Vorkuy Terms of Use

1What Vorkuy is

Vorkuy is a messenger for family and close friends. It offers personal and group chats, including family groups; photos, videos, voice messages and files of any kind; voice and video calls; urgent messages that come through even in a muted chat and during quiet hours; birthday reminders for your loved ones; signing in on several devices and moving your key with a QR code.

The service is free and has no advertising. We do not charge for using it and do not show ads in the app. We may add, change and remove features as the service develops; we tell you about noticeable changes in the app.

The service may sometimes be temporarily unavailable — for example, while servers are being updated or because of a failure at a network or hosting provider. We try to keep such interruptions short and to schedule maintenance for times when the service is used least.

2Who can use Vorkuy

• You must be at least 13 years old.
• If the age at which you can consent to data processing yourself is higher in your country (for example, 14 in Bulgaria, Italy and Spain, 16 in Germany, Poland and Hungary), you need the consent of a parent or legal guardian. A parent who gives consent accepts these terms on the child's behalf and is responsible for how the child uses the service. On iOS the app may ask for this permission through Apple's family features.
• You may not use the service if we have previously banned your account for violations — including by creating a new account with another number.
• You may not use the service where this is prohibited by the law of the country you are in.
• Vorkuy is made for personal communication. It may not be used for advertising, mass messaging, sales or a company's customer support.

3Your account

• NumberYour account is linked to your phone number. Sign up only with your own number, one you have access to. To sign in we send you a code by SMS — never share it with anyone: support will never ask you for the code.
• ProfileUse your real name in your profile, or the name your loved ones know you by. You may not impersonate another person or organisation.
• DevicesYou can sign in on several devices. The list of devices and sessions is in settings, and you can end any of them.
• Responsibility for your accountYou are responsible for everything that happens in your account and for keeping your devices and your 12-word phrase safe. If you lose your phone or someone gains access to your account, end the unknown sessions in settings and write to us.
• Your encryption key is kept on your devicesIf you lose all your devices and your phrase, support cannot restore access to your old history — it knows neither your key nor your phrase. In that case you can start over with a new key; the people you talk to will see that you started over.
• Changing your numberIf you are changing your number, change it in settings in advance. Mobile operators reassign old numbers to other people over time, and the new owner of the number will be able to sign in to your account if it is still linked to that number.

4What you may not do

We want Vorkuy to be calm and safe, so it is prohibited to:

• break the law, including distributing child sexual abuse material, calling for violence, terrorism or extremism, or trading in prohibited goods and substances;
• draw children into sexual communication or try to get photos or a meeting from them;
• insult, harass, threaten or bully other people, or incite hatred on the grounds of nationality, religion, sex, age, disability or orientation;
• send spam or mass messages to people you do not know, commit fraud, or trick people into giving money, codes or passwords;
• impersonate another person or organisation;
• publish other people's personal data, intimate photos or videos without their consent;
• infringe copyright, trademarks or other rights;
• distribute malware or phishing links;
• hack the service, look for or exploit vulnerabilities without our permission, overload our servers, bypass limits, create accounts automatically, use unofficial apps or bots, or harvest other users' data;
• misuse features — for example, send urgent messages without a real reason.

If you find a vulnerability, write to support@vorkuy.com. We are grateful for such reports and do not pursue anyone who reports in good faith and does not use the vulnerability to cause harm.

5Moderation

• ReportsYou can report any message or person from the menu. Together with the report, moderators receive only the text of the selected message and a screenshot if you attach one. Moderators do not see the rest of the conversation, and the person you reported does not find out who reported them.
• We do not look through messages ourselvesModeration works only on the basis of user reports.
• MeasuresFor violations we may issue a warning, remove a message or remove a person from a group, restrict features or ban the account. In deciding, we take into account how serious the violation is and whether it happened before. For serious violations we ban immediately, without a warning.
• Your protectionYou can block anyone — they will not be able to message or call you. If someone you share no chats with writes to you, the message arrives as a request, and you decide whether to accept it.
• AppealsIf you believe you were banned by mistake, write to support@vorkuy.com. A person, not an automated system, will review the decision, and we will tell you the result.
• Serious offencesWe report child sexual abuse material and threats to life to the competent authorities where the law requires it.

6Your content

• RightsMessages, photos, videos, files and everything else you send through Vorkuy remain yours. We claim no rights to them.
• What you allow us to doYou grant us a free, non-exclusive right to store, copy and deliver your content to its recipients — solely to make the service work. This right lasts as long as the content is stored on the server.
• ResponsibilityYou are responsible for what you send and for having the rights to it. Send only what you are entitled to send.
• RetentionWe keep messages for 5 years, files for 1 year and deleted chats for six months (see the Privacy Policy, section 6). Vorkuy is not a cloud archive: if your history or files matter to you, keep a copy of your own.
• SuggestionsIf you send us ideas for improving the service, we may use them without any obligation to you — thank you for helping make Vorkuy better.

7Access under a court order

Messages are encrypted on your devices, but we keep an encrypted copy of your key. Under an order of a court that has jurisdiction over the operator of the service, or on a request received through international legal assistance, we are obliged to provide the messages of the chats named in the order, including earlier history still stored on the server.

Every such access requires two confirmations and is recorded in a log. We do not notify chat members about it, because with court requests this is usually prohibited. The key copy is not used for support, moderation or any other purpose. See the Privacy Policy, section 5, for details.

8Liability

• "As is"The service is provided "as is". We work to keep it running without interruptions, but we do not promise that messages, calls and notifications will always arrive on time or that data will never be lost.
• Vorkuy is not a substitute for emergency servicesIn an emergency, call 112 or your local emergency number.
• Other people's contentWe are not responsible for content sent by other users or for the content of third-party websites behind links.
• LimitationTo the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect damage or lost profits. These limitations do not apply where the law prohibits them — for example, in cases of intent, gross negligence or harm to life and health.
• Circumstances beyond our controlWe are not responsible for interruptions caused by natural disasters, network outages, actions of public authorities or failures at our providers.
• Your liabilityYou are liable to us for damage you cause by breaching these terms or the law.
• Consumer rightsThese terms do not limit your consumer rights under the law of your country.

9Account deletion and termination

• You can delete your account at any time in the app's settings. What is deleted immediately, what is kept and why — see the Privacy Policy, section 7.
• We may ban an account for breaching these terms (section 5) or where the law requires it.
• If we decide to shut down the service, we will announce it in the app at least 30 days in advance, so that you have time to save what matters to you.
• The provisions on content, liability and disputes continue to apply after your account is deleted, to the extent their purpose requires.

10Changes to these terms

We update these terms when the service or the law changes. Each new version is published on the website with its date and version number.

We tell you about significant changes in the app: a "We've updated the terms" message appears with a short summary of what changed. To keep using the service, you need to accept the new version. If you do not agree, you can delete your account.

Changes required by law, or changes that do not make your position worse — for example, fixing typos or clearer wording — may take effect without separate consent.

11Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of the country of the operator of the service. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where you live and the right to go to court where you live. EU residents may also contact their local consumer protection authorities.

Before going to court, please write to us — most issues can be resolved by email. We reply within one month.

If any provision of these terms turns out to be invalid, the rest remain in force. If we do not exercise a right under these terms straight away, this does not mean we have waived it.

12Contact