Roomie
Privacy Policy
This policy explains what personal data Roomie collects, how it is used, and what choices you have. It covers the Roomie apps for Android and iOS and the services behind them.
- Who it's for: Roomie is for adults aged 18 and over. You need an account to use it, and can register with email and password, Google, Apple, or Facebook.
- Your profile: Registered accounts need a username, first name, date of birth, gender, and photo before posting. Others see your age, not your date of birth. Adding your city is optional and is worked out on your device.
- Messages: Chat room messages and polls are stored and visible to the room. Direct messages from current app versions are end-to-end encrypted, so Roomie cannot read them unless someone in the conversation reports them.
- Voice and audio: Voice messages are stored on our servers; those in chat rooms and unencrypted direct messages are deleted after 90 days. Voice calls and live Audio Rooms run on Roomie's own servers and are never recorded.
- Notifications and devices: Push notifications go through Firebase Cloud Messaging, with tokens for up to three devices. Notifications for encrypted direct messages carry only the sender's username and the encrypted message.
- Advertising: Roomie is free and shows ads from Google AdMob in the Rooms and People lists, and sometimes a full-screen ad after you leave an Audio Room. The GIF picker may also show a sponsored result from Klipy. Otherwise, ads never appear inside chats, direct messages, calls, or Audio Rooms. Ads are personalised only if you agree, and you can change your choice in the app at any time.
- Other services: Google (including AdMob), Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Klipy (GIFs, memes, and stickers, which may include sponsored content) each receive the data described in Section 10.
- Safety: Registered users can report and block others, room hosts can pin and delete messages in their rooms, and site moderators can delete messages in any room.
- Deleting your data: You can delete your account in the app at any time. Your past messages stay but are shown under an anonymous name. Accounts that are never used are removed after an email warning.
1. Information Roomie collects
Roomie may collect the following categories of data:
- Account details, including username, email address, and password when you register.
- Profile details for registered users: your first name, date of birth, gender (male or female), and a profile photo. See Section 4.
- Optional location: the city, region, and country you choose to show on your profile. See Section 4.
- Account activity data, including when your account was created, when you last signed in, when you were last seen online, how many messages you have sent, and your settings (such as whether others may send you direct messages, whether your online status is hidden, and which notifications you receive).
- Authentication and session data, including the session cookie used to keep you signed in.
- Device records for each device you are signed in on (up to three per account): a device identifier, its push notification token, the platform (Android or iOS), the app version, the session it is signed in with, and when it was last used.
- Live chat and room activity, including messages, room identifiers, your display name, and related timestamps.
- Password reset and account verification records, including emailed 6-digit codes (stored in hashed form), temporary tokens, and expiry times. While you finish signing up with Google, Apple, or Facebook, Roomie also temporarily holds the details that service provided (see Data retention).
- Direct message data, including message content (stored in encrypted form for end-to-end encrypted messages — see Section 7), sender and recipient user identifiers, the sender's display name at the time of sending, and server-side timestamps recording when a message was created, delivered to an active session, and read by the recipient.
- End-to-end encryption data: your public encryption and signing keys, the history of public keys you have published, and a backup of your private keys that your device encrypts with your PIN before uploading it. Roomie never receives your PIN or your private keys in readable form. See Section 7.
- Technical data that your device necessarily sends when using the service, such as IP address, user-agent string, and request headers. Roomie examines user-agent strings server-side to detect automated crawlers and bots.
- Poll data, including poll questions, answer options, vote records (linked to user identifiers), the creator's display name, a unique share slug, timestamps, and whether the poll has been closed.
- If you sign in with Google, Roomie receives your Google account email address, name, Google account identifier, and the address of your Google profile picture from Google's OAuth service. If you sign in with Apple, Roomie receives your Apple account identifier and, on your first sign-in, the email address you chose to share (which may be an Apple private relay address) and your name. If you sign in with Facebook, Roomie receives your Facebook account identifier, first name, email address (if your Facebook account has one and you allow it), and your Facebook profile picture. See Section 3.
- Search queries and a customer identifier (your account ID or username) sent to the Klipy API when you use the in-app picker to search or browse trending GIFs, memes, or stickers in a chat room or direct message conversation. The media URLs you select and send as messages are stored in the database as part of the message record. The picker may also display sponsored content (advertisements) served by Klipy; to choose them, Roomie also sends Klipy your device type and model, operating system and version, screen size, language, and a browser-style user agent (see Section 8).
- User report data when a registered user submits a report, including the reporter's user identifier and display name, the reported user's identifier and display name, the selected report reason, any additional details provided, a creation timestamp, and copies of messages for review: the reported message, the reported user's most recent chat room messages (up to 10), their most recent unencrypted direct messages to the reporter (up to 10), and encrypted direct messages revealed by the reporter's app (up to 10; see Section 7).
