Keryx — Privacy Policy
This policy covers the Keryx Android app (package com.keryx), the website
foswareventures.com, and Fosware’s support and security email.
In short. Keryx has no Fosware servers and no accounts. Your messages, files,
contacts and keys stay on your phone unless you send them somewhere. Keryx contains no
advertising, analytics or tracking code from Fosware or anyone else. Fosware receives personal
information only when you email us, send us a diagnostic log, buy Keryx through Google Play, or
visit the website.
How the app works
Keryx does not use Fosware-operated messaging, relay, account, directory, signalling,
key-management or cloud-backup servers. Messages, attachments, contacts, keys, settings and logs
stay on your device unless you choose a delivery path, export or share a log, or otherwise send
them.
Keryx’s contacts are its own list. It does not read your phone’s address book.
App data is excluded from Android’s cloud backup and device-transfer paths. Android versions,
device makers, compromised devices and your own actions can affect that. Files you save or share
outside Keryx, for example to Pictures or Downloads, are outside these controls.
When information leaves your device
Information leaves your device when you:
- send a message by QR code, file, Nearby transfer or By Address;
- share or copy something to another app (the clipboard can be read by other apps; Keryx
marks copies as sensitive and clears them after 60 seconds for a key or 90 seconds for a
message, but only while Keryx is still on screen; if you switch apps first, the copy stays
until Android clears it or you copy something else); - save a file outside Keryx;
- dictate using a speech service that works online;
- send us an email or a diagnostic log, or use Share Logs;
- buy or update Keryx through Google Play.
The services you choose may process your files and their metadata under their own policies.
In an encrypted mode they receive an encrypted payload, not your message, but metadata such as
size and timing may stay visible. In Plain mode the content is not encrypted.
Your keyboard app receives what you type, and your speech service what you dictate. Keryx
asks the keyboard not to learn from it, but cannot enforce that.
Two things can happen without you choosing them:
- Crash reports. If your phone shares usage and diagnostics with Google,
Android may report a Keryx crash to Google: a stack trace, with each error’s message passed
through the same scrub as Keryx’s own log, which masks network and hardware addresses and file
paths, plus your device model and Android version. Google makes crash statistics
available to Fosware in Google Play Console. - Licence check in Keryx 700. Copies of Keryx 700 installed from Google Play
include a licence check that Google Play added. At each launch it asks the Play Store app to
confirm your purchase with Google. Fosware has switched that check off for future releases,
so the next version on Google Play will not include it.
Information Fosware receives
- Email. Your address, the time you wrote, and what you write or attach, sent
to info@foswareventures.com or support@foswareventures.com. - Diagnostic logs you choose to send. Send Logs, in Help & Support,
addresses an email to support@foswareventures.com with a sealed log bundle. The bundle holds
Keryx’s log, its warnings, any stored crash reports, and device details: manufacturer, model,
Android version, Keryx version, and memory use at a crash. - From Google Play. Order records (such as order number, date, price, and
your country and region), aggregate install statistics, crash reports if your phone shares
diagnostics with Google, and any public review you post. Google’s own privacy policy governs
Google’s processing. - From the website host. Request logs and any visitor statistics kept by our
website host, Northwest Registered Agent, under its own policy. Fosware does not view visitor
statistics.
There is no contact form.
Keryx’s log on your phone
Keryx keeps a log of app events on your phone, such as transfers, chat sessions and errors.
It is designed not to record message content, passwords or private keys. Contact names and file
names appear only as their first character and file type.
In Keryx 777 and later, network addresses, hardware addresses and port numbers are removed from
the log, and the name of a device advertising on your local network keeps only its first character.
Keryx 740 to 776 kept the first two numbers of an IPv4 address, the first two bytes of a hardware
address and port numbers. Keryx 700, the version first offered on Google Play, records network
addresses in full.
The log keeps the most recent 500 entries, sealed on the phone in segments of 100 entries, each
under a key of its own; the phone may briefly hold up to 600 before the oldest segment is
destroyed. Keryx also keeps up to five crash reports, each sealed the same way and at most 512 KB.
You can clear them in View Logs.
The log leaves your phone only if you send it, in one of two ways:
- Send Logs and Save Sealed Log Bundle encrypt the bundle on
your phone, to a Fosware public key built into the app. The decryption key is held offline
by Fosware and used only to read bundles sent to us. Only people at Fosware with a support or
security need can use that key or see a decrypted bundle. - Share Logs, in View Logs, is different. It sends the log entries on screen
as plain, unencrypted text to the app you pick. Use Send Logs to send us a
sealed copy.
Speech recognition
Keryx uses the speech-recognition service set on your phone. Depending on the phone, Android
version, service, language and settings, that service may process audio on the phone or on its
servers. If your phone has no on-device recogniser, Keryx warns you before dictation starts.
Fosware does not receive dictation audio. Check the service’s settings before use.
Permissions
- Camera: to scan QR codes. Frames are processed on the phone and not kept or
sent. - Files: Keryx has no storage or photo-library permission. It sees only the
files you pick or share to it. - Microphone: for optional dictation, asked for only when you tap the
microphone. - Biometrics: optional fingerprint or face unlock for App Lock and protected
keys. Android performs the check; Keryx receives only success or failure, never biometric
data. - Nearby devices and Wi-Fi: for Wi-Fi Direct and local-network transfer.
