YapBuds Privacy Policy

What YapBuds does

YapBuds is a group intercom for people who are physically near each other. Your iPhone or iPad connects directly to the other devices in your group over Apple's peer-to-peer Wi-Fi. Voice is sent from device to device. There is no YapBuds server in between, and the app does not use the internet to carry your conversation.

Information we collect

None. We do not operate any server that the app talks to, so we do not receive, store or process any information about you or your use of the app. We do not use analytics, advertising, or crash-reporting software from any third party. Our App Store privacy label is "Data Not Collected".

Information stored on your device

YapBuds stores two kinds of information on your device only, using the standard app settings storage provided by iOS:

• Your display name and, if you choose one, a small avatar (either the name of a preset icon or a compressed photo under 6 KB).
• Whether you have already seen the app's one-time explanation of its permissions.

This information is shared only with the other devices in a group you join, so that they can show who is talking. It is not sent to us or to anyone else. Deleting the app deletes it.

Your voice

Your voice is captured by the microphone only while you are in a group and not muted. It is encrypted on your device and sent directly to the other devices in your group, which play it through their headphones. It is never recorded, stored, or uploaded by YapBuds, on your device or anywhere else.

Permissions

YapBuds asks for two permissions and no others:

• Microphone, so the people in your group can hear you.
• Local Network, so your device can discover and connect to the nearby devices in your group.

YapBuds does not request access to your location, contacts, photo library, camera, calendar, notifications, or any identifier used for tracking. If you add a photo as your avatar, you choose it through Apple's photo picker, which runs outside the app and gives YapBuds only the single image you selected.

Encryption

All group messages and voice packets are encrypted between devices using cryptography built into iOS (Apple CryptoKit): Curve25519 key agreement, HKDF-SHA256 key derivation and ChaCha20-Poly1305 authenticated encryption. Group keys are created when a group starts, are mixed with the group's join code so that a device without the code cannot join, and are discarded when the group ends.

Group hosts

The person who creates a group can mute a participant (who can unmute themselves) and can remove a participant. To keep a removed participant from rejoining, the host's device remembers that participant's local network address for the rest of that group only, in memory. Nothing is written to disk and the list is gone when the group ends.

Children

YapBuds is rated 4+. It has no accounts, no chat text, no content feeds, and no way to join a group without its code. We do not knowingly collect any information from anyone, including children, because the app collects no information at all.

This website

yapbuds.com is a static website. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and does not load scripts from third parties. If you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you write, and we use it only to reply.

Changes

If YapBuds ever starts collecting information, for example by adding an optional feature that needs a server, we will update this policy, update the app's App Store privacy label, and describe the change in the app's release notes before that version is released.

Contact

Southpoint Partners LLC

officialyapbuds@gmail.com