Safety

• Connections are made by a tempel. There is no people search, no invitation link, and no contact import: other people can only connect with you through a tempel, or through a request in an event room that you accept.
• You decide whom you do a tempel with. Show your code only to someone who is in front of you and whom you want to connect with.
• The person you do a tempel with gets your nickname, and your profile photo if you have set one. Once connected, they also receive the updates you send to all your connections. Your contact card and your birthday only reach them if you share them.
• A tempel does not use your phone’s location, and the server does not receive it. The server knows which account did a tempel with which account and when, but cannot read your names or your conversations.
• If you are going to meet someone you do not know well yet, choose a busy place and tell someone you trust where you are going.

A birthplace is an open room for a first tempel. While your account is not born yet, the Tempel sheet offers Birthplaces near you, with a schedule for each city. Come at the listed time, press Enter, show the room entry QR on your phone to the organisers, and your account is born when you do the tempel together.

• A birthplace’s host is someone who uses Patepang and has done a tempel with 20 different people. The public schedule only names the city and the hours, not the host.
• Entering a room makes no personal connection with the host. Inside the room, you can ask to connect with other participants; such a connection starts limited, only the name and the event card, until you do a tempel directly.
• A host can let in people who are not present, so a connection made through a room does not prove that the person was there.
• The server knows the city of the birthplace where you did a tempel, who entered the room and when, and who asked to connect with whom. The room’s content is deleted after the room closes, at most 7 days after it opened; its tempel records remain.
• If there is no birthplace in your city yet, an account that is not born can wait in one city. The server keeps that city until your account is born, for at most 90 days.

On the person’s profile, choose Disconnect. They are not told.

• Their messages, photos, and updates no longer reach your phone. In a group you share, their new messages do not appear on your phone; your messages in the group still reach them.
• You choose Keep conversation, which can only be read, behind the PIN, or Delete conversation. Their messages that already appeared in a kept conversation can still be reported for up to 30 days after they arrived.
• Report first opens their conversation, so that you can report messages before disconnecting. Save evidence saves that conversation as a file, together with the statements of its authors, for the police or a lawyer. That file is not encrypted, so keep it safe.
• To connect again, you need to meet and do a tempel. Your moments stay stored.

If you disconnect on the day you met, the server can infer it from the tempel token your phone revokes. To hide your updates, status, birthday, contact card, or profile photo from someone without disconnecting, open Privacy for … on their profile; they are not told what you choose.

1. Select the problematic content, for example a message, then Report.
2. In What is the problem?, choose one: Harassment, Fraud, Threats, Child sexual content, Violence, Intimate images without permission, Spam, or Other.
3. Write a note for the moderators if you want, and choose the language of the content.
4. Press Send report.

• Your phone seals a copy of that content, the category, and your note for the moderators only; the server cannot read them. The server sees the account you report, but does not store who reported, and the person you report is not told who reported them.
• Patepang’s moderators are human. They only read what was reported, not other messages, your connection list, or your location.
• Messages, photos, updates, contact cards, plans, invitations to meet, moment content, room posts, and event cards from other people that have already appeared on your phone can be reported for up to 30 days after they arrived, even if the sender has deleted them.
• The status and decision of your reports are in Settings, Your reports.

What is not allowed on Patepang, sanctions, and appeals are explained in the Community guidelines.

Use the emergency lock if your phone or your account may be in someone else’s hands. In Settings, under Locks and privacy, press Emergency lock now, then Freeze account for 72 hours. The emergency lock needs the internet.

• All your other devices are revoked.
• A recovery that is waiting is cancelled.
• For 72 hours the server refuses to link devices, change guardians, and recover the account. New tempels and connections also wait until the freeze ends.
• The messages and updates you send are held on that phone until the emergency lock ends. Messages for you still come in.

Only the phone that set the emergency lock can end it early, with End emergency lock.

• Choose guardians you truly trust and can meet in person. Two of your guardians who collude can open your backup without a recovery.
• Every recovery waits at least 48 hours. If your phone shows Your account is being recovered on another phone and it is not you, cancel it from there.
• If you are someone’s guardian, show the recovery code only when the person is in front of you with their new phone. Someone who claims to be your friend over a call or a message may be trying to take their account.
• If you do not want your account to be recoverable through guardians at all, turn on Dead lock. After that, an account whose devices are all lost cannot be recovered.

More in Guardians.

If someone is in immediate danger, call emergency services at 112. Patepang does not monitor content and cannot send help.

If you need to take a conversation to the police or a lawyer, Save evidence saves it as a file together with the statements of its authors. Patepang never asks for your PIN, six words, or a key file, and does not act on an account because of an email or a phone call; a message asking for them is not from us. Questions: [email protected].