Privacy Policy

Effective date: 8 November 2026

In short

We can't read your messages, photos, voice notes, groups, statuses or calls. They're end-to-end encrypted, and usually travel directly between phones.
We don't ask for your phone number, never upload your address book, show no ads, use no trackers, and never sell data.
Our server handles only what it needs to connect phones: your Wasla ID, which IDs you're connected to, a notification token, and, if you choose, a scrambled fingerprint of your emails.
You can delete your account and its server data at any time from the app.

Who we are
What we never collect
Information we handle
What stays on your phone
Service providers
Legal bases
International transfers
Your rights and choices
Deleting your account
Children
Security
Changes to this policy
Contact us

1. Who we are

Wasla ("Wasla", "we", "us") is a private messaging app for iPhone and Android, developed and operated by Ahmed Bassiouny, an independent developer. We are the data controller for the limited information described below.

Questions about privacy: privacy@waslachat.app.

2. What we never collect

The content of your messages, photos, voice notes, statuses, or voice and video calls.
Your phone number (Wasla doesn't need one) or your address book.
Your name, profile photo and about line. They're shared only with your contacts, end-to-end encrypted.
Your voice. When Wasla turns a voice note into text, it happens on your phone only: the audio is never sent to us, Apple, Google or anyone else. You can use your phone's own speech recognition, or download a speech model (Whisper) that then runs on your phone. The text travels end-to-end encrypted with the voice note, or instead of it if you choose.
Your location, advertising identifiers, or browsing activity. If you share a location in a chat, it goes end-to-end encrypted to that person only, like any message: our server never sees it. If you turn on prayer times, your phone reads its location once, rounds it to about a kilometre and keeps it encrypted on the phone to compute the times; it is never sent to us. The town named next to your times is picked on your phone from a list inside the app, never by a lookup.
Your groups. Who is in a group, what is said in it and who reacted to what exists only on the members' phones, signed and encrypted. Our server has no record that a group exists: it only connects the members' phones, as it does for contacts.
Your notes, to-do lists and reminders. "My notes" never leaves your phone; a reminder is a notification your own phone schedules.
Any data for advertising or profiling. Wasla has no ads and no analytics trackers, and we never sell or rent data.

3. Information we handle

Wasla's server helps phones find each other and delivers notifications. To do that, it processes the following:

Information	Why	How long
Your Wasla ID, a random public key created on your phone. It contains nothing about who you are.	To sign you in securely and route connections to you.	While you use Wasla.
Your connections: the Wasla IDs you've added as contacts.	So messages, calls and your online status pass only between people who added each other.	Removed 7 days after you stop using Wasla, or immediately when you delete your account.
Online status	To show your contacts (only them) that you're online.	Held in memory for about 90 seconds at a time.
Notification tokens issued by Apple, Google or Expo for your device.	To ring your phone for calls and alert you to new messages.	Up to 60 days, or until you delete your account.
Sealed items waiting for you: contact requests sent while you were offline, and "someone has a message for you" markers (these contain no message content). When you tap a photo that is still on a contact's phone, the same kind of marker is kept so their phone can be woken.	To deliver them when you come back online, or to wake the other phone.	Requests up to 7 days, markers up to 24 hours, or until delivered.
Group members' Wasla IDs: the server connects the phones of people in a group together, the way it connects contacts. It does not know they form a group, the group's name, or anything said in it.	So members' phones can reach each other directly.	Like connections: removed 7 days after the phones stop listing each other.
Connection setup for fetch on arrival: when your app is closed and you get a preview of a photo, voice note or document, your phone and your contact's phone exchange a connection offer and answer through our server (network addresses, no content), then the item goes directly from their phone to yours, sealed to you. Your phone's short "received" notes (for delivered ticks) pass the same way, sealed so we can't see which messages they're about.	To introduce the two phones so the item can go phone to phone. The item itself never passes through our server.	Passed straight on, not stored. A short routing note (who asked, no content) lasts at most 60 seconds.
iPhone fetch ticket: a fingerprint (hash) of a random secret your iPhone's notification extension uses to set up a direct connection to a contact's phone, to get a photo sent to you.	So only your phone can ask for items sent to you.	Up to 180 days, replaced by the app, or until you delete your account.
Emails for "Find me" (optional, up to 5, each one findable or hidden). For each, we store a protected fingerprint (a keyed hash) and a masked form like "a***@gmail.com", never the address itself.	So people who already know your email can find you, and only if you choose to be findable.	Until you remove that email or delete your account. The verification code is stored hashed for 10 minutes.
Your email address, briefly	To send you the verification code, through our email provider.	Not stored by us. Our email provider keeps a delivery log (see section 5).
Your IP address, seen by your contacts' phones: chats, calls and photos fetched on arrival go directly between two phones, so each phone sees the other's internet address while they're connected, as in any direct call. Only between people who added each other.	A direct connection needs it. It's not shown in the app.	Not kept by Wasla on either phone after the connection ends.
IP address and connection data	Needed to connect at all, and to prevent abuse (rate limits).	Used while connected and not saved in our database. Our hosting provider may keep short-lived access logs.
Crash reports: device model, operating system, app version, and technical error details.	To find and fix bugs. We remove user identifiers, and reports never include message content.	Deleted automatically within 90 days.

