1. What we collect

DOT is a business chat app for Android, iOS and the web, published by COMNET INTERNATIONAL (L.L.C), Shop No. 13, 14, 15, Mam Building 3, Al Nahdha Street, Al Suq Al Kabeer, Bur Dubai, Dubai 49781, United Arab Emirates (“we”, “us”). For anything in this policy, write to info@chat-dot.com.

Your account. To register you give an email address and a password. We send a verification email, and your account does nothing until you confirm it. You may sign in with Google instead, in which case Google tells us your email address, name and profile picture. We never see your Google password.

Your profile. A display name, an optional profile photo, an optional username, and the privacy choices you make.

Your profile link, if you share it. Your profile has a link you can share. Anyone who has it can open a page with your name, your about line, and your photo if your photo privacy is set to Everyone, without needing an account. Link previews in other apps show the same things. We ask search engines not to list this page, and it stops working when you close your account.

Your business, if you register one. Business name, description, category, addresses and map coordinates, opening hours, phone numbers, email addresses, website and social links, branches, listings, staff members and their roles, and any licence or registration documents you upload for verification.

Where you are. When you first set up your account you choose your country and state, which we need because some features depend on where you live. Other people on DOT cannot see this, and it is erased when you close your account.

What you send and receive. Messages, photos, videos, documents, voice messages, locations you share, form answers, orders and requests, group and channel content, internal notes, customer labels and notes, and the metadata that makes a conversation work: who sent what, when, delivery and read state. We hold message content sealed and cannot read it; Part 1 says exactly what that covers and what it does not. Searching the archive on our servers works on a scrambled fingerprint of each word, never the word, which is why it matches whole words only and cannot match a phone number. Your own phone searches the conversations it holds in full.

Your status posts. A photo or a few words you put up for six to forty-eight hours, the audience you chose for it, who opened it, and any reactions. Unlike a message, a status is not sealed, and we can read it. The app says so in the composer before your first post.

Calls. Who called whom, when, and for how long. We do not record calls, and a recording never reaches our servers. One-to-one calls connect directly between the two devices where the network allows it. Group calls pass through Cloudflare’s Realtime service, which relays the audio and video and does not store it.

Recording a call. Someone in a call can ask to record it. Recording starts only if everyone in the call accepts: one person declining cancels it for everyone, not answering counts as no, and someone who joins later is asked while the recording waits. Anyone in the call can stop it at any time. The recording is saved only on the device of the person who asked, and it holds the call’s voices and, on a video call, the video of the people on camera. It is theirs from then on: they can keep it or share it with others, and we can’t see it, delete it or get it back. Accepting means you agree to that person holding a copy, so accept only if you are comfortable with that. To record, DOT notes in the call’s record who asked and who accepted or declined, which we keep with the call record.

Screen capture during a call. On Android, DOT stops other apps capturing the screen and the call’s sound during a call. iOS does not allow that, so if your iPhone’s screen is being recorded, DOT hides and silences the call and tells the others. A browser allows neither, so the others are told when someone is on the web. None of this can stop a second device, or a phone or computer set up to get around it.

Your contacts, if you allow it. With your permission, DOT finds people you know by the email addresses in your phone’s contacts, and keeps them up to date on its own. You can also import a contacts file. Your device sends us those email addresses, including those of people who do not use DOT. We store only a keyed cryptographic hash (HMAC-SHA256) of each address, never the readable address, and we do not log them. The hashes let us tell you when someone you know joins. They cannot be read back. Each new check or import replaces the old set, and it is deleted when you close your account. Phone numbers are never used to find anyone.

Devices and sessions. Device model, operating system, app version, language, time zone, push notification tokens, and the sign-in history shown to you in Settings. We use Google Play Integrity (Android) and App Attest (iOS) to check that requests come from a genuine installation of DOT.

Usage and crash data, if you allow it. Screen views and feature events through Google Analytics for Firebase, and crash reports through Firebase Crashlytics. You can turn usage sharing off in Settings; when you do, we ask Google to delete what was collected from your installation.

2. Permissions on your phone

Each of these is asked for when you first use the feature, and refusing it only disables that feature.

