Privacy Policy

Who we are

Whisp is an app for students to send anonymous compliments to people at their school, vote in daily polls, and unlock clues about who sent them. It's operated by [Operator legal name] ("Whisp," "we," "us"), which decides how and why your information is used — in legal terms, we're the "business" or "controller" responsible for it.

You can reach us at downloadwhisp@gmail.com, or by post at [Mailing address]. More ways to contact us are in section 17.

What this policy covers

This policy covers the Whisp app for iPhone and iPad (the "app") and this website, whisptea.com (together, "Whisp"). It doesn't cover other companies' services, even when Whisp links to them — like Apple's App Store, which handles purchases under Apple's own privacy policy.

Using Whisp also means agreeing to our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. A plain-language summary of this policy is also available inside the app, under Profile → Privacy policy.

What we collect

Information you give us

• Account details. If you sign up with email: your email address and a password. Your password is stored by our authentication provider as a one-way scrambled ("hashed") value — we never see it. If you use Sign in with Apple: a private identifier from Apple, plus the name and email address you choose to share (which may be an anonymous @privaterelay.appleid.com address that Apple forwards).
• Profile details. Your first and last name, username, school, grade, the classes you add, and your date of birth. Optionally: a vibe emoji, hair colour, eye colour, favourite colour, interests, pronouns, and gender.
• Your preferred clues. Which clues you like to attach by default.
• What you post and do. Whispers and compliments you write; the clues you attach; poll questions you create; who you vote for in polls; your answers when classmates who joined without a code ask to be verified; and reports you submit.
• Messages to us. Anything you send us by email, such as a support request.

Information created as you use Whisp

• Your whispr balance and history (what you earned and spent, and on what).
• Which clues you've unlocked, which senders you've revealed, and the polls you've been picked for.
• Activity counts (like how many votes you've received) and the days you were active, used for streaks.
• People you've blocked.
• If you subscribe to Whisp Unlimited: your settings for the badge, ghost mode, aura and avatar ring.

Information from your device

• Notification tokens. If you turn on notifications, a token that lets us deliver them to your device, and whether it's an iPhone or iPad.
• App integrity checks. Apple's App Attest and DeviceCheck let our servers confirm that requests come from a genuine copy of the app. These don't give us your identity or your device's identifiers.
• Server logs. When the app talks to our servers, our infrastructure provider automatically records technical information such as IP address, the time of the request, and error details. We use it to keep Whisp running and secure.
• Crash reports from Apple. If you've turned on Share With App Developers in your device's Analytics settings, Apple may send us reports about app crashes. They aren't linked to your account, and you can turn this off at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements.

Information from other people and companies

• Apple tells us when you buy a reveal or a subscription — the transaction ID, what was bought, when, when a subscription renews or ends, and whether a purchase was refunded. We never receive your card number or billing address.
• Classmates provide information about you when they report something you posted, or answer whether you really attend their school.

What we don't collect

We don't collect your precise location, contacts, photos, camera, microphone, health data or your device's advertising identifier. There are no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting tools from other companies built into the app.

Clues, and what they can reveal

Clues are the heart of Whisp, so it's worth being exact about them. A clue is always filled in by our servers from your real profile — you can choose which clues to attach, but you can't type a false one.

The kinds of clue Whisp can show about a sender are:

• The first letter of their first name or last name, or how many letters are in their first name
• A class you share, or how many classes you share
• Their grade
• Their birthday month, or their star sign (worked out from their birthday)
• Their vibe emoji, hair colour, eye colour, favourite colour, one of their interests, or their pronouns

Never used as clues: your gender, your birth year, your exact date of birth, your email address, and anything about your purchases. (A star-sign clue does narrow your birthday to a range of about a month, and a birthday-month clue gives the month.)

Reveals. A recipient who buys a reveal, or subscribes to Whisp Unlimited, can see the full name and username of whoever sent a whisper or vote — unless it was sent sealed, in which case nobody can reveal it. Whisp Unlimited subscribers can also send with no clues at all ("ghost mode"). In every case, we still record who sent it, and a moderator can see that if it's reported.

Other students may also work out who you are from what you wrote or from context. We can't prevent that, so don't send anything you'd be devastated to be identified by.

