Zapchat, by TAG LLC. Effective 4 November 2026.
This describes what Zapchat actually does with your data. It is written to be accurate rather than reassuring; where something may surprise you, it is stated plainly.
Zapchat is operated by TAG LLC, which decides how your data is processed (the “controller”). Privacy questions and requests: [email protected].
Zapchat links to your existing WhatsApp account as a companion device. To do that, your messages pass through a relay server operated by TAG in the United States. Message content is decrypted on that server — this is unavoidable for any companion client that is not WhatsApp's own. Content is queued on that server only until your device has it: at most 12 hours once delivered, and at most 7 days if your device has not come to collect it. It is never used for advertising, profiling, or training anything, and it is never sold.
Message content can reveal sensitive things — health, religion, beliefs, sexual life. Zapchat does not look for them, sort by them or use them for anything; they pass through like any other content, under the limits above.
When a message arrives, the notification carries the sender's name, the chat or group name, and the message text so that you can read it without opening the app. A notification for an incoming call carries the caller's phone number. All of that passes through Apple's push service on the way to your device.
A muted or archived chat is the exception: its notification carries no text at all, because it is not meant to interrupt you.
TAG discloses data to authorities only where the law compels it.
The relay and its data are in the United States, wherever you are.
Zapchat makes no automated decisions about you and builds no profile of you.
| Messages, once your device has them | 12 hours |
| Messages your device never collects | 7 days |
| Messages you send (WhatsApp resend) | 7 days |
| Call diagnostics | 7 days |
| Server logs | 21 days |
| Problem reports | 30 days |
| Your WhatsApp session, contacts and groups | until you unlink Zapchat |
| Nightly backups of sessions and settings (no message content) | 14 days |
A restart does not extend any of these. Unlinking Zapchat — from WhatsApp's Linked Devices screen on your phone, or by asking us — ends TAG's access at once; the session data, your contacts and groups, and any messages still queued for you are deleted within a day, and leave the backups within 14 days.
You can ask for a copy of your data, its correction or deletion, to restrict or object to its processing, and to take it elsewhere. Write to [email protected] from any address and tell us the phone number of your linked account; to confirm it is you, we will ask you to send a code from that WhatsApp account. We answer within one month.
If you are unhappy with how we handled your data, tell us first and we will reply within 30 days. You can also complain to the data protection authority where you live — in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
Messages you receive were written by people who did not choose Zapchat. Their content, names and numbers pass through the same relay under the same terms and limits described here, and they have the same rights: anyone can write to [email protected].
The app reaches the relay only over encrypted connections, the relay has no port open to the internet, and its data is accessible only to TAG's operators. Message content is decrypted on the relay, as described above.
Zapchat is not directed at children and requires an existing WhatsApp account, which WhatsApp itself age-restricts. If we learn that a child under 13 is using it, we delete that session.
Zapchat is an independent client. It is not made by, endorsed by, or affiliated with WhatsApp LLC or Meta. Your use of WhatsApp remains governed by WhatsApp's own terms and privacy policy.
When this policy changes, the date above changes.