3. Where your data is kept, and how it is protected

DOT runs on Google Firebase. Data is stored in Google Cloud, with server functions in the asia-south1 (Mumbai) region. Everything travels over current TLS and is encrypted at rest with managed, rotated keys. On top of that, your messages are end-to-end encrypted. Part 1 is part of this policy and sets out what that covers, what it does not, and its limits.

4. Who else sees your data

• The business you message. A conversation with a business belongs to that business, not to the individual employee, and stays with the business when staff change. Part 1 says which staff can read it.
• Other participants. Members of a group, and people you message, see what you send. Channel followers see what a channel publishes; a channel admin cannot see who viewed an update.
• Google (Firebase: authentication, database, file storage, server functions, push notifications, analytics, crash reporting; Google Maps for maps, and Google Sign-In if you use it), as our processor.
• Cloudflare, which relays group call audio and video without storing it.
• Google Drive or iCloud, only if you turn on backup. The backup goes to your own account, under access limited to the files DOT creates on Drive and to DOT’s own private folder on iCloud, and neither Google nor Apple can open it.
• Authorities, where we are legally obliged to disclose, or to protect someone’s safety.

We do not sell personal data and we do not share it for advertising.

5. How long we keep things

Conversations under a legal hold are kept until the hold is lifted.

6. Your choices and rights

• Export your data. Settings › Privacy gives you a machine-readable copy of your own data. The download link lasts 7 days.
• Delete your account. Settings › Account. Deletion is permanent and reaches our databases, file storage, the scrambled search fingerprints, caches, analytics and backups within 30 days. Content you sent into a business conversation may be retained by that business where it has a legal reason to keep it.
• Control what others see. Read receipts, last seen and presence, profile photo visibility and location sharing are each switchable.
• Turn off usage sharing in Settings, at any time.
• Block and report. Any user can be blocked, and any user, message or business reported to us.

Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to access, correct, restrict or object to our processing of your data, and to complain to your data protection authority. Write to info@chat-dot.com and we will answer within 30 days.

Our legal bases, where the GDPR applies, are: performance of our contract with you (running the service), your consent (contacts, location, usage sharing, backup), our legitimate interests (security, abuse prevention, service improvement), and legal obligation.

7. Children

DOT is not for children under 13. Where your country sets a higher age for consenting to data processing, that age applies instead. We do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has an account, write to us and we will remove it.

8. International transfers

Your data may be processed in countries other than yours, including by Google and Cloudflare. Where the law requires it, these transfers rely on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent safeguard.

9. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy materially, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect. The date at the top always shows the current version.

10. Contact

COMNET INTERNATIONAL (L.L.C)
Shop No. 13, 14, 15, Mam Building 3, Al Nahdha Street, Al Suq Al Kabeer, Bur Dubai, Dubai 49781, United Arab Emirates
+971 56 257 7000
info@chat-dot.com

11. This website and the launch list

Sections 1 to 10 describe the DOT apps. This section covers our website, chat-dot.com, including the “Get notified” launch list.

What we collect

If you enter your email in a “Get notified” form, we store your email address, which form on the page you used, and the date and time you signed up. Our servers also receive technical information with each request: your IP address, browser type, the page requested, the referring page and the time of the request.

We don’t ask for your name, phone number or payment details on this website. It sets no cookies and uses no analytics tools, advertising pixels or third-party trackers, and our fonts are served from our own servers.

Why, and on what basis

• To email you when DOT launches, and with occasional important updates about the launch. We rely on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• To prevent spam and repeated automated sign-ups, and to keep the website secure and working properly. We rely on our legitimate interests.

How long we keep it

• Launch-list emails: until DOT launches and we have let you know, or until you ask us to remove you, whichever comes first.
• Rate-limit data: your IP address, held in memory for up to ten minutes.
• Server logs: kept for a limited period for security and troubleshooting, then deleted.

Sharing and security

We only share this information with service providers who host and run the website and send our emails, under terms that let them use it solely to provide that service to us, or where the law requires it. The website is served over HTTPS, and access to stored sign-ups is restricted to the people who need it.

To have your email removed or to use your other rights, email info@chat-dot.com from the address you signed up with. For help with DOT itself, contact support@chat-dot.com.

Part 1: End-to-end encryption

How DOT protects your messages, what it leaves out, and where its limits are.