How we use it

We use your information only for these purposes:

• To run Whisp — creating your account, placing you in your school, delivering whispers and polls, sending notifications you've allowed, keeping score, and showing the leaderboard.
• To create clues and reveals — filling in the clues you or the app choose, checking they're true, and showing them as they're unlocked.
• To check your age — your date of birth is used to make sure you're 13 or over. That check runs on our servers.
• To verify school membership — through join codes, or by asking classmates who already belong whether you really attend.
• To keep people safe — filtering harmful content, reviewing reports, enforcing our rules, preventing abuse, spam and fraud, and investigating misuse.
• To handle purchases — confirming them with Apple, making sure each one is used only once, and responding to refunds and cancellations.
• To talk to you — about your account, support requests, safety, and changes to our terms or this policy. We don't send marketing emails.
• To protect Whisp and follow the law — securing our systems, keeping records we're legally required to keep, and responding to lawful requests.
• To improve Whisp — only using totals and counts (like how many polls get answered), never by building a profile of you.

We don't use your information for advertising, don't sell it, don't use it to profile you for anyone else, and don't make decisions with legal or similarly significant effects about you by automated means alone. Our content filter does automatically block messages that break the rules — if you think it got one wrong, tell us.

Who can see what

Whisp is limited to your school. People outside it can't search for you, see your profile, or message you.

How we share it

✅We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for targeted advertising. We've never done either.

With companies that help run Whisp

These "service providers" process information only on our instructions, to provide their service to us:

• Google (Firebase and Google Cloud) — account sign-in, our database, server code, push notifications and app integrity checks.
• Apple — App Store purchases, Sign in with Apple, delivering notifications to your device, and App Attest/DeviceCheck.
• Netlify — hosting this website.
• Our email provider — when you email us.

To keep people safe, and when the law requires it

• Law enforcement and courts, when we receive valid legal process (like a subpoena, court order or search warrant) or believe in good faith that someone is in imminent danger of death or serious injury. Our approach is set out on our Safety page.
• The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, if we become aware of apparent child sexual exploitation, as US law requires.
• School officials, but only in serious situations — such as a credible threat of violence, a risk that a student may harm themselves, or severe harassment of a student — and then only what's needed to keep people safe.
• Others, where necessary to enforce our Terms, investigate fraud or abuse, or protect the rights, safety and property of our users, the public or Whisp.

Other situations

• If Whisp changes hands — in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets — your information may transfer to the new owner, who must honour this policy for information already collected. We'll tell you before that happens.
• With your permission, for anything else.
• Totals and counts that can't reasonably be used to identify anyone.

Children and teens

Under 13

Whisp is not for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. Every account gives a date of birth when it's created; one that works out to under 13 is refused by our servers. That's a self-declared check rather than identity verification, so if we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we delete it and the information connected to it.

Parents and guardians: if you believe your child under 13 has an account, email downloadwhisp@gmail.com with the username or school. We'll take reasonable steps to confirm the request, and where there's a credible indication the account belongs to a child under 13, we'll suspend it straight away and delete it.

Teens (13 to 17)

Most people on Whisp are teenagers, so it's built with protections that apply to everyone by default:

• No advertising, no ad tracking, and no selling of information — ever.
• Your profile is visible only to verified students at your school.
• No precise location, contacts or photos are collected.
• Your birth year is never shown, and your gender is optional and never shown.
• Purchases go through Apple, so Ask to Buy and Screen Time controls work as normal, and the app suggests checking with a parent before buying.

California residents under 18 can ask us to remove content they've posted on Whisp (California Business and Professions Code §22581). Email us and we'll remove it. Removal may not be complete if someone else copied or reposted it, or if the law requires us to keep it.

How long we keep it

We keep information only for as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy. Most of it lasts until you delete your account, which you can do any time in the app under Profile → Delete account.

We may keep information longer if the law requires it, to resolve a dispute, or to comply with a valid legal preservation request.

Your rights and choices

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• Access — tell you what personal information we have about you and give you a copy;
• Correct — fix information that's wrong (most of it you can edit yourself in the app);
• Delete — erase your information (you can delete your whole account in the app);
• Port — give you your information in a format you can take elsewhere;
• Object or restrict — stop or limit how we use it, in the cases the law allows.

