Privacy Policy

01Who we are

SIGLINK is a messaging app for iPhone and Mac, operated by WW Ventures Ltd, 440 N Wolfe Rd, Sunnyvale, CA 94085, USA (sitrep.us), referred to here as “we” or “us”. This policy covers the SIGLINK app and these SIGLINK web pages.

For any privacy question or request, email cn@sitrep.us or use the enquiry form and mention SIGLINK.

02What we never collect

No phone number, and your address book is never uploaded (see Finding contacts below). SIGLINK sees only the photos you choose to send, not the rest of your library. No advertising identifiers, no analytics SDKs and no third-party trackers. The app cannot read your device’s IMEI or serial number, and does not try to.

03Your account

You sign in once with your email address, using a one-time link or code. We store your email, your callsign, the devices you have linked to your account, and whether you asked for product news.

We use your email to run your account, answer support requests and tell you about important changes to the service. Product news is sent only if you opt in, and you can opt out at any time.

Apple does not tell us who bought SIGLINK or Extended Reach. Your account is the only link between you and your purchases.

04How your device is identified

On first launch SIGLINK creates a random identifier and keeps it in the device’s Keychain, so it survives reinstalling the app. It is not your phone number or a hardware serial.

From it the app derives a callsign such as RAVEN-2 and a colour. You can change the name and add a tagline. The identifier, callsign, colour, tagline and your public encryption key are kept in our device directory so people can recognise and reach you.

Profile photo, if you add one. A small square image goes to people you are linked with and is stored with your account, so the admins of any organisation you belong to can see it in SIGLINK Console. It is never in the public directory. It is removed when you remove it or delete your account.

05Your messages

Direct and mesh. When people are nearby, messages travel device to device over peer-to-peer WiFi or a shared WiFi network, hopping through other SIGLINK devices when needed. No server is involved.

SIGLINK also uses Bluetooth, even while the app is in the background, to pass short encrypted messages, delivery receipts and reactions to devices nearby with no internet, including messages for other people. While it does, your device advertises that it is running SIGLINK, so anyone nearby with a Bluetooth scanner can tell SIGLINK is in use. To stop using Bluetooth, turn off SIGLINK’s Bluetooth access in your device’s Settings.

To show you as in range, SIGLINK also announces your random identifier over Bluetooth. Switch off Show When I’m in Range to stop these announcements.

Only the messages themselves are encrypted on these Bluetooth links. Anyone nearby with the right equipment could read who sent a message, including their identifier and callsign, who it is for and when it was sent, as well as receipts and reactions. They can’t read the message itself.

Internet relay. When Internet Relay is on and a message can’t go directly, it passes through our relay to reach someone out of range.

Mailbox. If the recipient’s app is closed, the encrypted message waits in their mailbox on our server for up to 30 days and is deleted from the server once collected. We then wake their device with a notification through Apple’s push service. The notification shows the sender’s callsign, not the message.

Turning Internet Relay off limits SIGLINK to direct, Bluetooth and mesh messaging. Nothing goes through our servers or is held for you. While the app is in the background you can then receive only short messages from devices nearby over Bluetooth, and nothing at all if the app was swiped away from the app switcher.

06End-to-end encryption

Each device creates its own encryption key, and the private half never leaves your devices except inside your own encrypted backup. Text, voice and photo messages are encrypted on your device for each recipient, so the phones and Macs relaying them, our relay and the mailbox carry only content they cannot read.

What relaying devices and our servers can still see:

• who a message is for, when it was sent and its size;
• delivery and read receipts, reactions and typing indicators;
• location updates, if you share your location (see below).

A message to someone whose key isn’t known yet, for example someone on an older version of SIGLINK, is sent without end-to-end encryption, and the app marks it with an open lock. Scanning each other’s SIGLINK code in person verifies that a key really belongs to that person.

07Voice messages and photos

The microphone is used while you hold the record button to send a voice message. Voice clips are encrypted end to end like text and stored on your device with the chat.

Photos you send are encrypted end to end like text and stored on your device with the chat. Location metadata is removed before sending. Like voice messages, they can wait in the mailbox for up to 30 days.

Reactions are delivered the same way as messages, including through the mailbox. Relaying devices and our servers can see them, as noted above.

08Voice and video calls

When the other person is nearby, a call connects your device directly to theirs over peer-to-peer WiFi, with no internet needed. Audio and video are encrypted on that direct link.

Otherwise the call goes over the internet. To ring their device, our server asks Apple’s push service to wake it, sending your callsign and the call type. The two apps then set up the call through our relay. The connection details are encrypted end to end, so the relay sees only that a call is being set up. Google’s public STUN servers tell each device its own internet address so the devices can connect to each other. They see those addresses but never the call. Audio and video are encrypted end to end. Internet calls show in your device’s call history like other calls.

Either way, call audio and video travel directly between the two devices. They never pass through our servers, and no one records or stores them.

