FamiGuru is an app for parents of minor children. After a child links their WhatsApp account by scanning a QR code, the parent can read the child's chats in FamiGuru, see messages that were deleted or edited, and ask the child to share their location. This policy explains what information that involves, where it goes and how long we keep it.
1. Summary
- We store your child's WhatsApp chats on our servers. That includes messages, photos, videos, voice notes and files, messages that were later deleted or edited (with their original wording), and the chats and contacts they belong to. This is how FamiGuru can show them to you.
- We keep this data while your device still guards the account. When you stop guarding it, or don't open FamiGuru for 30 days, we delete it, as described in Section 5.
- We don't sell your child's chats, contacts or location, and we don't use them for advertising.
- The app uses analytics and advertising measurement services (Google Firebase, Adjust and Meta). They receive information about how the app is used and, where allowed, advertising identifiers. They don't receive your child's messages, contacts or location.
- A child's account can only be linked by the child scanning the code on their own phone. The link shows under Linked devices in their WhatsApp.
2. Information we collect
2.1 From your device
FamiGuru has no sign-in. Each installation of the app creates its own key and registers with our servers. We store:
- An installation ID and the installation's public key, which identify your device to our servers.
- The platform, device model, operating system version, app version and region of your device.
- Your IP address shortened to its network part (the last part of the address is removed).
- Which child accounts your device guards, and when your device last opened them.
The names you give your children in the app stay on your device and are not sent to us.
2.2 From your child's linked WhatsApp account
When your child links their account, FamiGuru connects to WhatsApp as a linked device, the way WhatsApp Web does. From then on we receive and store what WhatsApp delivers to that linked device:
- Account details: your child's phone number, WhatsApp name and profile photo.
- Messages: text, captions, links, file names, shared contacts and shared locations, with their time, sender and status. This includes the earlier messages WhatsApp shares when the account is linked.
- Media: photos, videos, voice notes, audio, documents and stickers. Photos, voice notes and other files under 10 MB are saved when they arrive. Larger files, and videos and documents from earlier history, are saved when you open them.
- Deleted, edited and view-once messages: the original message, every edited version, and view-once photos, videos and voice notes.
- Chats and contacts: chat and group names, group members, and the names, phone numbers and profile photos of the people your child talks to.
- Activity: calls, reactions, read receipts, typing and online status, group changes, and chats being archived, pinned, muted or blocked. We also record some of your child's own actions in WhatsApp, such as posting a status or changing settings.
- Link credentials: the keys WhatsApp issues to the linked device, so the connection can continue.
FamiGuru only reads. It does not send, reply to, delete or change anything on your child's account. Search runs on your device.
2.3 Location sharing
When you ask your child for their location, FamiGuru creates a link that is valid for one hour. To keep the link short, it is passed through a link-shortening service (ixgo.cc). If your child opens the link and taps Agree, their browser sends us their coordinates, the accuracy and the time, either once or continuously while the page stays open. Nothing is shared if they decline. Your phone turns the coordinates into an address using Apple's or Google's location service.
2.4 Your own WhatsApp account
If you link your own WhatsApp account in FamiGuru, we collect and store the same kinds of information about it as in Section 2.2. If you turn on online status alerts for a phone number, we store that number, the name you give it, and the times WhatsApp shows it as online, offline or typing.
2.5 Subscriptions
Subscriptions are bought and billed through the Apple App Store or Google Play. The app's payment component receives the order, the purchase receipt and its status from the store and checks them with our payment provider. We never receive your card details.
2.6 Analytics, crash reports and advertising measurement
- Google Firebase (Analytics, Crashlytics, Performance Monitoring and Remote Config): app events such as screens opened and features used, crash reports, performance data, an app instance ID, and device and app details.
- Adjust: which ad campaign or store led to an install, app events, and advertising identifiers. On Android this includes install referrer information from Google Play, Meta, Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi.
- Meta (Facebook SDK): app events, such as app installs, app opens and purchases, used to measure Meta ads.
- Advertising identifiers: on iPhone, the app asks for permission to track. Only if you allow it does it read your device's advertising identifier (IDFA). On Android, the app reads the Google advertising ID, which you can reset or delete in your device settings.
- Our payment provider also receives app and purchase events to report on sales.
2.7 Feedback and support
If you send feedback from the app, we receive what you enter (such as your email address and description), any screenshots or videos you attach, your device and app version, and a diagnostic log from the app. If you email us, we receive your email and its contents.
2.8 Server logs
To run the service and investigate problems, our servers log every request from the app and the location sharing page. Each log entry records:
- the time, the request and its result;
- your full IP address;
- the request headers, including the app's access token, app version, operating system and device model;
- the request and the response, as sent.
This means our logs contain the information described in Sections 2.2 to 2.4 when the app loads it, including your child's messages, captions, contact names, phone numbers, call and online status records, and shared locations. Photos, videos, voice notes and other files are not written to the logs. Only our staff with access to our servers and cloud accounts can read them.
We keep logs for 3 days on our servers and for 7 days in our cloud logging service (Alibaba Cloud). Deleting an account doesn't delete what is already in the logs; it is removed when the logs expire, at most 7 days later.