4. What stays on your phone

Your chats, groups, contacts, call history, photos, notes, reminders, your status audience and, if you use them, your prayer-times location and azkar progress are stored only on your phone, encrypted. Your private keys never leave your device. If you choose to back up, the backup is encrypted on your phone with a key derived from your 12-word recovery phrase, and stored in your own iCloud or Google Drive. We have no access to it.

For Google Drive backups, Wasla asks only for access to its own hidden app folder in your Drive. It can't see your other files.

5. Service providers

We use a small number of providers to run Wasla. They process data only on our instructions, or under their own terms where you choose to use them:

Cloud hosting provider: runs Wasla's server and its database.
Apple Push Notification service, Google Firebase Cloud Messaging and Expo: deliver notifications to your phone. Message contents inside notifications are encrypted.
Our email-sending provider (currently Resend): sends verification-code emails when you add an email to "Find me".
Apple Maps (iPhone) and Google Maps (Android): only when you share a location. The map you pick a place on loads from them, so, as with any map app, they see the area shown and your IP address. Tapping a shared location opens it in your maps app. They never learn who you're sending it to, and Wasla never shows a map image inside chats.
Hugging Face: only if you download a speech model for voice notes to text (Settings, Voice notes). Your phone downloads the model file from Hugging Face (or from our server), so they see your IP address for that download. No voice, text or Wasla ID is sent to them; the model then runs on your phone.
Our website (waslachat.app): once a day the app may download the azkar list from it, so corrections reach you without an update. Our website host sees your IP address for that download; the request carries no Wasla ID or anything about you. The list also ships inside the app, so this never has to succeed.
Sentry: receives crash reports, without user identifiers or message content.
Apple iCloud or Google Drive: only if you turn on backups. They store your encrypted backup in your own account.
Google public STUN servers: when two phones start a direct connection (for chats and calls), each phone asks these servers for its own public internet address. They see your IP address for that request only, never your messages, calls, or who you're talking to.

Finding people by phone number is coming soon and will use Google Firebase Authentication to verify numbers. We'll update this policy before it launches.

6. Legal bases (EEA, UK and similar laws)

Performance of a contract: to provide the messaging service you asked for (routing, notifications, delivery).
Legitimate interests: to keep Wasla secure, prevent abuse and fix crashes, in ways that don't override your privacy.
Consent: for optional features you turn on: "Find me" by email, backups, and your phone's location for prayer times. You can withdraw consent any time in the app.
Legal obligations: where the law requires us to act.

7. International transfers

Our providers may process data in countries other than yours, including the United States. Where required, transfers are protected by appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

8. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the processing of your data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent. Most of your data lives only on your phone, under your control. For the little we hold:

See it: "Find me" in the app shows every email you've linked and whether each one is findable.
Change or remove it: remove your emails in "Find me", and turn off backups in Settings.
Delete everything: see Deleting your account.
Ask us: email privacy@waslachat.app. We reply within 30 days. Because we don't know who you are, we may need you to prove control of your Wasla ID or email.

You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

9. Deleting your account

In Wasla, go to You → Delete account. This erases everything on your phone and tells our server to delete all data linked to your Wasla ID straight away: connections, notification tokens, waiting contact requests, your iPhone fetch ticket and any email links. Full details: Delete your Wasla account.

10. Children

Wasla isn't intended for children under 13, or under the minimum age required in your country to use online services without parental consent (16 in some countries). We don't knowingly process data of children below that age. If you believe a child is using Wasla, contact privacy@waslachat.app. See also our Child Safety Standards.

11. Security

Security is the core of Wasla: end-to-end encryption for every message and call, encrypted storage on your phone, keys kept in secure hardware, signed logins and strict rules on our server. Read how Wasla keeps you safe. No system is perfectly secure. If we ever learn of a breach that affects you, we'll notify you and the authorities as required by law.

12. Changes to this policy

We'll update this page and its effective date when our practices change, and tell you in the app before significant changes take effect.

13. Contact us

Privacy questions or requests: privacy@waslachat.app
General help: support@waslachat.app
Ahmed Bassiouny, developer of Wasla