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Terms of Service

Last updated: September 16, 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of parrhesia.chat and its related software and infrastructure (collectively, the "Service"). They are an agreement between you and Ridhwan Zaman, the individual operator of the Service ("Parrhesia," "we," "us," or "our").

By selecting "I agree" before creating or joining a room, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not create or join a room.

1. The Service

Parrhesia is a free, ad-free, end-to-end encrypted chat service with no user accounts and automatically expiring rooms.

  • No email address, phone number, or other identity information is required to create or join a room.
  • Message content is encrypted and decrypted on participant devices. Under normal operation, we do not possess the keys required to decrypt message content.
  • Message history is not stored on our servers. Encrypted message history may remain locally on a participant's device.
  • Rooms are temporary and expire automatically after a period of inactivity.
  • Peer-verification tools, including safety numbers and QR codes, are available to help participants verify one another.

The Service may evolve over time. Features may be added, changed, or removed.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live if that age is greater, and have the legal capacity to agree to these Terms. The Service is not directed to children.

3. Privacy and Data Handling

Parrhesia does not require or request your identity. Limited operational information is processed as necessary to create rooms, route connections, prevent abuse, maintain availability, and comply with law. Depending on how you access the Service, this information may include room identifiers, timestamps, temporary connection identifiers, IP addresses, and other network metadata processed by our hosting and network providers.

Your browser stores some information locally, including your agreement to these Terms, theme preference, cryptographic keys, peer-verification records, active-room state, and encrypted message history. This information remains on your device unless you remove it through your browser or device settings.

The absence of an account does not guarantee that your activity is anonymous or untraceable. Other participants, network providers, or information you disclose may identify you or allow activity to be correlated.

We do not maintain server-side message history and cannot disclose message content or decryption keys that we do not possess. We may preserve or disclose limited information in our possession when required by applicable law.

4. User Responsibilities and Acceptable Use

Parrhesia does not verify the identity of room participants and cannot review or moderate encrypted message content. Other participants may misrepresent themselves, retain copies of messages, or use the Service unlawfully. You are responsible for deciding whom to communicate with and should use the available peer-verification tools when identity matters.

You may not use the Service to:

  • Violate applicable law or the rights of others;
  • Harass, threaten, stalk, defraud, exploit, or harm another person;
  • Transmit content that you are not legally permitted to transmit;
  • Distribute malware or malicious code;
  • Gain unauthorized access to the Service or another system; or
  • Disrupt, overload, or interfere with the security or operation of the Service.

We may take reasonable infrastructure-level measures, such as expiring or blocking a room or restricting access, when necessary to protect the Service, prevent abuse, or comply with law. Because message content is encrypted, these measures generally cannot target content we cannot access.

5. Availability and Security

The Service is offered free of charge and may be changed, suspended, or discontinued. We do not guarantee that a message will be delivered, that a room will remain available, or that locally stored information will be preserved.

The security of your communications also depends on your device, browser, network, and verification of other participants. End-to-end encryption reduces certain risks but does not guarantee perfect security or protect information after another participant receives it.

You may stop using the Service at any time.

6. Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

To the extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We do not guarantee that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure against every possible attack.

To the extent permitted by law, Ridhwan Zaman and contributors to Parrhesia will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, revenue, goodwill, or reputation, arising from the Service or these Terms.

7. Open-Source Software

The client and server source code are available under the licenses published in their respective repositories. Those licenses govern your use, modification, and distribution of the source code. These Terms govern use of the hosted Service and do not limit rights granted by an open-source license.

8. Changes to These Terms

We may revise these Terms as the Service changes. When we do, we will update the date above and ask you to accept the revised Terms before creating or joining another room. Revised Terms apply after you accept them. If you do not agree to a revision, you may stop using the Service.

9. Governing Law and General Terms

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles, except where mandatory law provides otherwise. Subject to applicable law, disputes relating to these Terms or the Service will be brought in a state or federal court with jurisdiction in Georgia.

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, it will be limited or removed only to the extent necessary, and the remaining provisions will remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later. These Terms are the entire agreement between you and us concerning the hosted Service.

Questions about these Terms may be directed to ridhwanzaman@tutamail.com.