Privacy Policy

Last updated 26 July 2026

1. Who we are

Badger ("Badger", "we", "us") is operated by Demcko Limited, a UK limited company. For UK and EU data-protection purposes we are the data controller. Questions or requests: privacy@badgerchat.app.

2. Our approach

Badger is built to hold as little of your data as possible. Your messages and their media are end-to-end encrypted, so we cannot read them. Everything else we store is restricted to the people you choose to share it with. We collect nothing beyond what is set out in Section 3 below — the same limits bind us as everyone else on Badger.

Badger is also unlisted. There is no search, no directory and no suggestion engine, so we do not build a social graph of people you might know, and nobody can find you without you letting them in.

3. What we collect

• Account — your email address (to sign you in) and the display name and profile photo you set. Your email address is never shown to other users.
• Messages & media — the text, photos, videos, voice notes, files, polls and GIFs you send, all end-to-end encrypted (see Section 4).
• Location — your device's location, when and only when you choose to share it, and only while someone you have shared it with is looking at a map you appear on.
• Mood, status & status emoji — the mood, short status and emoji you set, shared with the people you choose.
• Activity (optional) — if you switch on Settings → Activity, your device's own motion sensor is used to work out whether you are walking, running, cycling or driving. The classification happens on your device; no raw sensor data is uploaded, and only the resulting label is shared, alongside your location and with the same people. Turning the setting off stops it.
• Contacts (optional) — if you use the invite feature, the email addresses of the contacts you select are hashed to check who is already on Badger. We do not upload or store your address book.
• Devices & encryption keys — a record of the devices you have signed in on, so you can name them, sign them out, and link a companion. The private keys themselves stay on your devices; we hold only public keys and encrypted key material we cannot open.
• Notification token — a push token so we can tell you about new messages.
• Diagnostics — crash reports (via Firebase Crashlytics) to help us fix problems.
• Ad interests — the interest categories you choose in Settings, used to show more relevant ads. You can change or clear them at any time.
• Subscription status — if you buy Badger+, whether your subscription is active. Payment is taken by Apple or Google; we never see your card details.

4. What is end-to-end encrypted

Your chat and group messages, and all media within them, are encrypted on your device and only decrypted on your recipients' devices. We and our infrastructure providers cannot read them. The keys live on your own devices and never on our servers, which is why a new device has to be let in by one you already use.

Your location, activity, mood, status, status emoji, display name and photo are not end-to-end encrypted: they are stored on our servers so we can deliver them to the people you share with, protected by access rules and encrypted in transit and at rest.

Extending end-to-end encryption to cover your mood, status and status emoji is in progress, and we will update this policy when it is complete.

Your location and activity are a deliberate exception, and we do not plan to end-to-end encrypt them. Badger updates your position from parts of the app that run while your phone is asleep or closed, and those cannot hold your encryption keys — so an encrypted copy could only ever be written some of the time, which would be a weaker guarantee than stating this plainly. Instead we limit what is collected: your position is requested only while someone you have shared it with is actively viewing a map, we retain only your most recent position rather than a history of your movements, it is deleted after a period of inactivity, and it is never used for advertising.

You control your location at all times: switch on Ghost Mode and you vanish from every map completely — your device stops requesting and stops publishing a position, the coordinates already stored for you are overwritten, and your stored activity is deleted. While Ghost Mode is on, no location data leaves your device.

5. How we use your data

We use your data to run the app — to sign you in, deliver your messages, show you and your chosen friends to each other, send notifications, and keep the service working and reliable — and to show ads, which keep Badger free. Advertising uses only the interest categories you choose in Settings; we never use your messages, precise location or identity to target ads, and we do not sell your personal data. Ads are non-personalised, so we don't build advertising profiles about you. Badger+ is ad-free, so none of the advertising described here applies to subscribers.

We do not use your content to train artificial-intelligence models, and we do not allow anyone else to.

6. Who can see your data

• The people you share with — you control this per conversation, and can stop sharing or hide your location at any time. Sharing is reciprocal: you see someone's location, mood, status or read receipts only while you are sharing your own.
• Google Firebase, our infrastructure provider, which stores and processes the data we hold on your behalf — your account, profile, location and mood, plus push notifications and crash reports — so the app can run. Because your messages and media are end-to-end encrypted, Google stores only the encrypted blobs of those and cannot read them.
• Protomaps, which supplies the map data (drawn from OpenStreetMap). When you use a map, requests for map tiles reach Protomaps. If you have switched on activity detection, Badger fetches one map tile covering the area around you and works out locally what is there (water, a railway, a footpath) so it can tell a boat trip from a train. Your position is never sent — a tile covers roughly two and a half kilometres, so all that leaves your device is which square of the map you are somewhere inside, and only while you are already sharing a location.
• Giphy (GIF search) — when you search for a GIF, your search terms and IP address may be sent to them.
• Google AdMob, which serves the ads that keep Badger free. To make ads more relevant we pass the interest categories you chose — never your identity, messages or precise location. Ads are requested as non-personalised, and as the ad provider Google may process limited technical data (such as your IP address) under its own policies.
• Apple and Google, if you sign in with them, and — for Badger+ — as the stores that take the payment, together with RevenueCat, which tells the app whether your subscription is active.

We do not share your data with anyone else.

7. Retention & deletion

You can delete your account at any time from within the app; this removes your profile, location, messages and related data. Group messages can expire automatically where an admin sets a retention window, or where you set a default auto-delete timer for the conversations you start, and location data expires on its own after a short period.

8. Your rights

If you are in the UK or EU, you have the right to access, correct, delete or export your data, and to object to or restrict its processing. Email privacy@badgerchat.app and we'll help. You may also complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

One limit is worth stating plainly: because your messages are end-to-end encrypted and we do not hold the keys, we cannot produce their contents in response to a request from you or from anyone else. There is nothing there for us to hand over.

9. Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Messages and their media are additionally end-to-end encrypted. Access to stored data is restricted by security rules to the people you have chosen to share with.

10. Children

Badger is for people aged 13 and over. You must be at least 13 to create an account, or older where your local law sets a higher minimum age. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13; if we learn that we have, we delete the account and its data. We do not show advertising to anyone we have not established is 18 or over.

11. Changes

We will update this policy as the app evolves and revise the date above. We will highlight significant changes in the app.