BLACKBIRD

Privacy

Last updated 18 October 2026

Blackbird is run by DEX, an individual, on a server DEX operates. This page describes what that server holds and who can reach it, and it describes the software as it actually behaves.

What is stored

To run an account and deliver messages, the server holds:

  • Your username, and your email address if you signed up with one or added one later.
  • A hash of your password, if you set one. The password itself is never stored and cannot be recovered from the hash.
  • Your messages and any files you send in normal chats, until you or the other person deletes them.
  • For Secret Chats: the public encryption keys of each phone that uses them, a record of each secret chat (which two accounts and phones are in it, when it started, and whether it is still open), and its end-to-end encrypted messages and files only until the other phone collects them, or for at most 30 days. The server has no key that can unlock them.
  • Which accounts you have chats with, and when each message was sent, delivered and read.
  • One-time sign-in codes, which are deleted once used or expired.

If you allow Blackbird to read your contacts, the phone numbers on your device are checked against accounts on the server so existing contacts can be found. Numbers that do not match an account are not kept. This permission is optional and the rest of the app works without it.

What is not collected

  • No advertising identifiers, and no advertising of any kind.
  • No analytics or crash-reporting SDK is compiled into the app.
  • No location data.
  • No profiling, and nothing is sold or shared with a data broker.

Where it lives

Everything is stored on a single server rented from a hosting provider in Germany. Connections between the app and that server use HTTPS, so traffic is encrypted in transit. The hosting provider necessarily has physical access to the machine, as any host does.

Messages in normal chats are encrypted in transit but are readable on the server. They are not end-to-end encrypted, and this page will not claim otherwise. Whoever administers the server is technically capable of reading them. Please judge normal chats on that basis.

Secret Chats are end-to-end encrypted. Their messages and files are encrypted on the sender's phone and can be decrypted only on the recipient's phone; the server passes them on without being able to read them. The server still knows who is in each secret chat, when messages are sent, roughly how large they are, and the IP addresses the phones connect from. On the phone, a secret chat is kept in an encrypted database that is left out of device backups.

Other services involved

  • Email. Sign-in codes and account emails are sent through an email provider, which sees your address and the message sent to it.
  • Notifications. When the app is closed, Android only lets Google's push service (Firebase Cloud Messaging) wake it. The server then sends the notification through Google, and it carries the sender's display name and a short preview of the message, or "Photo", "Voice message" and the like for attachments. Google handles that notification on its way to your phone. For a Secret Chat the push carries only a number identifying the secret chat, with no name and no text; your phone fetches the encrypted message itself and shows "New secret message". When the app is open, nothing goes through Google.
  • DNS. Cloudflare answers DNS queries for this domain and therefore sees the fact that a lookup happened.
  • Calls. If a direct connection between two devices cannot be made, call audio and video are relayed through the same server.
  • GIFs. GIF search is provided by KLIPY, and the app talks to KLIPY directly, not through our server. When you open the GIFs tab or search, KLIPY receives your search words, your country setting, a random-looking code derived from your account (never your name, username or phone number) and, like any website, your IP address. When you send a GIF in a normal chat, KLIPY is told which GIF was shared; in a Secret Chat it is not. The GIF itself is a link to KLIPY's servers, so the phones that show it, yours and the recipient's, load it from KLIPY. If you never use GIFs, the app never contacts KLIPY. See KLIPY's privacy policy.

How long it is kept

Messages in normal chats stay until deleted. Secret Chat messages are never kept on the server beyond delivery (or 30 days if never collected); they stay on the two phones until deleted there or until a disappearing timer removes them. Deleting your account removes your messages, your secret chat records and keys, and your account record from the live database. Server backups are taken for recovery and are held for a limited period, so a copy of deleted data can persist in a backup for a short time after deletion.

What you can ask for

You can ask for a copy of what the server holds about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for your account and its data to be deleted. Write to buildsevaa@gmail.com from the email address on the account, or from the app if you have access to it.

Children

Blackbird is not intended for children under 13, and accounts are not knowingly created for them.

Changes

If this page changes in a way that affects what is collected or who can reach it, the date at the top changes and the change is described in the app's release notes.