Legal

Privacy Policy

Ekko is designed so that we have as little data as possible. This policy explains exactly what is and isn't visible across each transport path.

Last updated: March 2026

Our Approach to Privacy

Ekko does not require an account, phone number, email address, or any personally identifiable information to use. Your identity is a cryptographic key pair generated entirely on your device. It never leaves your device and is never transmitted to us or any third party.

All messages are encrypted end-to-end using ChaCha20-Poly1305 with per-message ephemeral key agreement. Message content cannot be read by anyone other than the intended recipient — not by us, not by relay operators, and not by the networks that carry them.

Ekko does not operate central servers that route or store your messages. Different transport paths involve different third-party infrastructure, and each has different privacy characteristics. We believe you should understand exactly what each one exposes.

What Ekko Does Not Collect

No names, emails, or phone numbers

No contact lists or social graphs

No message content or metadata

No IP addresses or location data

No device identifiers or fingerprints

No usage analytics or telemetry

No advertising or tracking of any kind

No cloud backups of your messages

Local Storage

All messages, contacts, and cryptographic keys are stored locally on your device. Ekko does not sync data to the cloud and does not maintain any server-side copy of your conversations. If you uninstall the app or lose your device, your data is gone — by design.

What Each Transport Exposes

Ekko uses five transport paths to deliver messages. While message content is always encrypted end-to-end regardless of transport, the networks themselves can observe different types of metadata. Here is an honest breakdown of what each path exposes.

Bluetooth (BLE)

Direct device-to-device communication within approximately 30 feet. No internet connection is used. No third-party infrastructure is involved.

What is visible

  • BLE advertising signals are detectable by any Bluetooth receiver within radio range

What is protected

  • Message content (encrypted via Noise XX handshake + application-layer encryption)
  • Device identity (advertising IDs are rotated to prevent tracking)
  • No data leaves the local radio range

Distributed Hash Table (DHT)

Messages are stored as encrypted entries on the BitTorrent Mainline DHT — a global, decentralized network maintained by thousands of independent nodes. No single entity controls this network.

What is visible to DHT nodes

  • Your device's IP address (as a participant in the DHT network)
  • Which DHT slots are being published to or fetched from, which could allow observers to correlate access patterns
  • Approximate message volume (by counting occupied slots)
  • Timing of publish and fetch operations, which could be used for timing correlation

What is protected

  • Message content (application-layer encryption; DHT nodes store only ciphertext)
  • Sender and recipient identities (slots are derived from cryptographic keys, not human-readable identifiers)

DHT entries expire after 48 hours. Messages are stored across many independent nodes — there is no single server that holds all of your messages.

Onion Routing (Tor)

Ekko creates Tor v3 onion hidden services for direct, anonymized connections between devices. Messages are routed through the volunteer-operated Tor network. Ekko does not operate any Tor infrastructure.

What is visible

  • Your Tor guard node knows your IP address and that you are using Tor (but not your destination)
  • The DHT rendezvous lookup used to discover a peer's onion address is itself not anonymized
  • An ISP-level observer could use timing correlation if they can observe both endpoints

What is protected

  • Message content (triple-encrypted: Tor circuit + WebSocket + application layer)
  • Both endpoints' real IP addresses (hidden by onion routing)
  • No exit nodes are used — traffic stays entirely within the Tor network (.onion to .onion)

QUIC Relay (iroh)

Ekko uses the iroh protocol (from n0.computer) for QUIC-based connections. Devices first attempt direct peer-to-peer connections via UDP hole-punching. If a direct connection cannot be established, traffic is routed through relay servers operated by n0.computer.

What is visible to the relay server (when relay is used)

  • Both peers' IP addresses
  • Endpoint IDs (persistent identifiers derived from device keys)
  • Connection patterns, message sizes, timing, and frequency

What is protected

  • Message content (double-encrypted: TLS 1.3/QUIC + application-layer encryption)
  • Sender and recipient identities (the relay sees Endpoint IDs but does not have the mapping to user identities)

When a direct peer-to-peer connection succeeds via hole-punching, no relay is involved and no third party sees any traffic.