- Room invite records when a host invites someone: the invited account, or the email address and name the host entered, the invite token, and when it was sent. An email invite can contain the details of someone who has no Roomie account (see Section 6).
- Block records when a registered user blocks another user, consisting of the two user identifiers and when the block was made.
- Feedback text submitted through the in-app feedback form (up to 2,000 characters), along with a creation timestamp. Feedback may be submitted by any user.
- Voice message audio files recorded and sent in chat rooms or direct messages. These files are uploaded to and stored on Roomie's servers.
- Audio Room participation data, including your role in the room (host, speaker, or listener) and a temporary access token issued for the live voice session. This data is held only for the duration of your connection to the room and is not retained as a permanent record. The audio content of your conversation is relayed in real time through Roomie's own LiveKit server and is not recorded or stored.
- Call records for one-to-one voice calls between registered users: who called whom, the call type, whether it was answered, declined, missed, or cancelled, when it started, was answered, and ended, and why it ended. These records appear as call entries in the direct message conversation. A temporary access token is issued for each call; the call audio is relayed in real time through Roomie's own LiveKit server and is not recorded or stored.
- Notification permission status and your devices' Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) registration tokens. The app requests the operating system's notification permission (granted, denied, or default). To deliver push notifications, each device's FCM token is sent to and stored on Roomie's servers, linked to your account, and removed when you delete your account.
- Advertising data collected by the Google Mobile Ads SDK built into the app: your device's advertising identifier (on iOS only if you allow tracking), IP address, device and app information, approximate location derived from your IP address, which ads were shown to you and whether you tapped them, and your advertising consent choices, which are stored on your device. Roomie does not send your name, email address, username, messages, or profile details to Google for advertising. See Section 8.
2. How Roomie uses information
- To create and verify user accounts.
- To authenticate users and maintain secure sessions, and to let you see and sign out the devices signed in to your account.
- To confirm that users are 18 or older, using the date of birth you provide.
- To show your profile (username, first name, age, gender, photo, optional location, and hosted rooms) to other users, and to list you in people lists once your profile has a username and photo.
- To provide chat rooms, room history, and online user indicators.
- To send sign-up codes, account verification and password reset emails, a welcome email, security notices (your password was changed, an account already exists for your address, or your account has no password to reset), room invites, a one-time reminder email if your profile is missing required details, an email confirming that your account has been deleted, and a warning email before an unused account is removed (see Data retention).
- To deliver, store, and display private one-to-one direct messages between registered users, including queuing undelivered messages and delivering them when the recipient reconnects, and to store the public keys and encrypted key backups that end-to-end encrypted messaging needs.
- To protect the service against abuse, spam, and repeated login attempts.
- To operate and secure the underlying infrastructure, including database and session storage.
- To allow registered users to create, vote on, and share polls within chat rooms, and to display poll results to room participants.
- To detect automated crawlers and bots by examining user-agent strings, in order to distinguish genuine visitors from automated traffic.
- To facilitate GIF, meme, and sticker search and trending content by forwarding a customer identifier and your search query (if any) to the Klipy API, and to store these messages in the database as part of chat and direct message history.
- To record and review user reports submitted by registered users, and to allow site administrators to investigate and resolve reported violations.
- To apply blocks between users, and to alert site administrators when a block is made so they can check for abuse.
- To protect users from fake, automated, and test accounts, including by limiting where an account is visible, automatically or manually, based on signals such as its sign-up details. A limited account may be left out of people lists, user search, and room member lists, and its chat room messages may be shown only to that account.
- To collect and review general product feedback submitted through the feedback form.
- To send push notifications (via Firebase Cloud Messaging) alerting you to new chat messages, direct messages, new Audio Rooms, and room invites, if you have granted notification permission. Message alerts are sent when the app is in the background or closed.
- To operate live Audio Rooms, including issuing time-limited access tokens for Roomie's real-time voice server, tracking your role in a room while connected, and allowing a room's host to manage participants (mute, remove, change role, or end the room).
- To connect one-to-one voice calls, including ringing the person you call on their devices (also when the app is closed) and showing calls in your conversation history.
- To let room hosts moderate their rooms, including pinning a message and deleting other users' messages in that room.
- To show ads that keep Roomie free, to limit how often you see the same ad, to measure ad performance, and to prevent ad fraud; ads are personalised only with your consent (see Section 8).
3. Google, Apple, and Facebook sign-in
Roomie offers sign-in through Google, through Sign in with Apple, and through Facebook Login.
