Username, email, a password hash (never plain text), birth year, country, gender (optional), interests and an "about me" text if you provide them. We also store the messages, photos, voice/video messages, and stories you send, so you and your chat partners can see them.
Your IP address is used for abuse protection (e.g. rate-limiting registration attempts) and is kept with your sign-in history, which you can see on your own profile. That is what lets you spot a sign-in that was not you and report it. The country and an approximate city are resolved from a database on our own server — your IP address is not sent anywhere for this. The city is approximate only: on mobile networks it often shows where the carrier is rather than where you are. We do not store precise coordinates.
Whether the other person sees your real name or an anonymous code ("Anon #XXXX") depends on who started the conversation first — this is app logic, not third-party tracking.
We use a necessary session cookie to keep you logged in. The home page (connectchat.eu) carries a Google Ads tag that counts which of our adverts bring visitors. Google stores its cookie (_gcl_aw) only if you press “Accept” in the bar at the bottom of the page; if you decline, no cookie is set and Google receives only a cookieless signal that the page was opened. We keep your choice in a cookie named cc_ads for 180 days, and you can change it at any time via “Cookies” at the bottom of the home page. The tag is not used for personalised advertising (remarketing). There is no Google tag once you are signed in, in chats, or in the app.
We use our own mail server to send emails (e.g. password resets). The home page runs a Google Ads tag (Google Ireland Limited), described under “Cookies”: it sees the visit to that page, your IP address and browser details, but not your account, messages or profile. We do not share data with any other ad network or analytics company. Country, approximate city and network type lookups use IP address databases from db-ip.com (licensed CC BY 4.0), downloaded to our server — no lookups are sent to them.
Moderators and admins may review reported content (messages, reports) to make decisions about rule violations.
Deleting a message hides it from the conversation but keeps it briefly available so reports can be reviewed. Deleting your whole account permanently removes it and related data.
You can review and edit your profile information at any time, and permanently delete your entire account and related data from your profile settings.
Passwords are stored only as one-way hashes; the connection is encrypted (HTTPS).
Privacy questions can be directed to the site administration.