Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 6, 2026

GoFiChat is made by Inersion LLC (“Inersion”, “we” or “us”). It is built so that your messages, contacts and activity stay on the phones in your rooms. We only receive messages when someone reports or blocks a person, and then only that person's. This policy explains what the app does with information on your device, what a report sends us, and what we receive if you email us.

The short version

Who we are

GoFiChat is made by Inersion LLC, a limited liability company organized in Indiana, in the United States. Inersion LLC decides how reports, the removal list and the emails people send us are used, which makes it the data controller for them under the GDPR and the UK GDPR. You can reach us at support@gofichat.com.

Information you enter

You choose a display name, an avatar and a color. They're stored on your phone and shared only with people in rooms you create or join, so they can see who is talking, and with phones nearby while a room on your phone is showing on Nearby (see below). Friends you add keep them on their phones (see Friends below). On iPhone, they and the list of people you've blocked are part of your phone's own iCloud or computer backups. On Android, the app keeps everything out of backups.

Messages and games

Chat messages, photos, voice messages, reactions and game moves travel directly between phones over Bluetooth Low Energy, your local Wi-Fi network, or Wi-Fi straight from one phone to another (see Direct Wi-Fi below). Each connection is encrypted with keys generated on the phones for that room (X25519 key agreement and ChaCha20-Poly1305). One phone in each room relays messages to the others and can read them, like any other member of the room. Which phone that is can change while the room is open. If a friend is too far from that phone, one or two other members' phones can pass messages along between them. They carry them still encrypted, so they can't read them. You can stop your phone doing this in Settings, with Pass messages along. When someone joins a room, the phone it runs through sends them the room's earlier chat with its newest photos and voice messages, so they can catch up, and older photos and voice messages when they tap them. To work out what's missing, the joining phone sends a summary of the chat it already has: counts, times and short hashes of message IDs, reactions and deletions, never what anyone wrote. GoFiChat does not upload or back them up anywhere.

Before a photo is sent, your phone redraws it at a smaller size. That leaves out everything else the file held, including where and when it was taken and which phone took it. A caption you add goes with the photo, to the same people.

Games send their moves to the room, and the room keeps how each game ended: where each player came, who gave up or was counted out (for leaving, or for not playing their turn), and whether everyone agreed to call it off. While a game is going, the room also knows when it last moved and who has asked to call it off. Air Hockey and Table Tennis send the puck's or ball's position and speed, with timing counts, many times a second while they're played, and none of that is kept. When someone leaves a room, the others' phones are told whether they left it themselves.

Odd One Out and Draw and Guess can play with the room's own words. A word anyone adds goes to everyone in the room, and to people who join later, with who added it and when, and each phone keeps the list with the room, unless Keep chat history is off. The last 50 words taken off are remembered, so an older copy of the list can't bring them back. Each phone also notes which words the room's party games have dealt and who was the odd one out, so the same ones don't come up again too soon, and a game's table passes the words dealt lately and the last two odd ones out to the others in it. In Odd One Out with typed clues, each clue goes to everyone in the room, and isn't saved with the room.

Each phone looks out for messages that tell someone to hurt or kill themselves. Before you send one, it asks once whether to send it anyway, and when someone sends you one, it shows a line under it offering Report and Block. The check runs on the phone, and nothing about it is sent anywhere.

On an iPhone where Sensitive Content Warnings or Communication Safety is turned on (iOS turns it on for 13 to 17 year olds), photos other people send are checked by Apple's Sensitive Content Analysis on your phone, and one it flags stays blurred until you choose to see it. The check happens on your phone. Its result isn't kept, and neither we nor Apple are told. Android phones don't have this check.