- Google: Roomie receives your email address, name, Google account identifier, and the address of your Google profile picture from Google.
- Apple: Roomie receives your Apple account identifier and, on your first sign-in only, the email address you chose to share with Roomie (which may be an Apple private relay address) and your name.
- Facebook: Roomie requests only your public profile and email address. It receives your Facebook account identifier (specific to Roomie), your first name, your email address if your Facebook account has one and you allow it, and your Facebook profile picture. Roomie does not post to Facebook or read your friends, posts, or other Facebook activity, and the app does not send analytics or advertising identifiers to Meta.
- Each sign-in method is its own Roomie account. Signing in with Google, Apple, or Facebook never joins an existing Roomie account that happens to use the same email address; a separate account is created instead. Accounts that were linked to more than one method before October 3, 2026 keep working with each of those methods.
- The first time you use a method, Roomie holds the details it received for up to 30 minutes while you complete the sign-up steps. Your Roomie account is created and marked as verified automatically at the last step; if you do not finish, the held details are deleted. On older app versions, the account is created at the first sign-in and the app then asks you for the missing details. The first word of the name Google, Apple, or Facebook provides is used as your first name. No username is created for you; the app asks you to choose one.
- During sign-up, the app can offer your Google or Facebook picture as your profile photo, and Roomie copies it only if you choose to use it. After that, or on older app versions, when you sign in with Google and your Roomie account has no profile photo, Roomie downloads a copy of your Google profile picture and stores it on Roomie's servers as your profile photo. Google's generated placeholder images (an initial on a coloured background) are skipped. A photo you have already chosen is never replaced, and you can change the imported photo at any time. The same applies to your Facebook profile picture when you sign in with Facebook; Facebook's default silhouette is skipped.
- Roomie stores which authentication methods are associated with your account (local password, Google, Apple, Facebook, or a combination).
4. Your profile
Registered accounts have a profile made up of a username, first name, date of birth, gender (male or female), and a profile photo.
- Profile completion is required. Until your profile has all five details, you can sign in, view content, edit your profile, report or block users, and delete your account, but you cannot send messages, upload images or audio, react to or pin messages, create or join rooms, join Audio Rooms, or create or vote in polls.
- Age: Roomie is only for people aged 18 or over. Your date of birth is used to check this, and an account with a date of birth under 18 is refused. Your date of birth and gender cannot be changed after they are set; if either is wrong, contact us (see Contact).
- What other users see: Your username, first name, age (calculated from your date of birth — the date itself is never shown to other users), gender, profile photo, optional location, the rooms you host, when your account was created, and your online status (unless you hide it).
- People lists only include registered accounts that have a username and a profile photo.
- Profile photos are uploaded to and stored on Roomie's servers (up to 4 MB) and are deleted when you delete your account.
- Location (optional): If you grant the app location permission, the app uses your device's approximate location to find the city you are in. This conversion happens on your device; only the city, region, and country are sent to Roomie, never your coordinates. Your city is shown on your profile, next to your name in people lists, and on the People map, and you can clear it at any time.
- Online status: By default other users can see whether you are online and when you were last seen. You can hide this in your settings.
- Blocking: When you block someone, neither of you can send direct messages to or otherwise interact with the other, and you are hidden from each other's presence. Blocks are visible to site administrators, who are notified so they can check for abuse.
- Profile reminder email: If your account is missing a username or profile photo, Roomie may send you a single email listing what is missing. It is sent at most once per account.
6. Chat content and direct messages
Messages sent in Roomie chat rooms are user-generated content. Messages may be shown to other users in the same room and may also be included in room history returned by the application. Chat room messages are not end-to-end encrypted.
Room moderation: The host of a room can pin one message as a banner at the top of the room, which records who pinned it and when, and can delete any message in that room. You can delete your own messages. A message deleted by the host is shown to room members as removed by the host. Site moderators appointed by Roomie can also delete messages in any room and close or delete any poll.
Room invites: A host can invite people by username or by email address. Roomie uses an invited email address and the name entered with it to send the invite and let that person accept it, not for marketing. If you received an invite without having a Roomie account, a host entered your address; you can ask us to remove it (see Contact).
Polls are created by registered users within chat rooms. A poll's question, options, vote tallies, and the creator's display name are visible to all users in the room. Each user's vote is recorded by their user identifier and is stored in the database. Polls can be shared externally via a unique URL; when a social-media crawler visits the share link, Roomie serves Open Graph metadata (title, description, and a dynamically generated image) derived from the poll data.