The microphone is used during calls, and the camera during video calls. The camera is otherwise used only to scan SIGLINK codes, to add people and verify their keys. Images from code scanning are not stored or sent.

09Your location

Location sharing is off until you turn it on. SIGLINK asks you once, the first time you open it, and you can change your mind at any time on the Radar tab. While it is off, or if you decline location access, nothing about your position is sent.

When it is on, your position goes to devices directly connected to you and, if Internet Relay is on, through our relay to people you have conversations with, so you appear on their Radar map. It is shared only while SIGLINK is open, about every ten seconds, and stops when you leave the app.

Location updates are encrypted in transit but are not end-to-end encrypted. They are not stored in the mailbox or forwarded across the mesh, and we do not keep a history of where you have been.

Sharing with your organisation. If you belong to a SIGLINK organisation, you can opt in to sharing your position with it. While this and location sharing are both on, your latest position goes to our server about once a minute, and only that organisation’s admins see it, on the SIGLINK Console map. We keep the latest position only. It is deleted when you stop sharing, and anything older than 7 days is dropped.

What your organisation’s admins see. If you belong to a SIGLINK organisation, its admins can see your email, callsign, profile photo and role, how many devices you use and when one last checked in. They cannot read your messages or see your contacts. Any beacons the organisation adds are shown to its admins on the same map.

10Finding contacts and inviting friends

If you choose Find My Contacts, SIGLINK asks for access to your contacts, then scrambles (hashes) their email addresses on your device and sends only the hashes to our server. The server compares them against SIGLINK accounts and returns the matches. It does not store them, and names and phone numbers never leave your device.

Someone who has your SIGLINK email in their contacts can see that you use SIGLINK, with your callsign. Turn off Let Contacts Find Me in Settings to prevent this.

If you join with an invite code, we record who invited you. The person who invited you can see how many people joined with their code, not who they are.

11Usage statistics

To understand how SIGLINK is used, we count how many devices are active each day and how many messages pass through our mailbox each day. These are totals, with nothing about any one person, and do not include message content or traffic on the mesh. We also use your account’s sign-up date, platform and last-seen time to see how many accounts are active. We use no third-party analytics or advertising tools.

12Notifications

If you allow notifications, Apple gives the app a push token that lets our server wake your device when a message is waiting. A separate call token lets it ring your device for an incoming call. We store these tokens with your device identifier and use them for nothing else.

13Where your chats live

Chat history, voice clips and photos are kept on your device in storage only SIGLINK can read, and are excluded from iCloud and computer backups.

If you lose or wipe a device without SIGLINK’s own backup turned on, those messages are gone. We cannot recover them because we never had them.

14Encrypted backup, if you choose it

Backup is off by default. When you turn it on, your conversations, messages and contacts are encrypted on your device with a key kept in your iCloud Keychain, before anything is uploaded. We store only the encrypted copy and cannot read it.

Settings shows a recovery key. If you lose both your devices and your iCloud Keychain, it is the only way to open the backup, and we cannot reset it. Turning backup off deletes the stored copy.

15Service providers

We use a small number of providers to run SIGLINK. Each handles data only to provide its service to us:

• Supabase — hosts our database, relay, mailbox and backups, in Singapore;
• Brevo — sends sign-in emails;
• Apple — App Store purchases, push notifications, call ringing and iCloud Keychain;
• Google — public STUN servers that help devices connect for internet calls;
• Vercel — hosts these web pages.

If you are in the UK or the EU, your account, device record and any waiting mailbox messages are transferred to Singapore under our providers’ standard data-protection terms. We do not sell personal data or share it for advertising.

16These web pages

The SIGLINK pages on sitrep.us set no cookies and run no analytics. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which receives your IP address when your browser fetches them. Our hosting provider keeps short-lived server logs for security and reliability.

If you send an enquiry through the sitrep.us form, we use what you send to reply to you.

17How long we keep data

• Account, device record and profile photo: until you delete your account;
• Team position, if you share it: the latest position only, until you stop sharing, and never more than 7 days;
• Mailbox messages: until collected, and never more than 30 days;
• Encrypted backup: until you turn backup off or delete your account;
• Push and call tokens: until replaced or your device record is removed.

18Deleting your data and your rights

Delete Chats (Settings → Backup → Delete Chats), or long-pressing a chat, permanently deletes that conversation from your device. Each delete is confirmed with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode.

Delete Account (Settings → Account) permanently removes your account, email and encrypted backup from our servers. To also remove your device record and mailbox, send us the Support ID shown in Settings through the enquiry form.

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or export your personal data, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to complain to your data-protection authority. Contact us and we will respond within the time the law requires.

19Children

SIGLINK lets people near each other message and can show nearby people on a map. It is not designed for children, and must not be used by anyone below the age shown on its App Store listing.

20Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date above. If a change materially affects how we use your data, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.