Rooms nearby

While a room is open, the phone it runs through announces it over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi so other phones can find it, with how many people are in it. Phones that have been in the room recognise it from a tag only they can work out. Nothing in the announcement lets anyone else tell it's the same room from one time to the next. Every room starts with Show on Nearby off, and only phones whose age check says 18 or over offer it. A room shows on Nearby only while the phone it runs through is one of those, and only those phones list other people's rooms that are on Nearby. If someone in the room turns it on, then for the next 10 minutes the announcement also includes the room's name, the display name, avatar and color of the person whose phone it's on, its 6-digit code and, while a game's table is open, which game and the first 16 letters of the name of whoever opened it, so people nearby can see it in GoFiChat and ask to join. Anyone in the room can turn it off again, or on for another 10 minutes. Phones that pass messages along for the room announce it over Bluetooth too, so it can be found a little further away. A phone that has lost touch with everyone else in the room keeps announcing it the way only members recognise, never with the Show on Nearby details, so the others can find it again.

If a phone with a different version of GoFiChat tries to join, the phone the room runs through tells it which version it speaks before it hangs up, and nothing about the room, so that phone can say both need updating.

To be found, a phone running a room, passing messages along for one, or showing your friends you're close by lets phones nearby connect to it over Bluetooth, and a phone looking for rooms or friends connects to the ones it finds. The phone's own system adds what it needs for those links, as it does for any app. That can include the phone's Bluetooth name, which the phone at the other end can read. It's often the name you gave your phone, like "Emma's iPhone". On a shared Wi-Fi network, an iPhone's announcement also carries the name it uses on local networks, which iPhones often base on the name you gave the phone. GoFiChat can't change either name. You can, in your phone's settings.

Friends

In a room, you can add someone as a friend. Nothing happens unless they say yes on their phone. Then each phone keeps the other on its friend list: their display name, avatar and color, the ID their app made, and a key for the two of you. The list stays in the app's storage on your phone, is never sent anywhere, and is left out of iCloud and Google backups. You can remove a friend in Settings, and blocking someone removes them too. The next time the two of you are in a room together, their phone removes you as well.

While the app is open on your phone and you're not in a room (the practice room with GoFi Bot doesn't count), your phone announces itself over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi so your friends' phones can see you're close by. The announcement holds no name, ID or anything else about you: only short codes that each friend's phone can work out from the key the two of you share. To anyone else it means nothing, it changes every five minutes, and nobody can tell from it how many friends you have or that two announcements came from the same phone. Your phone's own Bluetooth name isn't part of the announcement, but phones nearby may be able to read it (see Rooms nearby). It stops when you go into a room or leave the app. While it's on, and while you're alone in a room you've just started, your phone also looks for invites from your friends' phones, whatever screen you're on. You can turn it off in Settings, under Friends, with Let friends see when I'm nearby.

When you start a room for friends who are close by, the room's announcement also carries a sealed invite that only those friends' phones can open. It holds what the room's QR code holds (the room's code and what lets them straight in) and when the room was opened, so two friends who invite each other at once end up in the same room. It stops after 10 minutes, or once they're in.

Saved rooms and chat history

So you can open a room again and read its chat, each phone keeps its own copy of the 50 most recent rooms it was in: the room's keys, the names and avatars of the people in it, its newest 2,000 messages with their photos, voice messages and captions, its unfinished games and scores, and the room's own words. Photos and voice messages are kept as files of their own, and each is deleted once no saved room uses it. Messages, stickers, reactions and deletions you sent that hadn't gone when you left a room (up to 100, at most 8 of them photos or voice messages) are kept with it, and go the next time you're in it. The copy stays in the app's storage on that phone, and goes only to people in the room, when they join (see above). The app leaves it out of iCloud and Google backups, so it doesn't move to a new phone. You can forget a room from its screen, delete every chat in Settings (the rooms stay so you can open them again, and a room you're in keeps its chat until you leave it), or turn chat history off in Settings, which keeps only the rooms themselves: no messages, games, scores or words, and nothing waiting to be sent. Turning chat history on or off starts with the next room you open or join: the room you're in when you change it goes on as before until you leave it. Deleting the app deletes it all.

Other people in the room keep their own copies on their own phones. When someone deletes one of their messages for everyone, it goes from every phone in the room, saved copies included, and from the copy of anyone who was away, once they're back in the room with that person, or in the room when it runs through a phone that already has the deletion. Delete from this phone only stops a message showing on your phone: everyone else keeps it, and it stays in your saved copy of the room, hidden.

