Privacy Policy

Last updated: 31 August 2026 · Applies to the GoldChat app and web service

Who we are

GoldChat is operated by iSinkwaMtase, a company based in South Africa. Contact / Information Officer: communications@isinkwamtase.com. We process personal information in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

What we collect, and why

• Phone number — used once to verify your account with a one-time code. Your number is never shown to other users. Friends find you by username — and, if you leave "Find me by my number" switched on in Account, someone who already has your number in their phone can see that you're on GoldChat (they see your profile, never your number back). Switch it off and number matching skips you entirely.
• Find friends (optional) — if you tap "Find friends from your contacts", the phone numbers you choose to check are sent to our server only to be matched against GoldChat accounts and are immediately discarded — your contact list is never stored, logged or shared. Reading your phonebook happens only when you use the feature and only after you grant the permission.
• Email address (optional) — only if you choose to receive your verification code by email. Used for that code and account-recovery mail; never shown to other users and never used for marketing.
• Username and display name — your public identity in the app.
• Messages, photos, voice notes and moments (our 24-hour status updates) — stored on our South African server so we can deliver them to your chats. Moments expire after 24 hours.
• Blocks and reports — kept to enforce safety.
• Feature suggestions — anything you type to the official @goldchat account, or send with "Suggest a feature" in Account, is stored with your username and read by our team, so we can answer you in that chat and decide what to build. That official chat is not end-to-end encrypted, on purpose, so that a person here can read what you send there; chats with other people are end-to-end encrypted as described under "Security — an honest note" below. Suggestions are deleted with your account.

We do not store your contact list (numbers you check with Find friends are matched and immediately discarded), advertising identifiers, or analytics profiles. The 📍 button in a chat shares a location only when you tap it, and we keep no history of those.

Sizani — the safety button

Where Sizani is switched on, it is the one place GoldChat keeps location. It only does so for an alert or a timed journey you started, and only while it is active:

• Your position, sent by your phone every few seconds while the alert or journey runs, so the people you chose and neighbours nearby can find you. It stops when you cancel, stand down, or check in.
• Who was told. An alert goes to the up-to-five people you nominated, and to GoldChat users within about 500 m (loud) and 2 km (quiet) of you. They see your name, your approximate position and a map. Nobody outside those rings is told, and nothing is posted publicly unless you or a nominee chooses to publish it.
• Your nominees' numbers, kept so that the seats you set up can be rung.
• The record of the alert — times, positions, who was alerted and who responded — kept so that what happened can be shown afterwards, to you or to the police at your request. Write to the support address below to have an alert's record deleted.

Sizani never runs, and never reads your location, unless you press it or arm a journey. Being inside someone else's ring tells us nothing about you beyond the position your phone last shared with Sizani.

Who we share data with

• Infobip — receives your phone number solely to deliver your verification code by SMS, if you choose the SMS option.
• HOSTAFRICA (HMailPlus) — delivers mail from noreply@goldchat.co.za: your verification code if you choose the email option, and operational notices to our own team, which carry the text of a feature suggestion you send us.
• HOSTAFRICA — our hosting provider; servers are located in South Africa.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers.

Security — an honest note

All traffic between your device and our servers is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Chats between devices on a current version of GoldChat are end-to-end encrypted — the message content is sealed on your device and our server cannot read it. Some things are not end-to-end encrypted by design: message reactions, and metadata such as who messaged whom and when, which the server needs to deliver your chats. Older app versions fall back to transit-encrypted messages until updated.

Your rights (POPIA)

• Deletion: delete your account any time in-app (Account → Delete my account) — this permanently removes your profile, moments and requests. Or see our account deletion page.
• Access / correction: email us and we will respond within 30 days.
• Complaints: you may lodge a complaint with the South African Information Regulator (inforegulator.org.za).

Retention

Account data is kept until you delete your account. Moments are removed from feeds after 24 hours. One-time codes expire after 10 minutes.

Children

GoldChat is for users aged 13 and older. See our Child Safety Standards.

Changes

We'll post any changes to this page and update the date above.