While the Nearby screen is open, your phone announces a generic “LDSync” service on the
local network and over Wi-Fi Direct so the other phone can find it. Android also shows your
phone’s Wi-Fi Direct name to nearby devices. - Location, on Android 12L and older: Android requires it for Wi-Fi Direct
discovery. Keryx does not read or keep your location. - Bluetooth: not used to send messages, scan or advertise. Android can switch
Bluetooth on as a side effect of Wi-Fi Direct. If it does, and no headset, audio device,
hearing aid, keyboard or watch is connected, Keryx switches it off again when the session ends,
or tells you if it could not. Android
13 and later do not allow this, so Keryx tells you instead. If Keryx closes abruptly,
Bluetooth may stay on. - Network: for local transfers and By Address chat. Keryx reads
network availability (whether a network is up), its type (Wi-Fi, mobile or VPN) and
your phone’s own IP address, to resume an
interrupted chat and to show your address for By Address. It reads no traffic, sites or
content. While you listen for a By Address chat, any device that can reach your address can
try to connect; Keryx proves identity before anything is exchanged. An address QR or code
contains your IP address, and anyone who receives it, and any service it passes through, can
read it. Network providers and the other phone see IP addresses, timing and data volume.
Why Fosware uses what it receives, and the legal basis
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Answering you and providing support | Performing our contract with you, or our legitimate interest in supporting our product |
| Investigating diagnostic logs and fixing defects | Our legitimate interest in keeping Keryx working and secure |
| Handling purchases and refunds through Google Play | Performing our contract with you |
| Preventing abuse and keeping our systems secure | Our legitimate interest in security |
| Tax, accounting and other legal duties | Legal obligation |
| Establishing or defending legal claims | Our legitimate interest |
Sending us anything is voluntary. Without it we cannot answer you or investigate a problem.
Fosware makes no automated decisions or profiles about you, and does not sell or share personal
information for advertising.
How long Fosware keeps it
Support and business email is kept for up to 2 years after the last exchange, longer only where security, legal or dispute needs require it.
Diagnostic bundles are normally deleted no later than 90 days after the issue is resolved, or
sooner on request.
Security
Information you send us is kept in access-controlled accounts. Diagnostic bundles arrive
encrypted and are opened with an offline key. If a security breach affects personal information
Fosware holds, Fosware will notify the affected people and authorities as applicable law
requires.
In the app, content is encrypted with keys kept in Android’s Keystore. Each contact’s key
state, Keryx’s own identity keys, each Saved item, Keryx’s settings and App Lock, and its
diagnostic log and crash reports are sealed under a key of their own, which Keryx destroys when
the item is deleted or replaced, so a copy left in phone storage has nothing to open it; a file
in transit is sealed under a key that exists only while Keryx is running. Uninstalling
Keryx, or Settings → Delete All Keys, removes Keryx’s keys, contacts, saved items, settings and
logs from app storage. Two limits apply to every deletion: a Keystore can guarantee that a
deleted key is gone only where its hardware resists rollback, which no phone we have measured
confirms; and some Samsung phones can write app memory to storage.
Who else receives it
Fosware may disclose personal information to the providers that run our website and email
(Northwest Registered Agent hosts the website), to Google for distribution through
Google Play, to professional advisers, and to public authorities where the law requires.
Fosware is based in the United States, so information you send us is held there and may be
accessible to US courts and authorities under US law.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict,
port or object to the processing of your personal information, or to withdraw consent. Fosware
may ask you to verify your identity first. Some information must be kept for legal, security or
fraud-prevention reasons.
Fosware cannot see, export, correct or delete anything stored in Keryx on your phone. You
control it there, through Settings → Delete All Keys or by uninstalling.
To make a request or a complaint, email
info@foswareventures.com. We acknowledge
complaints within 30 days. You may also complain to your data-protection authority, for example
the Data Protection Commission in Ireland, the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK, the
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Office of the Australian Information
Commissioner, or New Zealand’s Privacy Commissioner.
Children
Keryx is for people aged 16 and over, matching its Google Play target audience (16–17 and 18
and over). It is not directed to children under 16. Fosware does not knowingly collect personal
information from anyone under 16, or under the age of digital consent where you live if that is
higher. If we learn that we have, we will delete it.
Website
The website sets no cookies for visitors and loads no third-party scripts, fonts or trackers.
It does not track visitors across sites, so it treats every visitor the same whether or not
their browser sends Do Not Track. Our host keeps the request logs and visitor statistics
described above for the period its own settings set, or as long as reasonably needed to run and
secure the site, investigate abuse, and meet legal duties.
Changes
When this policy changes, we update the “Last updated” date above. For a material change to
how the app handles data, we publish the new policy before the app update that makes the
change.
Contact
fosware ventures LLC
1500 N Grant St, Ste N
Denver, Colorado 80203, USA
info@foswareventures.com
Privacy officer: the Managing Member, fosware ventures LLC, info@foswareventures.com. We have
not appointed a data protection officer.
Security reports: info@foswareventures.com (as in security.txt).