Your scores

Your phone keeps your best result at some games, and the days you played Today's Gumblox with your first and best score on each, so it can show your bests, your first try and how many days in a row you've played. They stay in the app's storage on your phone and are never sent anywhere. On iPhone, they're part of your phone's own iCloud or computer backups, like your profile. Reset my bests, in Settings, deletes them.

Other things the app keeps

Your phone also keeps your settings, the level you last picked for GoFi Bot, whether the app has said why it needs Bluetooth before your phone first asks, and the IDs of the messages you've reported (the newest 500) and deleted from this phone (the newest 5,000), so they stay hidden. It also keeps reports and block notices still waiting for internet (for up to 30 days), when it last told us about each person you reported or blocked, and the latest removal list (see Removal list below). Now and then, after a game with other people or a long chat, the app asks the App Store or Google Play to show its own rating prompt. Apple or Google decides whether it appears. A rating or review you leave there goes to them under their terms, as any store review does, and the app never learns whether you left one. So it doesn't ask too often, your phone keeps when the app first ran, the last few times it asked (three at most) and the version it last asked in. Apart from the reports waiting to go, all of these stay on your phone and are never sent anywhere. On iPhone, they're part of your phone's own iCloud or computer backups, like your profile.

Permissions

Reports and blocking

When you report someone, or block them, your phone sends us a report through gofichat.com, our website. It holds the reason you picked (a block notice says only that you blocked them), the person's display name as they sent it, the ID their app made, the room code, the message you reported if you reported one, and the last 10 messages your phone received from them, each with its time and ID. For a photo or voice message it holds only the caption, if there is one: photos and voice messages never go. It also holds what you wrote under What happened and the email address you typed for a reply, if you added either, the app's version, whether the phone is an iPhone or Android, the app's language, and when the report was made. It holds nothing else about you: not your name or the ID your app made. If your phone has no internet, the report waits on your phone and goes once it has, for up to 30 days. After you report or block someone, your phone doesn't send another block notice about them for a day. Nobody in the room is told.

gofichat.com passes each report straight to our support inbox as an email and keeps no copy. It counts the reports that come from each internet address in a minute, so that one place can't flood us with them. It uses the address for nothing else, and doesn't store it or put it in the report. We read every report within 24 hours, and use reports only to deal with abuse: to decide whether someone broke our Terms of Use, to remove them or their messages from GoFiChat (see Removal list below), to improve the app's safety tools, and to reply to you if you gave an address. We keep a report as long as we need to act on it and as long as the law requires.

You can report someone from a room you're in or from a saved room. A message you report is hidden on your phone afterwards, as "You reported this message" with Show to read it again; the list of reported messages stays on your phone. Anyone can send us a report by email, including parents and other people who don't use GoFiChat, and we handle it the same way. If a report shows apparent child sexual abuse material or a child at risk, we pass it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). If it's linked to the UK, we also pass it to the National Crime Agency, as the UK Online Safety Act requires. Elsewhere we pass it to the authority responsible, as the law requires (see our child safety standards).

Removal list

When we remove someone from GoFiChat, or delete messages, we add them to a list on gofichat.com. The app downloads the list when it opens, when you come back to it more than half an hour after it last got the list, and every hour while it's open, whenever the phone has internet. The list holds only a code worked out from each removed person's or message's ID (its SHA-256 hash), never a name, an ID or what anyone wrote, and asking for it sends nothing about you or your rooms. Your phone uses it to keep removed people out of rooms, to delete removed messages, saved chats included, and, if you were removed, to stop you opening or joining rooms and say so on the home screen. It keeps the latest list. Cloudflare handles each download like any visit to this website (see This website below).

If you email us

If you email support@gofichat.com, whether it's a report, a question or a request to hear when the app is out, we receive your email address and what you wrote. We use it only to answer you and to deal with what you raised. Cloudflare forwards mail sent to that address to the inbox we read it in. We delete these emails within 12 months of dealing with them, or sooner if you ask (email the same address), unless the law requires us to keep one longer, as it does after a report to NCMEC or the National Crime Agency.

