Who we are
Relay is built and operated by Tobias Schmidt Services LLC (TSS), a California company. Relay is TSS's private platform, and it is not for anyone under 13. Questions about your privacy go to help@relayyyy.com.
What we collect
By using Relay you consent to us collecting the data the app needs to run and improve. That includes:
- What you give us at sign-up. Your username and password, your name, your birthday, your phone number, and every birthday entered on your device at sign-up, which is kept even if you reinstall. Your birthday sets which age band and safety settings apply.
- Contacts, only if you allow it. Contact sync is optional, though Relay may require it from people 19 and older at sign-up. If you allow it, the contacts you share are uploaded and used to match you with friends already on Relay. You can ask us to delete synced contacts at any time.
- The content you create. Photos, captions, comments, boosts, messages, polls, and profile details like your avatar, cover photo, and anthem.
- Unedited originals, and recent photos from your library. Relay keeps original copies of photos in three cases. When you post a snap, it keeps the full resolution original of that same photo, before the film look, before Glow and before any resizing. On iPhones with an ultra wide lens it also keeps the wider frame from that same shutter press, so the surroundings of the shot are preserved alongside it. And if you grant full photo library access, Relay keeps a safety backup copy of your thirty most recent photos. Any GPS coordinates the camera wrote into these files are stripped on your iPhone before anything is sent. This upload runs quietly in the background, only on unmetered connections, never while your phone is hot or in Low Power Mode, and never ahead of something you are actively doing in the app. You can decline or revoke photo library access at any time in iOS Settings, which stops the library part entirely. What is in your camera and your camera roll is your decision and your responsibility. We do not choose, curate or review what is there. By turning these permissions on you confirm you are entitled to provide those photos and that you have any permission needed from people who appear in them, and you take responsibility for them. The Terms set that out in full.
- Device and technical info. Device model and specs, operating system and version, device identifiers, carrier, IP address and the approximate location it implies, language and region, app version, sensor data, and the push notification token that lets us deliver notifications to your device.
- Usage and analytics. When and how long you use Relay, the screens and features you touch, navigation paths, how you move through and interact with a screen, crash and performance logs, and metadata attached to what you post.
- Safety records. Sign-ins and sessions, devices and networks you use, reports, blocks, enforcement history, screenshot and screen recording events, and, if your account is placed in safety containment, the requests and messages that were held and a log of what you did while contained. These are kept apart from personalization and the privacy toggles do not turn them off.
- Before you have an account. When you open a Relay link or invite on the web, or open the app before signing in, we may record technical details of the browser or device (screen, language, time zone, IP address) and the steps you take toward signing up, and match them to connect your install to the link or person who invited you. Unmatched link records are deleted after about 90 days and unlinked installs after about 180.
- If you email us. Your email address and whatever you include in the message, used only to help you.
Personalization and telemetry
Relay runs a first party personalization system that observes how the app is used and makes small, often invisible refinements to your experience. It is on by default, and what it learns is used internally only. We do not sell it and we do not use it for third party advertising. It may look at things like:
- The screens you visit, your session times and frequency, and what you view, post, boost, and comment on.
- How you handle the app: the general area of the screen your taps land in, how quickly and how far you scroll, how long a post stays in view, and where you arrive and leave again without doing anything. This is measured as counts and totals, never as a recording or a replay of your screen.
- How a post comes together before you share it: how long you take to decide, whether a caption was written and removed, whether you switched between journal and feed, how long a photo waited in your roll, and how many photos you discarded rather than shared.
- Whose posts and profiles hold your attention, including people you look at often without liking, commenting or messaging, so ordering and suggestions can reflect what you actually pay attention to.
- Your most used reactions and emojis, your caption and message style, and how much you post versus watch.
- Device and environment signals (model, OS, screen, battery and thermal state, memory, language, network, audio routing, and the general shape of your clipboard, never its actual contents).
- Whether a few well known apps are installed, to infer broad interests. We never look inside other apps.
- How often Relay has been installed and when, which may persist on the device across reinstalls so the app can recognize a returning install.
