained in section 18. Apart from the features you actively trigger (see sections 8, 9 and 10), one-to-one chat passes through a single prohibited-content rule match before delivery. That match runs entirely on our own servers, is not sent to any third party, and keeps no intermediate data.
We collect a coarse latitude and longitude, rounded to roughly one kilometre, plus the city and country name derived from them and the time of collection. Your device's full-precision GPS reading is used on your phone only to look up the city name; only the rounded value is uploaded, and we do not store precise coordinates on our servers. There are only two triggers, and both require you to tap: (a) you tap "Update location" on your profile page; (b) you choose to send a location from the "+" panel in a chat. The system permission prompt always comes first and you can decline. Declining does not affect chat, matching or other core features.
Your precise coordinates stay on our servers and are never handed to other users as-is. We use them for three things: to derive the city and country shown on your profile; to display a map pin on your profile whose coordinates have been rounded to two decimal places (roughly a 1 km grid square); and to weight the "nearby" list and recommendation ranking by straight-line distance, where the distance other users see is bucketed (under 1 km shows as <1km, up to 10 km keeps one decimal, beyond that it is rounded to whole kilometres). We keep only the most recent fix; a new fix overwrites the old one, and it is deleted when you delete your account.
You can decline or revoke the app's location permission in your device settings. In the app's privacy settings you can also turn off "show location on profile", "show city", "show country" and "auto-update location". With these off, no map pin is shown on your profile and you are not ranked by distance.
Turning coordinates into a city name is done by the BigDataCloud reverse-geocoding endpoint (api.bigdatacloud.net). The request is made directly by your device, so that provider receives your coordinates, your interface language and your IP address. The map image on a profile is produced by Yandex Static Maps (static-maps.yandex.ru, operated from Russia): every time you open a user's profile, your device requests a map image centred on that user's rounded coordinates, so the provider receives those rounded coordinates and your IP address. If the static image fails to load, an OpenStreetMap (openstreetmap.org) embed is used as a fallback. When you tap "open in maps", the app opens Baidu Maps (for users in mainland China or the Chinese interface) or Google Maps (otherwise) with the coordinates in the link. These services process data under their own privacy policies.
Several features are powered by third-party AI services. In the App Store (iOS) version, before any of your content is sent to these providers for the first time, the app shows a notice that lists what is sent and to whom; nothing is sent unless you tap "Agree and continue", and you can review or withdraw this at any time in Me → Settings → AI features & data. What is sent, by feature: (a) Text translation — message translation, translate-on-send (once it is on, drafts are translated in advance while you type), translation of moments and comments, and the Assistant's translate mode: the text being translated and the target language. (b) Grammar check on moments and AI writing help: the text you enter; writing help also includes the last few text messages of that conversation and, only if you turn on "Write like I usually do", a sample of your own recent sent messages as style examples. (c) Assistant chat: your message and the recent turns of that Assistant conversation, plus your nickname, city, country and native language so replies fit you. If you ask about the weather, your city (or rounded coordinates) is sent to the Open-Meteo weather service (open-meteo.com), which is not an AI service. (d) Images and files in the Assistant: the image or document you add, to read and translate its text. (e) Voice: see section 9. (f) Read-aloud: see section 10. (g) Companions: see section 11. Who receives it: text translation goes to DeepSeek (api.deepseek.com, operated by Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co., Ltd., China); if our server is configured to use Doubao instead, it goes to Volcengine Ark (ark.cn-beijing.volces.com, operated by ByteDance, servers in Beijing, China). Grammar check, writing help, Assistant chat, images and files go to Volcengine Ark (Doubao models). We never send your email address, phone number, password or precise location to these providers, and content you do not choose to process is not sent. Use: only to produce the result you requested; it is not sold, not used for advertising, and not used to train models of our own. Protection: the third parties with whom we share this data provide the same or equal protection of that data as described in this policy.
When you send a voice message with the translate-on-send switch on, or record voice in the Assistant, the recording is sent to Volcengine (operated by ByteDance, servers in Beijing, China): while you are still recording, the audio is streamed to Volcengine speech recognition (openspeech.bytedance.com) so the text is ready sooner; the recording may also be transcoded to mp3 and sent to the Volcengine Ark audio model to detect the language, transcribe it word for word and translate it. The transcript is translated as described in section 8 (DeepSeek, with Volcengine Ark as a fallback). The result is written back to that message and shown to you and to the recipient (in the Assistant, only to you). Voice messages sent with the switch off, and recordings longer than 60 seconds, are not sent to these providers.
When you tap text in chat to hear it spoken, we first use the speech engine already on your phone; that text does not leave the device. Only if the system has no voice for that language, the engine fails to start, or the language is one phones almost never ship (Uzbek, Kazakh) do we send the tapped line (at most 4,000 characters) to a speech-synthesis service: Chinese, English and other languages covered by Doubao 2.0 go to Volcengine Doubao speech synthesis (openspeech.bytedance.com, operated by ByteDance, servers in Beijing, China); Arabic, Uzbek and Kazakh go to Microsoft Azure Speech (*.tts.speech.microsoft.com, operated by Microsoft). This is not the same product as the Volcengine Ark chat/audio models in sections 8 and 9. Text you do not tap, and text the system can already speak, is not sent. We do not keep a long-term library of the synthesised audio.
