Terms of service

01The agreement

These terms are a binding agreement between you and Kalvien ("Kalvien", "we", "us"). By creating an account or using the Kalvien Chat app or this website, you accept them. If you do not accept them, do not use the service.

Our privacy policy explains what we collect and what we can and cannot see; it forms part of this agreement. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under mandatory consumer law where you live.

02Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use Kalvien, or older where your local law sets a higher minimum age for this kind of service — 16 in much of the EEA and UK. By using Kalvien you confirm you meet the applicable age requirement.

You must not use Kalvien if you are barred from doing so under applicable law, or if we have previously terminated your account for a breach of these terms.

03Your account

Creating an account requires a working phone number verified through Google Firebase Authentication. You agree to provide accurate information and not to impersonate anyone else.

You are responsible for your account and for the security of the device it is on. That responsibility is heavier here than in most services, for a reason we would rather state than let you discover:

One account per person. Do not create accounts in bulk, sell or transfer accounts, or use automated means to register.

04Acceptable use

Kalvien carries user-generated content — the messages, media, and profile information you and other people create. You agree not to use Kalvien to create, send, request, or share content, or to engage in conduct, that:

• Harasses, threatens, stalks, bullies, or defames another person;
• Incites, promotes, or facilitates violence, terrorism, or self-harm;
• Sexually exploits or endangers a child in any way (see section 5);
• Is non-consensual intimate imagery, or sexual content involving anyone who has not consented to its distribution;
• Is unlawful where you or your recipient are, or promotes unlawful activity;
• Infringes someone else's intellectual property, privacy, or other rights;
• Is spam, phishing, fraud, a scam, or a deceptive scheme of any kind;
• Distributes malware, or attempts to compromise a device or account;
• Impersonates another person or organisation in a way likely to deceive.

You also agree not to attack the service itself: no attempts to breach or circumvent authentication, no scraping or enumerating accounts, no interfering with other people's use of the service, no reverse engineering except where that right cannot lawfully be excluded, and no automated or bulk use of the API without our written permission.

05Child safety and CSAE

We have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE), including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), grooming, sextortion, and the sexualisation of minors in any form. This applies to content, conduct, and the use of Kalvien to arrange or facilitate any of it.

Where we receive a report of CSAE, we will:

1. Review it promptly on the basis of everything we can lawfully see;
2. Terminate the offending account, permanently and without warning;
3. Preserve the account records available to us where the law requires it;
4. Report to the appropriate authorities and child-safety organisations as required by law in the relevant jurisdiction.

Reports concerning child safety can be made from inside the app or sent directly to support@kalvien.com with "child safety" in the subject line; these are prioritised above all other reports.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first. We are not a substitute for law enforcement.

06What we can and cannot moderate

Most services state a moderation policy without stating its limits. Ours has a hard limit and you are entitled to know exactly where it falls.

We cannot read the content of private messages, private media, private stories, encrypted reactions, or group chats. They are encrypted on the sender's device and we hold only ciphertext. This means we cannot proactively scan, filter, or detect prohibited content inside private conversations. Channels are a public broadcast surface and are readable by Kalvien.

What we can act on:

• Reports from users. When you report a message or account, your report is what makes the conduct visible to us.
• Information we can see: usernames, display names, bios, avatars, and account behaviour such as mass registration or spam patterns.
• Account-level action: suspending or terminating accounts, and removing profile content.

The consequence is that the safety of your conversations depends partly on you reporting and blocking. We would rather build a service we cannot read and be candid about that trade-off than claim a moderation capability we do not have.

07Reporting and blocking

Blocking. You can block any account from within its chat. A blocked person cannot message you or see you, and they are not told they have been blocked. You can manage your block list under Privacy in the app.

Reporting. You can report a user or a specific message from the app. A report tells us who reported, who was reported, the subject/message identifier, a reason, and anything you choose to write. The identifier lets us act on an account and server row but does not provide the key required to decrypt a private conversation. We review reports and take action where our rules have been broken — which may mean a warning, removal of readable content, suspension, or permanent termination.

We keep reports after review so repeat behaviour is visible across time, which means a report about an account can outlive that account.

Do not submit knowingly false reports. Doing so is itself a breach of these terms.

08Your content and ownership

You retain all ownership of the content you create. We claim no licence over the content of your messages or media — we could not exercise one if we wanted to, since we cannot read them. We store and transmit that content solely to deliver it to the people you send it to.

For the limited content we can see — your username, display name, bio, and avatar — you grant us the non-exclusive right to store and display it to other users as needed to operate the service. That right ends when you delete the content or your account.

You are solely responsible for what you send. You confirm you have the rights necessary to send it and that doing so does not break the law or these terms.

09The service, and changes to it

Kalvien is pre-release software until its public launch. Features in the current app and service may change through normal security, reliability, and compatibility updates. This clause does not promise unimplemented features.

We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the service. If we discontinue the service entirely, we will give reasonable notice in the app so you can export or wind down what you can, subject to the reality that we cannot export your message content for you.

Kalvien is currently free. If we introduce paid features, existing functionality that you already rely on will not be moved behind a paywall without notice and a fair alternative.

10Suspension, termination, and leaving

You can leave at any time. Settings → Delete account in the app, or via kalvien.com/delete. Deletion is immediate and permanent; there is no grace period and no retention of a "deactivated" account.

We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these terms, if we are required to by law, or if your use poses a security risk to the service or its users. Where the breach is serious — CSAE, credible threats of violence, or attacks on the service — we will act immediately and without prior notice.

Otherwise, we will tell you what rule we believe you broke and give you a way to respond at support@kalvien.com. If you think we got it wrong, say so; we will review it with someone who did not make the original decision where that is practical for a team our size.

Sections 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 16 survive termination.

11Disclaimers

Kalvien is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement, to the maximum extent permitted by law.

We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free, that messages will always be delivered, or that any defect will be corrected. We are not responsible for the conduct or content of other users.

Where the law of your country does not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, those exclusions do not apply to you and our liability is limited to the minimum the law permits.

12Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Kalvien and its team will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, message history, goodwill, or other intangible losses, arising out of or relating to your use of or inability to use the service.

This expressly includes loss of message history resulting from losing every authorised device and your own encrypted backup, which is an inherent consequence of Kalvien not holding your readable private keys.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to these terms or the service will not exceed the greater of (a) the total amount you have paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or (b) fifty United States dollars.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

13Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Kalvien and its team from any claim, demand, loss, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your breach of these terms, your misuse of the service, or your violation of any law or of anyone else's rights. This does not apply to the extent the claim arises from our own breach or negligence, and it does not apply where you are a consumer and applicable consumer law says otherwise.

14Governing law and disputes

Before starting formal proceedings, please contact support@kalvien.com. Most disputes can be resolved that way and we would rather resolve yours than litigate it.

15Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. When we make a material change we will update the effective date and version above and notify you in the app before it takes effect. Continuing to use Kalvien after that means you accept the updated terms; if you do not, you can delete your account, and it costs you nothing to do so.

16General

• Entire agreement. These terms and the privacy policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the service.
• Severability. If a provision is held unenforceable, the rest stays in force and the unenforceable part is limited to the minimum extent necessary.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a provision, that is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment. You may not assign these terms. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, on notice to you — and any acquirer inherits the commitments in the privacy policy, including that they cannot read your messages either.
• Contact. support@kalvien.com for anything about these terms.