Chat room messages are not automatically deleted by the current code and may remain stored until they are manually removed or the system changes. Roomie used to offer temporary guest access, which ended on October 21, 2026. The content of messages sent by former guest accounts has been erased; only the message record (the guest's display name, the time it was sent, and any reactions) is kept so conversations still read in order, and room members see it as an expired guest message.
Direct messages (DMs) are private, one-to-one messages exchanged between two registered users. DMs sent from current app versions are end-to-end encrypted (see Section 7). DMs sent before end-to-end encryption was introduced, or from older app versions, are stored as readable text and are visible only to the sender and the intended recipient in the app. The current implementation records whether a message has been delivered to the recipient's active socket session and whether the recipient has opened the conversation thread (read receipt). The conversation history API currently returns up to 200 of the most recent messages per thread; older messages beyond that limit may not appear in the UI but may remain stored in the database.
7. End-to-end encrypted direct messages
Direct messages sent from current versions of the Roomie apps are end-to-end encrypted. Each message is encrypted on the sender's device so that only the sender and the recipient can read it.
- What Roomie can read: Roomie stores the encrypted message and cannot read its contents, including any images or voice messages attached to it. Roomie can still see who sent the message, who received it, when it was sent, delivered, and read, and the approximate size of the encrypted data.
- Keys: Each account has an encryption key pair and a signing key pair, created on your device. Roomie stores your public keys, and keeps every public key you have ever published so that older messages can still be verified.
- PIN and key backup: To let you read your messages on a new device, your device encrypts your private keys with a key derived from a PIN you choose, and uploads that encrypted backup to Roomie. Roomie never receives your PIN or your private keys in readable form, and cannot recover your PIN for you.
- Lockout: After 10 wrong PIN attempts, the backup is locked permanently. The only way forward is to reset your encryption keys, after which messages encrypted with your old keys can no longer be read on any new device.
- Older messages and app versions: DMs sent before encryption was introduced stay stored as readable text. App versions that do not support encryption show a placeholder instead of encrypted messages.
- Reports: Roomie can only review encrypted messages if a participant in the conversation shares them. When you report someone from an encrypted conversation, the app tells you that their most recent messages to you (up to 10) will be shared. Your device then reveals the key for each of those messages, and only those messages; Roomie's server decrypts them, checks the sender's signature, and stores their readable content with the report for review. You can also include content in the details of a report.
8. Advertising
Roomie is free to use and is supported by ads served by Google AdMob, a service operated by Google. Ads appear as clearly labelled cards in the Rooms and People lists, and occasionally as a full-screen ad, which may include video, after you leave an Audio Room (at most once every few minutes). Apart from sponsored results in the GIF picker (see below), they never appear inside chat rooms, direct messages, calls, or Audio Rooms.
- What Google receives: the Google Mobile Ads SDK in the app collects your device's advertising identifier (on iOS only if you allow tracking), IP address, device model, operating system and app version, language, approximate location derived from your IP address, and which ads were shown to you and whether you tapped them.
- What Roomie does not share: Roomie does not send your name, email address, username, account ID, messages, profile details, or location to Google for advertising.
- Consent in Europe: If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the app shows Google's consent form before any ad is requested. You can consent, refuse, or choose by purpose and by vendor. If you refuse, you may still see non-personalised ads, which use limited data for purposes such as limiting how often an ad is shown and preventing fraud.
- Tracking on iOS: On iOS, Roomie asks for Apple's permission to track before using your device's advertising identifier. If you do not allow it, the identifier is not shared, and you can change this at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
- Changing your choice: You can reopen the consent form at any time under Profile → Privacy & Security → Ad Privacy Choices. On Android you can also reset or delete your advertising ID in your device's settings.
- United States: Under some US state privacy laws, using your data for personalised ads may count as "sharing" or "targeted advertising". You can opt out by turning off ad personalisation or deleting your advertising ID in your device's settings.
- Google's partners: Google and its advertising partners may use this data as described in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services, under Google's Privacy Policy.
- Sponsored GIFs (Klipy): The GIF picker may show a sponsored result served by Klipy. To choose it, Roomie's server sends Klipy your account ID, any search query, your device type and model, operating system and version, screen size, language, and a browser-style user agent. Klipy does not receive your advertising identifier, name, email address, messages, or profile details. Sponsored results are shown only when ads are switched on and your consent choice allows ads, and tapping one opens it in your browser. This data is processed under Klipy's Privacy Policy.
- Age: Roomie is only for adults, and ads are not directed at children.
9. Data retention
- Registration verification and password reset records are temporary and are deleted after they expire. Emailed sign-up codes and password reset codes last about 10 minutes, as does the token that lets you set a new password. Verification and password reset links, sign-up tokens, and the details held during a Google, Apple, or Facebook sign-up last about 30 minutes.