Text you enter into grammar-correction and writing-assistance features is sent to the same provider. When you choose a photo to create or redraw a MixTalk companion, that photo is first sent to the Volcengine Ark vision model for a safety check (whether it contains sexual, violent or identity-document content; if it does, nothing is generated), and then to the Volcengine Ark Seedream 4.5 image model (ark.cn-beijing.volces.com, operated by ByteDance, servers in Beijing, China) to generate a Q-version multi-frame image; a failed generation does not consume quota. When you have new clothes drawn for a companion, its existing images are sent to the same image model to be redrawn. We send only what those features need, and only after asking for your consent as described in section 8; these providers give that data the same or equal protection as described in this policy.
One-to-one chats, group chats, moments, voice-room text messages, and profile fields such as nickname and bio are all matched against prohibited-content keyword rules: matching content is rejected outright. In groups with 6 or more members, weaker adult-content signals additionally raise a warning. These checks run entirely on our own servers and are not sent to any third party.
In one-to-one chat and group chat, if we detect that your device took a screenshot or started a screen recording, we send the other party (or the other group members) an alert containing your nickname and the time. This applies to every user, including to you.
When you open another user's profile, we record a visit (for the same pair of users, a repeat visit within 2 minutes only updates the timestamp and is not counted again). That user can see your avatar, nickname and visit time in their visitor list. Nothing is recorded between users who have blocked each other. Your online status and last-active time are also shown to others and can be turned off in privacy settings. Visitor records are deleted when you delete your account.
Push identifiers: the device token issued by Apple Push Notification service (APNs) or Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), used to deliver notifications; notification content passes through the corresponding platform. Device identifier: the app generates a random string locally for statistics and to limit duplicate registrations; it changes if you reinstall. Network and security logs: your IP address is recorded when you register, claim an invitation reward (Android version only) or request an SMS code, for anti-abuse and rate limiting. Usage statistics: sign-in method taps and successes, registration, first message, next-day return, plus crash and front-end error reports. All of this is stored on our own servers; the app contains no third-party analytics or advertising SDK.
SMS verification codes are sent through Aliyun SMS or Twilio, which receive your phone number and the code. Email verification codes (registration, sign-in and password reset) are sent through the email provider Resend (api.resend.com), which receives your email address and the code; if an SMTP server is configured on our side instead, that server is used. When you sign in with Apple or Google, the app passes your sign-in credential to that platform for verification (appleid.apple.com, oauth2.googleapis.com) and receives the account identifier and email address it returns. If you buy VIP in a store listing that offers in-app subscriptions (Android version only), that store processes the payment; we only receive the transaction identifier and expiry needed to turn VIP on, never your card number. This App Store version does not include in-app purchases. When an invitation poster QR code is generated, the invitation link is sent to the QR generation service api.qrserver.com.
We no longer collect identity documents, passports, education or income proofs: document verification was discontinued on 2 October 2026, and all previously uploaded document images have been deleted. Verification is offered only as "lightweight verification" (a verified phone number or email address), with no document upload at any point.
Data is stored on servers we rent. Because the providers listed in sections 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 16 are located in mainland China, Russia, the United States and elsewhere, the relevant data is transferred between those jurisdictions. If a conversation includes someone who registered or bound a mainland China +86 number (Hong Kong +852, Macao +853 and Taiwan +886 do not count by default), the message text, attachments and view-once originals are stored in mainland China and are not copied to an overseas node. After you delete or burn an item, both chats stop showing it; records that involve that user are still kept in China for at least six months for audit and to comply with lawful access requests. If an investigation or complaint freeze is in place, they are not deleted at expiry. Conversations where nobody bound a mainland +86 number may have the original text and files destroyed on the server after delete or burn, leaving only destruction metadata. Using a mainland China phone number, even with this app’s international build, means records may still be kept in China for at least six months. Only the most recent location fix is kept; visitor records, device tokens and error logs are deleted together with the account. Deleting your account removes your messages, moments, comments, likes, follows, blocks, notes, verification records, voice room and call records, referral records and visitor records (for mainland +86 users, after the retention period if no freeze applies).
We do not sell your personal information, we do not run advertising targeted using your personal information, and we do not use your chat content to train models of our own. The third-party providers listed in sections 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 16 do receive the data described there so that those features can work; they provide the same or equal protection of that data as described in this policy, and you can also read their own privacy policies. In the App Store (iOS) version, your consent is requested before anything is sent to a third-party AI service, as described in section 8.
You can view and correct your profile at any time; revoke location, notification, photo library, microphone and camera permissions in your device settings; turn off location display, online status, being searchable and being recommended in the app's privacy settings; withdraw consent to optional verification; and delete your account and data from Settings. Users in the EU, the UK and other regions have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, portability and objection, which you can exercise through the contact in section 23.
The app is intended for users aged 16 and over. If we find that a minor has registered without guardian consent, we take steps to delete that account and its data.
When this policy changes materially we raise the version number and ask you to agree again; the version and update date appear at the top of this page.
For any privacy question, contact us through in-app feedback or by email: support@getcrosstalk.com.