Lately, we have been more vocal and upfront with you regarding the importance of your privacy when using Viber, stressing on multiple occasions our ongoing commitment to ensure you have 100% privacy and data protection.
In light of concerns of misuse of users’ personal data on other apps, it’s our duty to make sure you are aware of how Viber is different and better than other messaging apps when it comes to safeguarding your data.
At Viber, we don’t read your messages, listen to your calls or scan your images. We don’t use your private conversation content to make profit, we can’t even access it. This is thanks to our end-to-end encryption, set by default on all chats and calls and our policy to destroy all encrypted content from our servers once it has been delivered. Our commitment to your privacy is a reality. It’s part of our core values.
You’ve probably heard about the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR for short. This regulation gives citizens of the European Economic Area (EEA) certain rights when you use services that process personal data – it’s all about making companies more transparent about how they handle your personal data and equipping you with tools to better control your data.
But please note: GDPR gives you more transparency and better control over your personal data, but it doesn’t force apps to protect your privacy. This is why our commitment to privacy should matter to you. Full end-to-end architecture and destruction of content after delivery is the way we ensure your 100% privacy – we don’t read your messages, we don’t listen to your calls and we don’t scan your images.
What are your rights under GDPR?
- The right to be informed – Read our privacy policy, which sets out all the information you need in clear and simple language
- The right to rectification – Update data about you that’s incomplete or wrong
- The right to erasure – Easily delete your historical data on the app, while continuing to use the app
- The right to restrict processing – Opt out of certain processing of your data
- The right to data portability & the right of access – Upon request, access a file of the data connected to your account, and receive answers to your privacy related questions
- The right to object – Request to opt out of certain forms of data processing
- The right to appeal automated decisions and profiling – Contact our support team, if you believe that your account was unlawfully blocked
- We protect children – Children’s privacy settings are set by default to the most protective settings and can’t be changed until the user reaches 16 years of age
How will it affect you?
Your experience on Viber will be better.
As GDPR gives you more transparency and better control, you will be aware of the very limited amount of data that we need to collect, in order to provide the Viber service. For example, when you wish to share your exact location with a friend, you’ll be asked to grant Viber access to your location and share it with the mapping service we use.
When you update to the latest version of Viber, expect a prompt to confirm your age. This is needed to enforce the most protective children’s privacy settings by default for young Viber users between the ages of 13 and 16. They will safely use our services with enhanced protection by us.
In the Settings>Privacy>Personal Data screen, you will find new tools for better control and knowledge about your personal data.
What special rights do you only get on Viber?
- The right to private and secure chats – It’s the Viber standard: we don’t read your messages, listen to your calls or scan your images. We don’t use your private conversations content to make profit, simply because we can’t access it. This is thanks to our end-to-end encryption, set by default on all chats and calls.
- The right to delete messages you regret sending – Delete any type of message you’ve sent at any time, from both your device and the people you’ve sent it to. Whatever you decided to delete will no longer appear on your device or on your friend’s device, even if they have already seen it.
- The right to send disappearing messages – Set a self-destruct timer for extra sensitive messages and they will automatically be deleted from all members of the chat’s devices once they have been read. This includes screenshot protection – Android users can’t take a screenshot, and if someone on an iPhone takes a screenshot, you will receive a notification.
- The right to keep your personal chats your own – Viber doesn’t store your personal chats. Messages that are delivered aren’t copied onto Viber’s servers.
At Viber, we strongly believe in the approach of giving you more transparency and better control. We are working on progressively offering these tools to more and more countries.