- Registered account records (including your profile details, location, and encryption keys and key backup), chat history, and poll data (including votes) are retained until removed by the operator or changed by future product updates, except for unused accounts as described below.
- Direct messages between registered users, including encrypted messages and their encrypted attachments, are not automatically deleted and may remain stored indefinitely until removed by the operator or changed by future product updates. This applies to both messages you have sent and messages others have sent to you.
- Voice message audio files sent in chat rooms or unencrypted direct messages are automatically deleted from the server after 90 days from the date they were uploaded, regardless of whether the associated message still exists. Voice messages sent in encrypted direct messages are stored as encrypted attachments and follow the direct message rule above.
- Device records are removed after 30 days without use, when you sign the device out, or when you delete your account.
- Audio Room participation data (your role and session token) is transient and tied to your live connection; it is not retained once you leave, the host ends the room, or the room's session time limit (approximately one hour) is reached. No audio content from Audio Rooms is recorded or stored.
- Call records are kept as part of the direct message conversation and follow the direct message rule above. No call audio is recorded or stored.
- Session records are stored in Redis and expire after the period of inactivity you choose (7, 30, 90, or 180 days; 30 days by default), or when you sign out.
- User reports, including the copies of messages stored with them, and room invite records, including email addresses entered by hosts, are not automatically deleted and are retained until removed by the operator.
- Advertising data collected by Google is kept by Google under its own retention policies (see Section 8). Your advertising consent choices stay on your device until you change them or remove the app.
The database automatically deletes expired verification, sign-up, and password reset records, normally within a few minutes of their expiry.
If you use the in-app account deletion feature, the current implementation deletes your registered account record from the database — including your profile details, location, device records, and encryption keys and key backup — deletes your profile photo file, removes your poll votes and blocks, ends your session, and sends a confirmation email to your registered address. Messages you previously sent in chat rooms and direct messages are not deleted: they remain stored and visible to other users, but the name shown on them is replaced with an anonymous label (such as "deleted_user_1a2b3c4d"). The same applies to polls you created. Direct messages that other users have sent to you also remain stored unless removed separately by the operator.
Removal of unused accounts: To avoid holding personal data we don't need, Roomie removes registered accounts that have never been used. An account counts as unused if it was created at least six months ago and nobody has signed in to it since it was created. Before removing an unused account, Roomie sends one warning email to the address registered to it, giving the removal date, which is at least 14 days after the email is sent. Signing in to the account once before that date cancels the removal, and you don't need to do anything else. Roomie checks again on the removal date and does not remove an account that has been signed in to since the warning was sent. If nobody signs in, the account is deleted in the same way as an in-app account deletion (described above). It cannot be recovered afterwards, but you can register again with the same email address at any time.
11. Security
Roomie uses password hashing, session cookies, security headers, request sanitization, and rate limiting as part of its current security controls. Direct messages sent from current app versions are end-to-end encrypted, and private encryption keys are only stored on Roomie's servers in a form encrypted with your PIN (see Section 7). Chat room messages are not end-to-end encrypted. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, so Roomie cannot guarantee absolute security.
12. Your choices and rights
Depending on your location, you may have rights to request access to personal data, correction of inaccurate data, deletion, restriction, objection, or data portability. You can also clear the app's stored data, including cookies, through your device settings at any time, although doing so may sign you out or reset parts of the user experience.
Profile: You can change your username, first name, and profile photo, add or clear your location, and hide your online status in the app. Your date of birth and gender cannot be changed in the app once set; to correct them, contact us (see Contact). Location permission is optional, and you can revoke it at any time through your device settings.
Advertising: You can change your advertising consent at any time under Profile → Privacy & Security → Ad Privacy Choices. On iOS you can allow or stop tracking in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking; on Android you can reset or delete your advertising ID in your device's settings. See Section 8.
Account deletion: You can delete your account from the Profile screen in the app. If your account has a password, you must enter it to confirm.
13. Age requirement
Roomie is only for people aged 18 or over. Registered users must give their date of birth, and Roomie refuses accounts whose date of birth shows they are under 18. If you believe someone under 18 is using Roomie or has provided personal information, contact the site operator so the account can be reviewed and removed where appropriate.
14. Changes to this policy
This policy may be updated from time to time to reflect changes in the service, legal requirements, or data handling practices. The effective date at the top of this page will be updated when material changes are made.
15. Contact
For privacy questions or requests, contact the site operator at info@mail.roomieverse.net.
Account deletion request: Request that your Roomie account and associated data be deleted.
Deletion policy page: How to request account deletion and what data is deleted or retained.