From these signals we may build internal profiles, scores, and inferences. Those derived works belong to TSS, and none of them are statements of fact about you.
The Neon data market
Neon is TSS's companion app for creators and businesses on Relay. Through Neon, creators and businesses can buy aggregated, anonymous audience statistics only: things like when the network is most active, which reactions are popular, and overall posting patterns, always combined across many people. They can never see your messages, your name or username inside any report or insight pack, your photos, or your precise location. Nothing individual is ever sold.
- Participation is on by default and controlled by the Neon data market toggle in Settings, under Privacy and data. Turning it off excludes you from every aggregated Neon statistic, report, and audience estimate going forward.
- Businesses can run clearly labeled sponsored posts in the Relay feed. Every one carries a visible "Sponsored" tag, every campaign is reviewed by us before it runs, and you can ask for fewer ads like a given one by long-pressing it.
- Sponsorship deals and payouts between businesses and creators on Neon are visible to Relay's administrators, who can intervene at any time.
Location
Approximate location is inferred from your region, time zone, currency, and carrier country, without precise location services and without asking permission. It is used for safety and to enforce where Relay is available, and you can disable it in Settings. Precise location is off by default and only collected if you turn it on and grant the system permission. You can withdraw that anytime.
Experimental diagnostics
Relay offers optional diagnostic tools, each off by default and toggled in Settings, that can estimate network quality, sense whether the device is being held or is in motion, or read the general shape of your clipboard without ever reading its contents. None of them run unless you turn them on.
People and AI working for Relay can see your data
TSS, the people and contractors who work on Relay, and AI models and agents acting for TSS (including Claude models from Anthropic, PBC, Gemini models from Google, and models reached through Poe, operated by Quora, Inc.) can access, read, review and analyze anything on Relay: account records and logins, photos, videos, messages, group chats, instants, AI conversations and safety records. We do this to build and fix Relay, support you, investigate safety issues and moderate content. AI providers handle the data under their own terms, and we do not allow them to sell it.
Nothing is end-to-end encrypted. Messages, instants and everything else travel over encrypted connections and are encrypted at rest by our hosting providers, but TSS can read them. Your login is not hashed. Relay runs its own sign-in, and your password is stored in our database without hashing. Starting with Relay 1.26.9 the app may encrypt your password and your message text before storing them, using a key TSS holds, so TSS can still read them, including to help you recover your account. Older records may stay unencrypted. Use a password you use nowhere else.
AI features
Snap Intelligence. When you take a photo, a smaller copy may be sent right away, before you choose to post it, to an AI provider to suggest captions and emoji, tag topics and mood, and catch content that breaks the rules, including sexual and political content. The results are stored with the snap.
Darkroom filters. When you shoot with a darkroom filter selected, the unfiltered original goes through our servers to an AI image provider at the moment of capture, whether or not you post it, and the filtered result comes back to your phone. Other filters run on your iPhone.
Fictional characters. Relay includes a few clearly labeled fictional characters you can chat with. When you message one, your messages in that conversation (and recent context from it) are sent to a third party AI provider (currently Poe, operated by Quora, Inc.) to generate the character's replies. Those messages are handled by the provider under its own terms. Do not share sensitive personal information with a fictional character. Characters carry a persistent fictional label, wind down long conversations, and step out of character to point to real help if you seem to be in crisis.
Relay Glow (AI retouch). Glow is an optional beta feature. When and only when you tap it on a photo, the original image is sent to the same category of third party AI provider to generate a retouched version that comes back to your device. Nothing is posted automatically, you review it first, and you can discard it. Glow is limited to a few uses per day, and Glowed photos may carry a visible note so others know the image was altered.
Contact verification
Contact verification is optional. It puts a green check next to your name in messages so the people you talk to know you are a real person whose age adds up. You start it yourself in Settings, Security. Relay may also ask an account to complete it before chatting with people under 18, or after a safety review, and the app tells you when that happens.