BLE Mesh Gossip

After a standard BLE exchange, devices can relay encrypted message blobs meant for other users. Any Ekko device in range acts as a potential courier.

What is visible to relay devices

  • Nothing meaningful — relay devices see only opaque encrypted blobs

What is protected

  • Message content, sender identity, and recipient identity
  • Relay devices cannot decrypt messages, identify participants, or determine who a message is intended for

Gossip messages are held for up to 48 hours with a 50 MB storage limit per device. Bloom filter digests are used for probabilistic acceptance — no metadata is exchanged about recipients.

Ekko Managed Services (Planned)

Ekko plans to offer optional subscription services that enhance delivery speed and reliability. These services do not change the end-to-end encryption guarantee — message content is never readable by Ekko — but they do involve Ekko-operated infrastructure, which changes the privacy characteristics compared to the fully decentralized free tier.

DHT Subscription Service

Planned

Subscribers would use Ekko-operated DHT infrastructure for push notifications, extended message retention, and priority publishing.

Additional data visible to Ekko

  • Your device's IP address when connecting to Ekko DHT nodes
  • DHT slot access patterns and timing (which slots you publish to or read from)
  • Push notification tokens (required for delivery notifications)
  • Subscription and payment information

Still protected

  • Message content remains end-to-end encrypted — Ekko infrastructure stores only ciphertext
  • Your contact list and social graph remain on your device

Relay Subscription Service

Planned

Subscribers would use Ekko-operated relay servers for faster delivery, offline message queuing, and improved reliability.

Additional data visible to Ekko

  • Your device's IP address when connecting to Ekko relay servers
  • Connection patterns — when you connect, how often, and how long
  • Message sizes and delivery timing metadata
  • Endpoint IDs of both parties in a relay connection
  • Subscription and payment information

Still protected

  • Message content remains end-to-end encrypted — relay servers see only ciphertext
  • User identities — Ekko sees Endpoint IDs but does not have a mapping to real-world identities

The free tier remains fully functional

Managed services are entirely optional. All five transports and all encryption features work without a subscription. Subscribing trades some metadata visibility to Ekko-operated infrastructure in exchange for speed and reliability improvements. You can switch between the free decentralized tier and managed services at any time.

Third-Party Services

Ekko does not operate most of the infrastructure that carries your messages. The following third-party services are involved depending on which transport is active:

BitTorrent Mainline DHT

A decentralized network of thousands of independent nodes. No single operator controls it. Bootstrap nodes include router.bittorrent.com, router.utorrent.com, and others.

Tor Network

A volunteer-operated anonymity network and its directory authorities. Ekko does not operate any Tor relays or directory servers.

n0.computer (iroh)

Operates relay servers used as a fallback when direct peer-to-peer QUIC connections cannot be established. Their relay servers can see connection metadata but not message content.

Each of these services has its own privacy policy and data practices. Ekko's end-to-end encryption ensures that none of them can read your message content, but they may log connection metadata according to their own policies.

Data Retention

Ekko does not retain any user data on servers we control (outside of planned managed services described above). For the decentralized transports:

  • DHT entries expire automatically after 48 hours across the network
  • BLE Gossip messages are held for up to 48 hours per relay device (50 MB limit)
  • Tor and QUIC connections are ephemeral — no messages are stored in transit
  • Local message history on your device persists until you delete it or uninstall the app

Law Enforcement Requests

Ekko's architecture means we have very little to provide in response to legal requests. We do not have access to message content, contact lists, or communication metadata for free-tier users. We cannot identify users because Ekko does not require accounts or collect personally identifiable information.

For managed service subscribers, we may hold limited connection metadata and payment information, which could be subject to legal process. We will always notify affected users where legally permitted.

Changes to This Policy

We will update this policy as Ekko evolves — particularly as managed services are introduced. Material changes will be communicated through the app and on this page. The “last updated” date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision.