Terms of Service

Civilo is an end-to-end encrypted messenger offered as an independent, non-commercial project by an individual. It is free: there are no paid features, subscriptions, in-app purchases, or advertisements, and we do not monetise your data. It is provided as-is, with no service-level commitment of any kind.

You must be at least 13 years old, or older where your local law sets a higher minimum age for consenting to data processing or entering into contracts. If you are under the age of majority where you live, you may use the Service only with the involvement of a parent or guardian who agrees to these Terms on your behalf. By using the Service you represent that you meet these requirements and are not barred from using it under any applicable law.

Your account is defined by cryptographic keys generated on, and held only by, your device. We never possess them. This has a consequence you should understand before relying on the Service: if you lose your device, delete the app, or reset it, your account, message history, and media cannot be recovered by us or by anyone else. There is no password reset and no backdoor, by design.

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your devices and for all activity conducted through your account. Notify us at support@civilo.co if you believe your account has been compromised, though note that the most effective remedy is in your hands: reset the app, which invalidates the keys.

You may not sell, rent, transfer, or share your account, or create accounts by automated means.

You agree not to use the Service, and not to help or encourage anyone else to:

• break any applicable law or regulation;
• create, request, share, or store child sexual abuse material. We enforce this with zero tolerance: immediate and permanent termination, and referral to the authorities or NCMEC where required or appropriate;
• harass, bully, threaten, stalk, defame, defraud, or impersonate any person, or incite others to do so;
• promote or organise violence, terrorism, human trafficking, the sexual exploitation of any person, or the sale of illegal goods or controlled substances;
• send spam, chain messages, or unsolicited bulk communications of any kind;
• distribute malware, phishing content, or anything designed to damage or gain unauthorised access to a device or system;
• infringe anyone's intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or other rights;
• share another person's private or identifying information without their consent;
• probe, scan, overload, disrupt, or interfere with the Service or its infrastructure; circumvent rate limits, authentication, encryption, or any other security or access control; or access the Service other than through the official applications and documented interfaces;
• reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code from the Service, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by applicable law or permitted by an open-source licence covering a component;
• use the Service for any commercial purpose, resell it, or provide it as a service to third parties;
• use the Service if you are located in a jurisdiction subject to a comprehensive US embargo, or if you appear on any US government list of restricted or prohibited parties.

The Service is end-to-end encrypted. We cannot see, scan, filter, or moderate the content of your communications, and we do not attempt to. Safety therefore works differently here than on platforms that read their users' messages: the tools are in the app and in your hands. You can block any user, report abuse, and verify a contact's safety number to confirm you are talking to who you think you are.

We take reports seriously and have zero tolerance for abusive users and objectionable content. Acting on reports and on technical signals that require no access to content — such as spam-like sending patterns — we may warn, rate-limit, suspend, or permanently terminate an account. Where the conduct is serious, we may do so immediately and without prior notice.

You retain all rights to the content you send through Civilo. We claim no ownership of it. You grant us only the narrow, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence technically necessary to operate the Service — to store, transmit, and deliver your encrypted data to the recipients you choose. That licence exists for no other purpose, extends to no one else, and ends when the data is delivered or deleted. We cannot read your content, so we could not exploit a broader licence even if we claimed one.

You are solely responsible for the content you send and for having the rights to send it.

If you send us suggestions, ideas, or feedback about the Service, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use them without restriction, attribution, or compensation. This lets us act on a good idea from a bug report without negotiating for it. Please do not send us anything you consider confidential.

The Service, including the applications, website, and their design, text, and graphics, is protected by intellectual property law and remains ours or our licensors'. These Terms grant you no rights in our name or branding. Your rights in the applications themselves are set out in the End User License Agreement.

The applications include components distributed under open-source licences. Those licences govern your rights in those components, and where they grant you rights broader than these Terms, the open-source licence prevails for the component in question. Nothing here limits any right you have under such a licence.

The Service depends on third parties we do not control: push notification delivery by Apple and Google, GIF results from Klipy and Giphy via our proxy, cloud infrastructure, and your network operator. Their availability, terms, and privacy practices are their own, and your use of the Service may also be subject to them. Content you reach through links shared in the app is likewise not ours, and we do not endorse it or take responsibility for it. The Privacy Policy sets out exactly what each provider receives.

Civilo is early-stage software developed by one person. It may contain defects, lose messages, drain battery, behave unexpectedly, or change substantially between versions. Features may be added, altered, or withdrawn without notice. Treat it accordingly and keep independent copies of anything you cannot afford to lose.

Civilo does not provide access to emergency services. It cannot be used to contact police, fire, ambulance, or any other emergency responder, and it is not a substitute for a telephone. Message and call delivery is best-effort and is not guaranteed. Never rely on the service in a situation where a failure to communicate could result in injury, loss, or harm.

We may add, modify, suspend, or remove features at any time, and we may discontinue the Service entirely. Where it is reasonably possible, we will give advance notice of a shutdown so you can tell your contacts where to find you. There is no guarantee of uptime, delivery, or storage, and we may perform maintenance that interrupts the Service without notice.

You may stop using the Service at any time by resetting the app and deleting it. We may suspend or terminate your access, without liability, if you breach these Terms, if we reasonably believe your use harms the Service or another person, or if we are required to by law. Where circumstances allow, we will tell you why.

Termination does not delete data held on your device, which remains yours to delete. Any provision that by its nature should survive termination does so, including sections 6 to 9 (content, feedback, and intellectual property), 11 and 12 (experimental software, and no emergency services), and 15 to 23 (disclaimers, liability, indemnification, dispute resolution, and the general provisions).