- On your iPhone. The Face ID camera checks that you are there live: depth, head turns, a blink or a smile, and Apple's on device image analysis that spots a screen or a printed photo held up to the camera. This happens on your iPhone and is discarded when the check ends. Relay never receives your depth data or face measurements.
- One photo. One still frame from the check is sent over an encrypted connection to Relay's server and to our AI provider (currently Poe, operated by Quora, Inc.) to estimate an apparent age range. It is used only for that estimate, never to identify you, and Relay does not store it.
- Your iPhone's age range. If you agree in Apple's prompt, your iPhone shares an age range (not your birthday) and how it was set, for example by you or by a parent. You can decline.
- What Relay keeps. The result (verified or not, and an age band), the birthday you gave Relay, the age range your iPhone shared, the photo's age estimate as numbers, how many of your friends with a birthday are under 18, whether a parent is linked through Relay Parents, your device model, and a dated history of each check. If these signals do not match your stated birthday, Relay uses the age band they point to for safety features and keeps a note of the birthday you stated.
- Who sees what. Other people see only the green check. The age band behind it is used by Relay's safety features and is visible to Relay staff.
- Never for ads. Nothing from Contact verification is used for advertising, marketing, data mining, or Neon, and it is never sold. Relay does not create or keep a face template.
You can turn it off any time in Settings, Security, which removes the green check. The dated history of past checks is kept with your account as a safety record and is deleted with your account. If your iPhone's age range shows you are under 13, the check does not complete and the account is handled as described under Children.
How we use your data
To operate, maintain, secure, and improve Relay: to run features, authenticate you and prevent fraud, deliver notifications you have asked for, provide support, analyze usage and performance, enforce our Terms, and comply with the law.
Who we share it with
- Service providers. We share only what is needed with providers who run the service for us: hosting, database, file storage and functions (Google Firebase and Google Cloud), web services, video storage and networking (Cloudflare), push notifications, App Attest, age signals and maps (Apple, with Google for push delivery), AI generation and analysis (Poe, operated by Quora, Inc., and the model providers it reaches, including Anthropic and Google), and voice (ElevenLabs). This can include your photos and messages, since that is the content we store and process for you.
- Law enforcement and safety. We will disclose data when legally compelled, or when we believe in good faith it is needed to comply with the law, prevent harm, or report illegal activity, including reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children where required.
- Business changes. If TSS is ever acquired or merged, your data may transfer with the service under this same policy or one at least as protective.
- No sale of data. We do not sell, rent, lease or trade your personal data, we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we have not done so in the past.
- No third party ads in the app. The Relay app has no ad networks or advertising SDKs and does not track you across other companies' apps or websites. Sponsored posts are delivered by TSS itself. Our public websites may use third party services under their own policies.
Content moderation
Photos are screened on your device by Apple's sensitive-content technology, and comments are screened on device as well. Content that is posted, reported, or flagged may additionally be analyzed by automated AI models, including those from third party partners such as Anthropic, PBC, to detect and remove prohibited content, and reported content is reviewed by a person. Using Relay means you consent to this.
How long we keep it
- Content you delete, and accounts you delete, are removed from the app right away and purged from our active systems, ordinarily within about 60 days.
- Instants are viewable once by the people they were sent to, but TSS keeps a copy in storage after they are opened.
- Originals and library copies are retained on the same footing as everything else here, and are purged on the same schedule after you delete the related content or your account. They are not deleted the instant a snap is removed.
- Safety, security, enforcement, age, containment and terms acceptance records are kept longer, as long as we need them or the law requires.
- We may retain limited records longer where the law requires it, to enforce bans and blocks, to investigate abuse, or to keep required safety records.
- Server backups roll over on their own schedule, so residual copies may persist briefly after a purge before the backup expires.
Your responsibility for what you provide
Relay is a camera and a place to put photos. It does not decide what you point it at, and it does not inspect your camera roll before you grant access to it. Everything Relay collects from your device originates in a choice you made, so you are the one who owns that choice.
- You confirm you are entitled to provide every photo Relay collects, and that you have any consent, release or permission needed from every identifiable person in it, including a parent or guardian if that person is a minor.