Where reports and emails go

We're in the United States, so reports and emails reach us there, wherever you are. If you're in the UK or the EU, that means what's in them leaves the country you're in, for one whose data protection law is different. Cloudflare, which runs gofichat.com and forwards our email, handles them on our behalf under its data processing terms, which include the standard contractual clauses for data sent out of the UK and the EU. The company that hosts the inbox we read our email in stores it for us. We don't give reports or emails to anyone else, except to the authorities as described under Reports and blocking, or where the law requires it.

Install links

If you follow a room link to Google Play on Android, the link passes the six-digit room code through Google Play so the app can open that room after it installs. The code is useless once everyone has left the room, and the app reads it only until it's set up.

QR scanning on Android

On Android, the QR scanner is Google's ML Kit. The camera picture and the code it reads stay on the phone, but ML Kit sends Google diagnostics and usage data about the scanner: the phone's make, model and Android version, the app's name and version, an ID made for this install of the app, how long scans take and any error codes. Google says it sends this over HTTPS and doesn't pass it to third parties. It is described in Google's ML Kit data disclosure. On iPhone, QR codes are read by Apple's Vision framework on the phone and nothing is sent.

Direct Wi-Fi

If your phone and the phone a room runs through are both iPhones, or both Android phones with Google Play services, your phone can link to that phone over Wi-Fi, straight from one to the other, with no network in between. iPhones use Apple's peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, and Android phones use Google's Nearby Connections in Google Play services. An iPhone and an Android phone stay on Bluetooth or your local network. What goes over the link is encrypted as described above.

To be found, the phone the room runs through announces the short tag it already shows over Bluetooth and an ID made up for the room. An iPhone announces them under a made-up name, new each time it starts running a room; on Android, Nearby Connections puts them out under an ID of its own. GoFiChat on an Android phone linking to it sends only a fixed one-letter marker about itself. None of these says who you are. The phone's own system adds what it needs to make the link, as it does for any app. That can include the name an iPhone uses on local networks, which iPhones often base on the name you gave the phone, and the name an Android phone uses for Wi-Fi Direct, which is often the phone's own name. On Android, GoFiChat asks Nearby Connections to use its low-power mode. In our tests on an Android emulator, that kept Nearby to Bluetooth Low Energy and stopped it making the phone visible in other phones' Bluetooth searches. We haven't confirmed this on phones yet.

On Android, Google Play services may send Google usage statistics whenever Nearby Connections looks for or connects to other phones: how long finding and connecting took, how reliable and fast the links were, and the phone's model, country and Android version and the app's name with them. For GoFiChat, that's every room an Android phone runs with direct Wi-Fi available, and every time an Android phone in a room looks for a direct link, whether or not one is made. Google describes this in its Nearby Connections overview, and says you can turn it off in your phone's settings under Google, then Usage & diagnostics. GoFiChat sends Apple nothing about direct Wi-Fi on iPhones. Android phones without Google Play services use only Bluetooth and your local network. With Also connect over Wi-Fi turned off in GoFiChat's settings, a phone uses Bluetooth only, with no direct Wi-Fi and no local network.

Data we collect

Apart from the Google diagnostics above (QR scanning and direct Wi-Fi on Android), the app sends nothing off your phone except to the people in your room, reports and block notices to gofichat.com, and its request for the removal list. The only personal information we get is in those reports and in emails you choose to send us.

This website

This website is served by Cloudflare, which handles each visitor's IP address and browser details to deliver pages and protect the site from attacks. The site uses no cookies, analytics or ads, loads nothing from other companies, and we don't keep logs of who visits it, or of the app's reports and downloads. Because nothing on the site or in the app tracks you, a browser's Do Not Track setting changes nothing here.

