Private Policy and Terms

Close Ties iOS and Android apps do not and will not display ads. Truth Honest Messaging Inc., the owner of Close Ties - Messages, Updates apps, does not share data to any 3rd party or use it to generate revenue. The only way Truth Honest Messaging Inc. generates revenue is by offering in-app purchases for these features: "one letter read receipt" to let you know exactly when the recipient reads your letter, "one additional letter send" to send one more letter after using all for today, and "unlock unlimited attachments" to send unlimited attachments in a conversation after reaching a limit. Both iOS and Android apps use Google Analytics library to track user's behavior solely for development purposes to help fix crashes and improve the app.

What we collect and how we use them:
• Phone numbers, Email addresses, and names that you used to log in to the app are collected only to create your account.
• Truths and their messaging data including images, audios, and location data that you send to another person are saved in the cloud in our backend server so that you can load them later in any devices at anytime. All messages and attachments are permanently deleted from our server when both sender and recipient leave the conversation. These data are not used for commercial purposes whatsoever and are solely stored for the users themselves.

How do we protect your data:
• Every time you send, receive and load messages in your device, the messaging data is encrypted/decrypted in the client side using 256bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) which is a standard of data encryption used by the US government to protect classified information. When you message someone "Hi", then that message is converted to something like "v61CcGTHwA4ETdzHMIulfvr7AtxsuhZNjwHnNmHgi5M=", and this result will be different every time for each user. This cipher text is practically impossible to decode without the secret encryption key that was used to encrypt it. When the data travels in the wire, it is always done via secure HTTPs connections. When the data is stored in the server, everything is encrypted once again (your data is double encrypted for extra security) using server-side encryption by Google in its Firebase servers. The correct Two factor verification via 6-digits code is required every time to access this double encrypted data in our server with robust authentication and security rules in place. We believe we have utilized the best security methods out there and not sacrificed on the ideal features such as being able to send messages to people without accounts with Close Ties - Messages, Updates and syncing data across all (both old and new) of your devices even if the original device is lost. We guarantee that no one, except for the sender and the recipient can see their messages (hackers and even us as the company cannot see anyone's messages).
• Your data has not and will never be used for any commercial purposes.
• Architecturally, we also provide limited power to clients such as iOS and Android apps so that they have to go through our secured backend server in order to perform changes to our database such as sending client-side encrypted messages, blocking someone, adding/deleting accounts, etc. to prevent malicious middleman attacks.

Terms:
• You cannot use this service for anything illegal as defined by the law of your country.
• You cannot use this service to bully or consistently harass anyone. You can easily block a person or unsubscribe to SMSs and Emails either in the app or by clicking Blocking and Unsubscribe Settings from the SMSs and Emails received from Truth Honest Messaging, Inc. .

Contact us at support@closeties.com for any questions, suggestions, or concerns.

Truth Honest Messaging, Inc.