Clear about the information that makes chat work.

Information Relay handles

Relay handles the information needed to identify participants, run rooms, and deliver messages.

• Profile information: a short Relay Unique ID, your display name, selected message color, account and activity timestamps, and prior display names when you change your name.
• Profile connections: HTTPS links you add are public, self-provided, and labeled unverified. You may opt in to showing that a verified Google sign-in is linked, without publishing your email or provider account identifier. Profile cards show friends and Servers shared with the viewer, not your complete relationship lists. Server Plugins and their chat-data permissions remain separate.
• Chat and room information: message text, message time, author display name and Unique ID, room names, room access settings, membership and moderation records, and room roles.
• Account information: Relay uses Google sign-in. Supabase Auth processes the Google identity information needed to establish your session. Relay may show the email associated with that Google account inside your account area.
• Service activity: a short-lived presence signal and recent activity time so Relay can show aggregate online counts and keep active sessions working.
• Ephemeral typing: current chat members may receive an “is typing” signal. You can opt in to share up to 240 characters of your unsent draft with that chat. Draft previews are temporary and are not saved as chat messages. Connected Apps approved by a host or moderator may separately receive short-lived typing and draft events within their granted permissions; those events use temporary service-side storage. An external app may retain data it receives under its own practices.
• Safety: Relay checks message rates, mention counts, repeated-link fingerprints, new-conversation rates, and profile-change timing. Temporary detection signals expire after one day and are removed by maintenance. Administrators can review suspension reasons and restore suspended accounts. Permanent email bans retain the associated email privately to prevent reuse, including after account deletion.

Browser storage and account sessions

Relay does not use browser storage as an offline chat database or an unsent-message queue. Your rooms and message history are loaded from Relay’s cloud service when you are signed in.

Supabase’s authentication client may keep a protected sign-in session in the browser so you can return without entering your credentials each visit. Signing out or clearing relevant browser data can end that browser session; it does not by itself erase Relay’s cloud history.

How rooms and profiles are visible

Public room names are listed in Relay’s Discover view and can be joined by people using the service. Private room names are not listed there and require the exact name and password to join. A private-room password is sent to the service for access checking and is stored as a bcrypt password hash, not as readable plain text.

People in a room can see the display name and Unique ID attached to messages and membership. Relay also supports profile choices that can make account-creation information or previous display names available on a profile. Do not put sensitive information into a public room name, display name, profile, or chat message.

Private access is an access-control feature. Relay does not currently offer an end-to-end encryption feature, so do not use Relay for information that requires that level of protection.

How the information is used and hosted

Relay uses this information to create and join rooms, synchronize messages, apply room roles and bans, operate friends, deliver ephemeral typing signals, maintain account sessions, and calculate limited aggregate service metrics.

The Relay web application is hosted on Vercel. Cloud authentication, database records, real-time message delivery, and service functions are provided through Supabase. Google provides Relay’s account sign-in. Those services process information as needed to provide their parts of the service.

Retention and room cleanup

Messages are retained with their chat history. When a room becomes empty, Relay removes it from the active product and archives it. A room host can close a room, and a Relay site owner or administrator can close any room when needed, with an optional recorded reason. Closing or deleting a room removes it from the active product while retaining history and moderation records for safety and review.

Requesting account deletion hides your account and messages immediately and schedules permanent removal after a 30-day private retention period. Signing in with Google afterward creates a new account: it does not restore your previous messages, memberships, friends, or permissions. Servers with other members require ownership transfer or closure first. Platform ownership cannot be transferred through the app. Permanent email-ban records are retained separately for abuse prevention. Retired channel images and deleted-server icons are eligible for maintenance cleanup after a 30-day grace period. Legacy accounts that used a non-Google sign-in are permanently removed by the site owner, together with their authored messages; affected rooms are closed to preserve other participants’ records. Provider backups and operational logs follow their own retention schedules.

AI features today

Hosts and moderators can select a free rule-based helper or an OpenAI model for an AI user. OpenAI users send the triggering human message and the AI user's display name to OpenAI to generate a reply; they do not send live drafts, account credentials, or the rest of the channel history. Mentions-only, questions-and-mentions, and automatic human-message reply modes are available. AI users never trigger replies to each other. Replies remain in chat history, and Relay records model, token usage, and estimated cost for budget enforcement. Do not send sensitive information to an AI user. OpenAI's data policies also apply. The request disables optional API response storage; this is not a guarantee of zero provider retention.

Security and changes

Relay uses authenticated cloud requests and access checks to limit room data to the appropriate participants. No online service can guarantee absolute security, so keep private-room passwords private and avoid sending information you would not want other room participants or the service to retain.

If Relay’s data practices materially change—for example, by connecting an AI provider or changing retention behavior—this notice will be updated before or when the change is made available. The current version is always posted at this address.