3. How we use information
- To show you your child's chats, media, message changes, activity and shared location in the app.
- To keep the connection to WhatsApp working, reconnect it, and tell you when it stops.
- To provide and check your subscription.
- To find and fix problems, keep the service secure and prevent abuse.
- To understand how the app is used, and to measure which ads and campaigns lead to installs and subscriptions.
- To answer your feedback and support requests.
- To meet legal obligations.
We don't use your child's chats, contacts or location for advertising or profiling, and we don't sell them.
4. Service providers and other recipients
We use these services to run FamiGuru. Each receives only what its part of the service needs:
- Cloudflare: carries all connections between the app and our servers.
- Alibaba Cloud (United States): databases, file storage for media and profile photos, cache, server logs and monitoring.
- Supabase, hosted on Amazon Web Services (United States): location sharing and device registration.
- WhatsApp (Meta): the linked-device connection to your child's account.
- A network proxy provider: carries the connection between our servers and WhatsApp. That traffic is encrypted by WhatsApp.
- ixgo.cc: shortens location sharing links.
- Apple and Google: the App Store and Google Play for purchases, and their location services for turning coordinates into addresses.
- Our payment provider: orders, receipts and subscription status.
- Google Firebase, Adjust and Meta: as described in Section 2.6.
- Feishu (Lark): receives the feedback you send from the app, and the alerts that help us run the service.
We may also disclose information when the law requires it, to protect the safety of a child or others, or as part of a merger or sale of our business, in which case this policy continues to apply.
5. How long we keep information
- Chats, media, contacts and message changes: kept for as long as at least one parent device guards the account, including while a subscription has ended or the connection is down.
- When guarding ends: guarding ends when the last parent device removes the account in the app, or when no parent device has opened FamiGuru for 30 days. We then stop the connection and sign out the linked device, and about 7 days later we permanently delete the account's chats, media, contacts, activity and link credentials, and remove the phone number and name from our records.
- If your child unlinks FamiGuru in WhatsApp, no new messages arrive, but what was already collected stays until guarding ends.
- Online status and your child's own actions: 30 days.
- Location: sharing links stop working after one hour. Shared locations are deleted 30 days after the link expires.
- Server logs: as described in Section 2.8.
- Device registrations: not deleted automatically, except a registration that never completes, which is deleted after 24 hours. You can ask us to delete yours (Section 8).
- Feedback and support emails: for as long as we need to handle the request, and a reasonable time afterwards.
- Analytics and measurement data: according to the retention settings of Firebase, Adjust and Meta.
After deletion we keep a record with the personal details removed, which notes that the account existed and was deleted. Deleted data may remain in server logs (Section 2.8) and backups until they expire.
6. Access by our staff
Our staff don't browse users' chats. To investigate a problem with a specific account, an authorized engineer can be given read-only access to that account's data for between 15 minutes and one hour. This access is granted for one account at a time and is recorded.
7. Children and the people they talk to
- FamiGuru is for adults who are the parent or legal guardian of the child whose account they link. It is not meant to be used by children.
- You may only link the WhatsApp account of a minor in your care, after explaining to them what FamiGuru does and with their agreement. The child completes the link themselves by scanning the code. Don't use FamiGuru for anyone outside that relationship, such as a partner, another adult or an employee.
- Your child's chats include messages, names, numbers and photos of the people they talk to, who may also be children. We process that information only to show your child's chats to you, and keep and delete it on the same schedule as your child's data.
- Your child can see FamiGuru under Linked devices in their WhatsApp and can log it out at any time.
8. Your choices and rights
- Delete a child's data: remove the account in the app on every device that guards it. The data is deleted as described in Section 5.
- Tracking on iPhone: you can allow or refuse tracking when the app asks, and change it later in Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking.
- Advertising ID on Android: reset or delete it in your device's settings.
- Your legal rights: depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR, UK GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, LGPD or PIPL), you may have the right to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your information, to object to or restrict some uses, to withdraw consent, and to complain to a data protection authority. Email us to use these rights. Because there is no sign-in, we will ask for details that let us confirm the request comes from the device that guards the account. We will answer within the time the law requires.
9. Security
The app connects to our servers over HTTPS, through Cloudflare. WhatsApp link credentials, the keys for your child's media, and stored media files are additionally encrypted with AES-256. Our databases are hosted by the cloud providers listed in Section 4, and access to them is limited to the staff and systems that need it. On your phone, FamiGuru keeps a copy of the chats in the app's private storage, which is excluded from device backups. No system is completely secure, so please keep your phone locked.
10. Where information is processed
Our servers and the data they store are in the United States. Our team and some of our providers may access it from other countries. Where the law requires it, we use appropriate safeguards for these transfers, such as standard contractual clauses.
11. Changes to this policy
We will update this policy when the way we handle information changes. We will tell you about material changes in the app or by other appropriate means before they take effect. The effective date at the top shows the latest version.
12. Contact us
For questions, requests or complaints about this policy or your information, contact:
- Email: veonsofttech@gmail.com
- Veon Softtech