Your age

When you first open GoFiChat, it checks your age. On iPhone it asks Apple for the age range on your Apple Account, and on Android it asks Google Play, which may ask you to confirm your age in the Play Store first. If the app store has no age to share, can't be reached, or you choose not to share it, the app asks for the month and year you were born. If it couldn't reach the app store and you're 13 or over, it asks the app store again each time you open the app, until the app store answers or you choose not to share. If you gave a birthday of 18 or over that way and Google Play then asks you to confirm your age in the Play Store, the app counts you as 13 to 17 until Google Play shares your age, and asks it again each time you open the app until then. Choosing not to share doesn't change this. People under 13 can't use the app.

The app keeps only the result (18 or over, 13 to 17, or under 13), the date of the check, whether it still has to ask the app store and whether Google Play has asked you to confirm your age, on your phone. If you gave your birthday and are under 18, it also keeps the month you turn 18, and the month you turn 13 if you're under 13. It doesn't keep your birthday or what the app store said, and it doesn't send any of it to us, to other phones or to anyone else. The app uses the result for the age limit, and to offer Show on Nearby, and list other people's rooms that are on Nearby, only to people 18 or over. For people aged 13 to 17, it asks the app store again once a year. On iPhone, the result is part of your phone's own iCloud or computer backups, like your profile.

Children

GoFiChat is for people aged 13 and over (see the Terms of Use). There are no accounts, and nothing anyone does in the app, children included, reaches us unless they report or block someone. A report holds the reported person's name and messages, and the email address of the person reporting only if they type one for a reply. If we learn that an email came from a child under 13, we reply once if a reply is needed, then delete the email and the address and don't contact the child again. If it was a report about a child's safety, we keep it only as long as the law requires so we can pass it to NCMEC, the National Crime Agency or the police. If you think a child under 13 has emailed us, tell us.

Your choices

Everything the app keeps is on your phone, where you can delete chats, remove friends or reset your bests in Settings, or delete the app to remove it all. The only things we hold are reports, emails you sent us, and the removal list, which holds no names or messages. You can ask us to delete an email you sent, or a report you gave your address in, unless the law requires us to keep it.

Your rights in the UK and EU

We handle reports and the emails you send us, and keep the removal list, because we have a legitimate interest in answering you and keeping people safe. Where the law requires us to report child sexual abuse, for example to the National Crime Agency under the UK Online Safety Act, we do it to meet that legal obligation. You can ask to see, correct or delete what we hold about you, to restrict how we use it, or object to how we use it, by emailing support@gofichat.com. We answer within a month. If you're in the UK, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). In the EU, you can complain to the data protection authority in your country.

Changes

If this policy changes, we will update this page and the date above. The update of October 8, 2026 added photo captions, messages waiting to be sent, how photos and voice messages are kept, the room's own words and what party games deal, typed clues, game results, live games, the check for messages telling someone to hurt themselves, Delete from this phone, what a phone announces after losing the others, what joining phones send, the new notifications, and that only phones whose age check says 18 or over list other people's rooms on Nearby. The update of October 9, 2026 added who runs GoFiChat, and that Delete chat history leaves the chat of a room you're in until you leave it. The update of October 11, 2026 added that turning chat history on or off starts with the next room. The update of October 16, 2026 added the store's rating prompt and what your phone keeps for it, that every room's announcement says how many people are in it, and the names your phone's own system can show to phones nearby. The update of October 20, 2026 added that the app asks the app store about your age again at each launch if it couldn't reach it, that a birthday of 18 or over given that way gets the 13 to 17 limits once Google Play asks you to confirm your age, what the app keeps for both, and that the room code from Google Play is read until the app is set up, not only at its first launch. The update of October 23, 2026 added that Report and Block send us a report through gofichat.com, what it holds and how long we keep it, the removal list the app downloads, and that the website uses the address a report comes from only to limit how many it takes. The update of November 6, 2026 named Inersion LLC as the company that makes GoFiChat and the data controller, added that reports and emails reach us in the United States and who handles them for us, added the right to restrict how we use what we hold, and renamed Ping Pong to Table Tennis.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data go to Inersion LLC at support@gofichat.com.