Hello World
Security and privacy
What we can see, and what we promise
Hello World translates on its own servers, which means those servers read what they translate. Here is what that does and does not mean — before the part where we tell you we look after it.
Said first, because it matters most
Your messages are encrypted whenever they travel, and our server can read them when they arrive. They go encrypted from your phone to our server, and encrypted again to the people you write to. In between, the server decrypts them — that is how a message written in Wolof arrives in Spanish, and there is no version of that feature where the server cannot read the words.
So this is not end-to-end encryption, which would mean nobody but the two of you could read a message, not even us. We say that plainly rather than let the word “private” do work it has not earned. What we can tell you is what we do with the access we have.
- One server, in Francerented from OVHcloud, inside the EU
- In transitEncryptedHTTPS/TLS, phone to server and back out
- Call audio and video, two peoplePhone to phoneencrypted phone to phone, including through the relay
- Call audio and video, a groupEncrypted in transitcombined on our server, so not end to end
- Translation modelsours, on that same machine
No person at Hello World reads your messages
That is a commitment, and it has exactly two exceptions, which are the ones you would want: what somebody reports to us, which we review to keep people safe, and what you choose to send us yourself, such as a screenshot attached to feedback.
Beyond that there is no scanning of private messages for moderation or advertising, no profiling, no advertising identifier in the app, and no selling of your data. What people publish is different: names, bios, captions, comments and shop descriptions are checked before they appear.
Your account
The locks you hold yourself
A password that is yours
You choose one when you sign up, and change it in Settings › Security. Your phone can generate and remember it for you. Signing in with Apple or Google works too, and we never see either password.
Lock a conversation
Put Face ID in front of a particular chat, so the person who borrows your phone does not open it by accident.
See every signed-in device
Your sessions are listed, with what each one is and when it last connected. Sign out one you do not recognize.
Your data
Take it with you, or take it back
Export it
Settings › Storage › Export my data writes a file you can keep or send anywhere — your profile, your messages and what is attached to them.
Delete part of it
Voice samples, translation history, a post, a Moment — each goes on its own, without deleting the account. What goes and what stays.
Delete all of it
From inside the app, in two taps and a confirmation. What you made goes with it, including the messages you sent other people. Deleting your account.
When somebody behaves badly
Block immediately, report to a person
Blocking takes effect at once and does not wait for us to agree with you. A report reaches a person here, promptly — we read it, look at the account it concerns and at whether there is a pattern, and a person, never a machine, decides what happens to an account. How reports are handled · Child safety
Read the whole thing
The detail behind every sentence on this page, including who processes what and for how long it is kept.