Last updated: 23 July 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Chatonio ("Chatonio", "we", "us") handles personal information in connection with the Chatonio operator apps — the iOS app and the desktop apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux (together, the "App"). The App is a professional tool that lets customer-support operators sign in to their Chatonio account and handle customer conversations. It is intended for business users, and is not directed to the general public or to children.
Who this policy covers
The App is used by operators — the staff of businesses that use Chatonio. This policy describes the information we process about you as an operator when you use the App. The messages and customer data you handle inside the App belong to the business that employs you (our customer), which is the controller of that data; Chatonio processes it on that business's behalf under our customer agreement.
Information we collect
Account information — your name, email address, and password (stored only as a secure hash), plus optional profile details such as a display name and avatar.
Authentication data — access and refresh tokens and, if you enable it, two-factor authentication settings. On iOS these tokens are held in the iOS Keychain; in the desktop apps they are held in the app's local storage on your device.
Push notification token — when you enable notifications on iOS, Apple issues a device token that we store so we can alert you about new or escalated conversations through the Apple Push Notification service. The desktop apps show alerts through your operating system's notification service instead and do not use an Apple device token.
Usage and content you access — the conversations, messages, tickets, and contacts you view or act on, and the actions you take (replying, assigning, tagging, adding notes, changing status).
Technical and log data — IP address, device and operating-system type, app version, timestamps, and diagnostic or error logs generated when you use the service.
How we use your information
Provide, operate, and maintain the App and your Chatonio account.
Authenticate you and keep your session secure.
Deliver the notifications you have enabled.
Route and display the conversations assigned to you.
Protect the service against fraud, abuse, and security threats.
Provide customer support and respond to your requests.
Comply with our legal obligations.
How your information is shared
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for advertising or cross-app tracking. We share information only with service providers that help us run the service, including:
Apple — to deliver push notifications to the iOS App through the Apple Push Notification service.
Cloud hosting and infrastructure providers — to store and process data securely on our behalf.
Email delivery providers — to send account and service-related emails.
We may also disclose information where required by law or to protect our rights, our users, or the public.
AI processing
Chatonio provides AI-assisted features to operators — suggested replies and drafts, message translation, conversation summaries, and knowledge-base search. To provide these features, the following content is transmitted to third-party AI providers acting as our sub-processors:
customer messages and conversation history for the conversation being processed;
operator-written drafts and replies;
knowledge-base and FAQ content belonging to the operator’s project.
The AI sub-processors are DeepSeek (large-language-model processing — reply generation, drafting, translation, and summaries) and Voyage AI (text embeddings that power knowledge-base search). Data is transmitted over encrypted connections and is used by these providers solely to return the requested output to Chatonio. We do not permit these providers to use your content for advertising, and we do not sell this data.
Operators using the Chatonio iOS application are shown this disclosure in the app and must explicitly agree before using the app. Businesses deploying Chatonio are responsible for reflecting this processing in their own end-customer privacy notices where required by applicable law.
Data retention
We keep account and usage information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the service. Push notification tokens are removed automatically when they become invalid or when you disable notifications or sign out. We retain certain information for longer where necessary to meet legal, security, and accounting obligations.
Security
We protect your information with encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS) and at rest, secure on-device credential storage appropriate to each platform (such as the iOS Keychain on iOS), hashed passwords, and optional two-factor authentication. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we use industry-standard measures to protect your data.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, or delete your personal information, or to object to or restrict certain processing. To exercise these rights, contact us at the address below. Because much of the content in the App belongs to the business that employs you, some requests may need to be directed to that business.
International transfers
We may process and store information in countries other than your own. Where we transfer personal data across borders, we take steps to ensure it remains protected in line with applicable law.
Children's privacy
The App is a business tool intended for adults and is not directed to children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, provide additional notice.
Contact us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your information, contact us at mail@chatonio.com
Website visitors and the marketing site
When you visit chatonio.com or our Help Center we process limited technical data needed to deliver and secure the site (for example, your IP address for security and rate-limiting via our edge/CDN provider). We do not run third-party analytics or advertising trackers on our website. Storage placed in your browser is described in our Cookie Policy.
Help-center portal clients
If you contact a business through a Chatonio-powered help center, we process your email address, the messages and files you send, and related metadata in order to deliver support on that business's behalf. In this case the business you contacted is the controller of your data, and Chatonio acts as its processor.
The embedded chat widget and Live Visitors
Our customers can embed the Chatonio chat widget on their own websites. On our own website we use the same widget. When the widget loads it stores a random visitor identifier in the browser and, where the "Live Visitors" feature is enabled, we may process: IP address, approximate location (country, and where configured city and network/ISP), browser and operating system, the page URL and browsing path during the visit, referrer and campaign (UTM) parameters, and whether the visitor is new or returning. This lets support agents see who is active and offer timely help.
Where this data is processed for one of our customers' websites, that customer is the controller and Chatonio is the processor; the customer is responsible for the notice and consent shown to their visitors. Where it is processed on Chatonio's own website, Chatonio is the controller.
Service providers and subprocessors
We share data with the providers needed to run the Service — for example, cloud hosting and object storage, email delivery, payment processing, edge/CDN and security, and AI model providers (DeepSeek for language-model processing and Voyage AI for text embeddings) — each only to the extent needed to provide the Service and under appropriate contractual protections.
International transfers and retention
Your data may be processed in countries other than your own. We keep personal data only as long as needed for the purposes described here or as required by law, after which it is deleted or anonymised.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or export your personal data, to object to or restrict certain processing, and to withdraw consent. To exercise these rights, contact us using the details below. Where a business used Chatonio to serve you, we will refer your request to that business as the controller.
Deleting your account
You can permanently delete your Chatonio operator account at any time from Settings → Profile → Delete account in the web app and in our mobile and desktop apps. Deletion is confirmed with your password (and your two-factor code, if enabled) and requires no email or phone call to us.
When you request deletion, your account is deactivated immediately — you are signed out on every device and can no longer sign in. Your account and all associated personal data are then permanently erased after a 30-day safety window, which lets you contact us to cancel the request if it was made in error. Deletion also permanently removes the workspaces (projects) you own, including their channels, conversations, knowledge-base content, and uploaded files, so please transfer ownership of any workspace you want to keep before deleting. Your email address remains reserved until the erasure completes and cannot be used to register again until then.
Location data
To help operators understand where their website visitors are located, we estimate an approximate country, region, city and network provider (ISP) from the visitor’s IP address. We use this only to display and analyse visitor geography; we do not store the raw IP address alongside this analytics data — only the derived, approximate location and provider. Location is an estimate and may be inaccurate, especially at the city level.
Geolocation is performed on our own servers using an offline database — the IP address is not sent to any third party for this lookup. This product includes GeoLite2 data created by MaxMind, available from https://www.maxmind.com.
Contact
For privacy questions or to exercise your rights, email privacy@chatonio.com or reach us through our Help Center.