The service is provided "as is" and "as available," with all faults and without warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, and any warranty arising from course of dealing or usage of trade. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free, that messages will be delivered, that defects will be corrected, or that the service is free of harmful components.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Project Civilo will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or messages, arising out of or relating to the service, whether based in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, or any other theory, and whether or not we were advised of the possibility of such damages.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the service will not exceed the greater of the total amount you paid us to use it — which is zero — or fifty US dollars ($50).

These limits reflect a free service offered without charge by an individual, and are a fundamental basis of the bargain between us. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations; where that is so, these limits apply to the fullest extent permitted, and your statutory consumer rights are unaffected.

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Project Civilo from and against any claim, demand, proceeding, loss, liability, damage, cost, or expense — including reasonable legal fees — brought by a third party and arising out of or related to: the content you send, store, or receive through the Service; your use of the Service; your breach of these Terms; or your violation of any law or of any third party's rights.

We will notify you of any such claim, and you may control its defence with counsel of your choosing, provided that we may participate at our own expense and that you may not settle any claim in a way that imposes an obligation or admission on us without our written consent. This obligation survives termination.

Nothing in this section requires you to indemnify us for our own negligence or wilful misconduct, and if you are a consumer, this section applies only to the extent permitted by the law of your country of residence.

Talk to us first. Most problems can be resolved quickly. Before starting any formal proceeding, you agree to contact us at support@civilo.co with a description of the dispute and the resolution you want, and to give us 60 days to resolve it informally. The same obligation applies to us.

Binding individual arbitration. If the dispute is not resolved, you and we agree that it will be settled by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, before a single arbitrator, seated in the state of California, or conducted remotely or in your home county at your election. The arbitrator decides all issues except the enforceability of the class waiver below, which is for a court. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

You and we waive the right to a trial by jury and agree that claims may be brought only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, consolidated, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims or preside over any form of representative or class proceeding.

Your right to opt out. You may reject this arbitration agreement by emailing support@civilo.co with the subject line "Arbitration Opt-Out" within 30 days of first accepting these Terms. Opting out affects nothing else in this agreement and will not be held against you in any way.

Exceptions. Either of us may bring an individual claim in small claims court, and either of us may seek injunctive relief in court to stop unauthorised access to, or misuse of, the Service. If the class waiver is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim proceeds in court while the rest remain in arbitration.

Public injunctive relief. Nothing in this section waives your right to seek public injunctive relief. If a claim for public injunctive relief is asserted, that claim is severed and stayed pending the outcome of arbitration of the remaining claims, and it proceeds in a court of competent jurisdiction. The rest of this section remains in force regardless.

Coordinated filings. If 25 or more substantially similar demands for arbitration are asserted against us by or with the assistance of the same or coordinated counsel, the demands will be administered in batches of no more than 25 at a time, each batch treated as a single consolidated arbitration with one arbitrator and one set of fees, and the remaining demands stayed until the batch concludes. You and we will cooperate in good faith with the administrator to implement this, and any limitation period is tolled for stayed demands. This provision exists because the Service is free and is run by one person: without it, the cost of merely administering coordinated claims could end the project regardless of their merit.

If you are a consumer in the EEA or the UK, this section does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory law of your country of residence, and it does not require you to arbitrate. You may bring proceedings in the courts of your own country, and you may use the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform. The same applies anywhere local law makes pre-dispute arbitration agreements unenforceable against consumers.

These Terms and any dispute arising from them are governed by the laws of the State of California, and the Federal Arbitration Act with respect to section 18, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Where section 18 does not apply, the state and federal courts located in California have exclusive jurisdiction, and you and we consent to that venue. If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of, or the right to sue under, the mandatory law of your country of residence.

Because the Service is end-to-end encrypted, we cannot see or remove content sent between users, and we have no ability to act on a takedown notice for a private message. If you believe material on our website infringes your copyright, send a notice to support@civilo.co containing: your signature (electronic is fine), identification of the work, the location of the material, your contact details, a statement of good-faith belief that the use is unauthorised, and a statement under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate and that you are authorised to act. We will respond as the DMCA requires and will terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

The Service incorporates encryption and is subject to US export control law. You may not use, export, or re-export it in violation of those laws, and you represent that you are not located in, and not ordinarily resident in, a country subject to a comprehensive US embargo, and that you do not appear on any US government restricted party list. You are responsible for complying with any restriction on the import or use of encryption where you live.

We are not liable for any failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including acts of God, natural disaster, war, terrorism, civil unrest, labour action, epidemic, government action, network or power failure, failure of a third-party provider, or interruption of internet access.

Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the EULA are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service, and supersede any prior understanding.

Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is modified to the minimum extent necessary or severed, and the rest remains in full force.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.

Assignment. You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to a successor of the project, on notice.

Notices. We may give notice through the app, on this website, or to an address you have given us. You give notice to us at support@civilo.co.

No agency. These Terms create no partnership, employment, or agency relationship between us.

Interpretation. Headings are for convenience only, and "including" means "including without limitation."

We may update these Terms. The current version is always posted here with its date. If a change is material, we will give notice in the app or on this site before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after that means you accept the updated Terms; if you do not, stop using the Service and reset the app. Changes to section 18 do not apply retroactively to a dispute of which we already had notice.

If you obtained the application from the Apple App Store or Google Play, the End User License Agreement and that store's own terms also apply to the application itself.

Project Civilo — support@civilo.co