Last updated: 30 October 2026

What is sealed

The words of a message, captions and file names, photos, videos, documents and voice notes, locations, contact cards, polls, forms and formal notices, replies, edits and reactions, and the contents of attached files, including files attached to a form.

How it works

• Keys stay on your devices. Each account and each device has its own keys, and private keys never leave a device unprotected. Other people’s apps use the public half to seal keys for you.
• Every conversation has its own key, and every message its own key derived from it. A file is sealed under a key of its own and carries a fingerprint, so a swapped file refuses to open.
• The conversation key changes when the people or devices in a conversation change. Someone removed from a conversation gets no key for anything sent afterwards.
• Notifications are written by your own phone, which opens the preview itself. We do not see the line you see.
• Reporting a message hands us that one message, with proof that it is genuine and unaltered. The rest of the conversation stays closed to us.
• Algorithms: AES-256-GCM for content, X25519 for key agreement, Ed25519 for signatures, and HKDF-SHA256 and HMAC-SHA256 for derivation. Everything also travels over TLS and is encrypted again where it is stored.

Whose devices are at the two ends

• A personal chat: the devices of the people in it.
• A conversation with a business: it belongs to the business, so its staff are at that end: the person handling it, anyone it is passed to, the business’s managers, and its owner, who can open the whole archive. Someone who leaves cannot read anything sent after they left, but keeps what they had already read.
• DOT in a browser: a browser is a companion device that your phone lets in by scanning a code. It cannot create an account identity of its own, and it keeps opened messages in memory only, so they are gone when you close the tab or log out.

What is not end-to-end encrypted

• Channel updates. Anyone may follow a channel, so an update is published to the public. The channel’s key protects only the drafts and scheduled updates before they go out.
• Status posts, and reactions to them. We can read a status, because we decide who may see it and count who opened it, and a business’s status is public. A written reply to a status is an ordinary message and is sealed.
• Group calls. They pass through Cloudflare’s relay, which handles the sound and picture unsealed and does not store them. A call between two people connects phone to phone and is encrypted between the two phones.
• Group join forms. An applicant is not a member yet and holds no key, so the questions and answers reach us readable.
• A business’s internal work: team chats between staff, internal notes on a conversation, and the wording of campaigns as stored on the campaign, including after it has been sent.
• A business’s automatic greeting and away replies, which are the same words for everyone who writes to it.
• Conversations with our support team, which our staff read.

What we can still see

Because it sits outside the seal: who sent to whom and when, delivery and read state, which conversation a message belongs to, what kind of message it is, how large a file is and its declared type and extension, the scrambled word fingerprints that make server search possible, the scrambled fingerprint that lets us spot one message sent to many people, and the address of a link when a phone asks us to fetch its preview.

Limits of this protection

• Changed keys. When someone’s keys change, usually because they reinstalled the app, your app moves to the new keys without stopping and shows the change on that person’s contact page, not in the chat. If someone with control of our servers replaced those keys, they could read what is sent afterwards. Comparing security codes with the other person is how you can check.
• Group and business conversations. Who receives a new key comes from a list on our servers. Your app cannot check that list independently, as it can in a personal chat between two people.
• No per-message forward secrecy. One key covers many messages. If a conversation’s key were stolen, it would open every message sent under it and all earlier ones in the conversation.
• Fingerprints come from the sender’s phone. An altered copy of the app could leave its search fingerprints out, or send a wrong spam fingerprint.
• Independent review. DOT’s encryption has not yet been reviewed by an outside security firm.

Backup and getting your messages back

There are two ways to bring your account to a new phone: approve it from a phone that is already signed in, or enter your 64-digit recovery code. Every phone account must have a code, and only you hold it. There is no recovery password.

Backup is optional. It is locked on your phone with a key worked out from your recovery key, and it goes to your own Google Drive or iCloud account. We keep no copy of that key, so neither Google, Apple nor we can open it. An iCloud backup cannot be restored on Android; to move between platforms, use Google Drive.

If you lose your 64-digit code and have no phone left that is signed in, your old messages can never be opened again: not by you, and not by us.

A planned change, not yet in effect

We are moving to a design where our servers hold a message only until it has been delivered, instead of storing sealed messages as they do today. Your devices and your own backup will then be the only place your history lives. Until then, section 5 of the Privacy Policy describes what we keep. We will update this page and tell you in the app before the change takes effect.