Privacy Policy
Last updated 30 October 2026
Circlo is a private social network. It is built so that we collect nothing about you except what you share with other people, and our servers can’t read even that. This policy explains exactly what is stored, why, and for how long. Circlo is run by Zaheer Baloch (Bahrain), which is responsible for your data (“we”, “us”).
The short version
- There is no email, phone number or real name on your account: just a handle and a password.
- Your password never leaves your phone. We can’t see it or reset it.
- Your posts, photos, videos, replies, messages, profile and the names you give people and circles are encrypted on your phone before they are sent. We store them only in encrypted form and don’t have the keys.
- We don’t record IP addresses, location, contacts or device details, and there are no ads, analytics or trackers.
- You can export your data and delete your account at any time in the app.
What we never collect
| Never collected | How |
|---|---|
| Email addresses, phone numbers, real names | There are no such fields. Your display name is end-to-end encrypted. |
| Your password | Sign-in uses a protocol (OPAQUE) where the password never leaves your phone. |
| IP addresses | Not stored or logged by our servers. Repeated failed sign-ins are rate-limited using a temporary, salted value that is forgotten within a minute. |
| Location, contacts, device model, language, time zone | The app doesn’t ask for them. Location and camera details are removed from photos and videos on your phone before they are encrypted. |
| Analytics, crash reports, advertising IDs | No analytics, crash-reporting or advertising software is included in the app. |
| “Last seen”, online status, read receipts | Nothing records when you were last active. |
What our server stores, and why
Only what the app needs to work:
| Data | Form | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | A random ID, a keyed hash of your handle (not the handle itself), sign-in data that can’t reveal your password, and when you signed up | To let you sign in and let people who have your invite connect with you |
| Keys | Your public keys. Your private keys only inside backups encrypted on your phone with your password or your 24-word recovery phrase | So your people can check it’s you, and so you can sign in on a new phone or recover your account |
| Devices | A random ID, a public key, the push token (encrypted with a server key), when it was added or removed | To deliver to your phones and let you remove one |
| Connections and blocks | Pairs of random IDs, their status and time | To decide who can fetch whose encrypted posts |
| Posts, replies, likes | Encrypted content, padded sizes, times | To show posts to the people you chose. We can’t see who a post is for |
| Photos and videos | Encrypted files with random names | Media in posts and chats |
| Messages | Encrypted messages and chat membership by device | To deliver messages |
| Your address book and profile | Encrypted data only you (or, for your profile, your people) can open | Your names for people and circles, and your profile |
| Reports | Encrypted reports that only Circlo’s moderators can open (see below) | To act on abuse |
We process this data to provide the service you asked for (our contract with you) and, for reports and abuse prevention, because of our legitimate interest in keeping Circlo safe and our legal obligations.
Reports
When you report a post, a person or a message, your phone sends a copy of what you reported (for example the post’s text and photos, or a person’s name, handle and bio) with your reason and note. It is encrypted so only Circlo’s moderators can read it, and it is linked to your account. The person you report is not told. Moderators use reports to decide whether to remove an account and, where the law requires, to inform the authorities. Reports are kept for as long as needed for that; if you delete your account, reports you sent stay but are no longer linked to you.
Who else sees something
- Apple and Google deliver push notifications. They see that a device received a “new activity” notification: no names, content or counts. They receive your device’s push token. Notifications are only sent if you turn them on.
- Our hosting and storage provider (Hetzner Online GmbH, Germany) runs the servers. Like any network provider, it can see the IP addresses of connections. We have turned off access logging on our servers and storage.
- We don’t sell or share data with anyone else, and we don’t use it for advertising.
How long we keep it
- Messages and chat media are deleted from the server after 30 days (they stay on your phone).
- Media that is never attached to a post, or that belongs to a deleted post, is deleted within about a day.
- Everything else is kept until you delete it or delete your account.
- Deleting your account deletes all of it from our servers: your account, keys, devices, connections, posts, photos, replies, likes, chats and backups. Only reports are kept, as described above.
Your rights
You can see and take a copy of your data at any time with Settings → Export my data, which decrypts it on your phone and saves it as a file. You can delete your account with Settings → Delete account(see Delete your account). Depending on where you live you may also have the right to object to or restrict processing, and to complain to your data protection authority. Because we can’t read your content, we can’t search, correct or hand over content for you; the app gives you those controls directly. For anything else, email privacy@hellocirclo.com.
Requests from authorities
If we are legally required to, we can only provide what we have: whether an account exists, its devices, its connections and timestamps. We can’t provide posts, photos, messages, profiles or keys, because we don’t have them in readable form.
Children
Circlo is not for children under 16. If you believe a child under 16 is using Circlo, report the account in the app or contact safety@hellocirclo.com. See also our child safety standards.
Security
All content is encrypted on your device with well-established, standard cryptography, and the code isopen source so it can be checked. Your keys are stored in your phone’s secure storage.
Changes
If we change this policy we’ll update the date at the top. For important changes we’ll announce them on this site before they take effect.
Contact
Zaheer Baloch, Bahrain. Email privacy@hellocirclo.com.