We don't sell or share personal information for advertising, so there's nothing to opt out of — but if you ask us to opt you out, or your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we'll honour it. We will never treat you differently, or charge you more, for using any of these rights.

How to make a request

Email downloadwhisp@gmail.com with "Privacy request" in the subject. To protect your account, we'll confirm it's you — usually by asking you to email from the address on your account, or to confirm the request inside the app. You can also have an authorised agent or, if you're under 18, a parent or guardian make a request for you; we'll ask them for proof that they're allowed to act for you.

We'll respond within 45 days. If we need longer — up to another 45 days — we'll tell you why. Some information we may not be able to delete because the law requires us to keep it or because it's needed to keep people safe (see section 9); if so, we'll explain.

If we say no

You can appeal. Reply to our decision with "Appeal" in the subject line within 60 days, and we'll review it and respond within 45 days, explaining what we decided and why. If you're still unhappy, you can contact your state attorney general.

Choices inside the app

• Edit or clear profile details at any time — and remember, a blank field can never become a clue.
• Turn notifications off in Settings → Notifications → Whisp.
• Block anyone who whispers or votes for you, silently.
• Delete your account: Profile → Delete account.

Permissions, tracking and cookies

Permissions. The app asks for one permission: notifications. It works fully without it. It never asks for your location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone.

Tracking. We don't track you across other companies' apps and websites, and we don't use your device's advertising identifier. That's why the app never shows Apple's "Allow Tracking?" prompt.

This website uses no cookies, analytics, advertising or third-party scripts. Like any website, our host records basic technical information (such as IP address and browser type) to deliver and protect the site. If you switch between light and dark mode, that choice is saved only in your own browser.

Security

We protect your information with measures that fit how sensitive it is, including:

• Encryption of information in transit (HTTPS/TLS) and at rest by our infrastructure provider.
• Storing who sent each whisper or vote separately from the message, in a place the app itself is not permitted to read.
• Security rules enforced on our servers — not just in the app — for things like the age check, school membership and paid reveals.
• Limiting moderator access to reported content only, with every access recorded in an append-only audit log.
• App integrity checks, so our servers can tell genuine copies of the app apart from imitations.

No system is perfectly secure, and we can't promise yours never will be compromised. If a security breach affects your personal information, we'll notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

Where it's processed

Whisp is designed for students in the United States. Your information is stored and processed in the United States by our service providers. If you use Whisp from somewhere else, your information will be transferred to and processed in the US, where privacy laws may differ from those where you live.

California and other US states

California, and a growing number of other states (including Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Virginia), give residents specific privacy rights. Whisp gives the rights in section 10 to everyone, but this section adds the details those laws ask us to spell out. It also serves as our Notice at Collection for California residents.

What we collected in the last 12 months

We don't collect precise geolocation, biometric information, audio or video, employment information, education records from your school, or inferences used to profile you. The purposes for each category are those in section 5, and how long we keep them is in section 9.

Sensitive personal information is used only to provide Whisp, keep it secure, and keep people safe — not to infer anything about you. Because of that, we don't offer a "Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information" link: there's no other use to limit.

No selling or sharing. We have not sold or shared (for cross-context behavioural advertising) any personal information in the last 12 months, and we have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing the personal information of anyone under 16.

"Shine the Light." We don't disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing.

Outside the United States

If you're in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, data protection law requires us to tell you the legal basis for each use of your information. We rely on:

• Performing our contract with you — to provide Whisp as described in our Terms.
• Legitimate interests — to keep Whisp safe, prevent abuse and fraud, and secure our systems, where those interests aren't overridden by yours.
• Consent — for notifications, and for optional profile details such as gender. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• Legal obligation — where the law requires us to keep or disclose information.

You have the rights in section 10, and the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

Changes to this policy

We'll update this policy as Whisp changes, and the date at the top will always show when it last changed. If a change is significant, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect. If we ever want to use information we've already collected in a materially different way, we'll ask for your permission first where the law requires it.

Contact us

Questions, requests or complaints about privacy:

• Email: downloadwhisp@gmail.com
• Post: [Operator legal name], [Mailing address]

We read every message, and anything about a student's safety comes first.