- You accept responsibility for that content and, to the extent the law allows, you waive claims against TSS arising from our collecting, transmitting, storing or retaining it, and you cover us against claims brought by anyone who appears in it. The binding version of that is in section 3 and section 12 of the Terms.
- If you are not comfortable with a photo being collected, do not take it in Relay and do not grant photo library access. Revoking access in iOS Settings stops the library copies immediately.
- If someone appears in a photo we hold and wants it removed, write to help@relayyyy.com and we will deal with it.
Security
Your data travels over encrypted connections and is stored with Google Firebase, which encrypts data at rest. As described above, your login is not hashed, the app reads and writes the database directly, any encryption the app adds uses a key TSS holds, and nothing is end-to-end encrypted. If we learn of a breach affecting your personal information, we will tell you as the law requires. No app can promise perfect security, so use a password you do not use anywhere else, and tell us at help@relayyyy.com if you believe your account has been compromised.
Your controls and rights
In Settings, under Privacy and data, you can:
- Turn off any single category of collection (how you use Relay, your phone, other apps, who you talk to, how you shoot).
- Turn the personalization system off entirely.
- Opt out of the Neon data market, which removes you from every aggregated statistic Neon offers.
- Control each experimental tool and precise location, all of which are off by default.
- Request erasure of the personalization and device data tied to your account.
- Delete your account, which removes your photos and your data.
Turning off a category stops that collection going forward. Erasure requests are handled manually within a reasonable time, and in any case within the timelines California law sets. You can also email help@relayyyy.com to request a copy of your data, correction of something wrong, or deletion, and we will not treat you differently for exercising any of these rights. If we decline a request, reply to our answer to appeal. We do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of, and we treat a browser's Global Privacy Control as consistent with that. The app does not respond differently to Do Not Track signals.
Relay Parents
Relay Parents at parents.relayyyy.com is an optional parent dashboard with its own terms. It only ever shows a parent an account that has been deliberately linked from inside that account holder's own copy of Relay, by approving a one-time link (which expires after 48 hours) or code (which expires after fifteen minutes). There is no way for anyone to link an account without a person holding that phone agreeing to it.
Parents sign in with a Relay account. Older parent accounts made with only an email address keep working; their password is stored only as a salted scrypt hash. Parent records are kept in a part of our database that no app client can read or write. Sessions are random tokens stored hashed, and they expire.
Once linked, the parent can see: snaps and their captions, whether a snap is in the Journal, the friends list and pending friend requests, the names of people the account holder exchanges messages with along with message counts and timestamps, minutes of active use per day, streaks, blocks, reports filed, and how many photos the on-device screening blurred.
A linked parent cannot see the contents of any message, in any conversation, one to one or group. Relay Parents has no screen that can open a conversation. It also never shows a password, a location, or anything that was deleted. The account holder sees this same list inside Relay under Settings, then Parents, along with every limit the parent has set. Nothing about the link is hidden from them, and they can start an unlink at any time, which notifies the parent and completes after 48 hours.
Minutes of use are only recorded while an account is linked, along with which hours of the day they fell in and the Relay version on the phone. If nobody is linked, Relay records nothing for this purpose. Usage records are deleted after about 120 days. Unlinking stops all of it.
If we turn on Relay Parents' optional AI features, a parent can ask for a short weekly summary. It is written by our AI provider from counts only (such as minutes, number of posts and number of new friends), never from photos, captions, messages or other people's names, and it is only made when the parent asks for it.
Children
Relay is not for anyone under 13, sign-up checks a birthday and refuses accounts under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a younger child has an account, email us and we will remove the account and delete its data.
Changes
If we change this policy we will update the date and version above and post the revised version here. For material changes the app may ask you to review and accept the new version before you keep using Relay. Accepting, or continuing to use Relay after a new version reaches you, means you accept it.
Contact
Questions or requests: help@relayyyy.com. Legal notices: legal@relayyyy.com. The full, binding agreement lives inside the app and on the Terms page.