Privacy Policy

Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains how Jeff Mixon, the independent developer of Knit, handles information in connection with the Knit Android application (package app.getknit.knit) and this website at getknit.app. Knit is an offline, serverless messenger for Android, and this policy applies to both the app and the site. By downloading, installing or using Knit, or by visiting getknit.app, you acknowledge the practices described here.

The short version

Knit is built so your data stays on your device. There are no accounts and no servers, so there is no central place where your messages or identity are stored, and nothing is sold or shared. Everything below simply spells that out in more detail.

Who is responsible for your data

Knit is designed, published and maintained by Jeff Mixon as an individual, independent developer — not a company. Because the Knit Android app operates without any servers or user accounts, Jeff Mixon does not receive, store or have access to your messages, contacts or identity. The role of a “data controller” is therefore minimal in practice: the information the app works with lives on your own phone and under your own control.

Information collected by the Knit Android app

• No account, no sign-up. You are identified only by a randomly generated profile (a name, status and avatar, plus a friendly auto-generated alias) that is created and stored on your device. No email address, phone number or other real-world identifier is required or collected.
• Messages travel directly between nearby devices over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and are not sent to any server operated by Jeff Mixon. Message content, your profile and your chat history are stored locally on your phone.
• Location is not collected. Knit does not use your location to track you, and it is never collected or transmitted. Android may require a location permission only because the operating system ties Bluetooth and Wi-Fi scanning to it (see Android permissions below).
• On-device AI moderation. The optional content filter runs entirely on your phone using a bundled AI model — it screens for abusive text and blurs explicit images behind tap-to-reveal. Images and text are never uploaded for analysis, and you can switch the filter off.
• No analytics or advertising. Knit contains no third-party analytics, advertising or tracking SDKs, and does not build a profile of you for marketing.

How information is used

Because information stays on your device, Knit uses it only to provide the app’s core functions: to show and relay your messages to nearby devices, to display your profile and the profiles of people around you, and to run the optional on-device moderation filter. Your information is not used for advertising, is not sold, and is not shared with Jeff Mixon or any third party for their own purposes.

How your messages are protected

Direct and group chats are end-to-end encrypted. The message body, mentions and image attachments in your one-to-one and group conversations are sealed so that only the participants can read them, even though each message relays hop-by-hop through other people’s phones on the way. You can confirm you are talking to the right person by comparing a safety number or scanning a QR code together in person.

The public Nearby broadcast room is plaintext by design. It has no fixed set of recipients, so anyone within range can read what is posted there. Treat it like speaking out loud in a crowd — it is not a private or encrypted channel.

Those chats are forward-secret, within limits. Knit derives fresh keys as a conversation goes back and forth and deletes the ones it has finished with. Someone who records mesh traffic as it passes cannot decrypt it later, because the keys that would open it no longer exist on either phone. Two limits come with that. Keys turn over in blocks of messages rather than one key per message, so anything that is recovered covers the block around it. And a conversation with someone still running an older version of Knit falls back to the previous scheme, which has no forward secrecy at all, until they update.

Reactions and delivery receipts are sealed too. In direct and group chats, an emoji reaction and the tick that says your message arrived are encrypted like the message itself, so a phone relaying them cannot tell who reacted to what, or when something reached you. Both fall back to their older cleartext form toward someone still running an older version of Knit, and in the public Nearby room they stay cleartext with the room.

Your messages are encrypted on the phone as well. Knit keeps conversations, contacts and key material in an encrypted database. Its key is wrapped by a hardware-backed key in Android’s keystore, which never leaves the device and is excluded from cloud backup, so the files are unreadable if they are copied off the phone. That is not a substitute for your screen lock: someone who can unlock the device and open Knit sees what is in it, as with any messenger.

Encryption still has limits. It hides what you say, not that you are saying something. An observer watching the mesh sees frames moving between phones, and can tell that your phone sent something shortly after a message reached it, without reading either one.

Android permissions

To discover the phones around you, the Knit Android app requests the nearby-devices permission, and on older versions of Android a location permission as well — the system ties Bluetooth and Wi-Fi scanning to it. Knit works best when allowed to run in the background so it can keep relaying messages for the people nearby. You can review or revoke these permissions at any time in Android’s settings, though doing so may prevent the app from finding nearby devices. Knit requires Android 10+.

Data sharing and third parties

Jeff Mixon does not sell, rent or share your personal information. Because the app holds nothing on a server, there is nothing to hand over. Links from the app or this website to Ko-fi (donations), the Google Play Store and F-Droid take you to third-party services that are governed by their own privacy policies; Jeff Mixon has no control over, and is not responsible for, how those services handle your data. If you install Knit through Google Play or F-Droid, that store may collect information about the download in accordance with its own policies.

Data retention

Your Knit profile, messages and settings are kept on your device for as long as the app is installed. Clearing the app’s data or uninstalling it removes that information from your phone. Because there is no server or backup operated by Jeff Mixon, no copy of your data is retained anywhere else once it is removed from your device — although messages you have already sent may still exist on the devices of the people who received them.

This website

getknit.app is a static page served from a standard web host. It sets no cookies and runs no analytics or trackers. The host may keep standard server access logs (such as IP address, timestamp and requested URL) for security and operations, as is typical for any website. These logs are not used to identify or profile visitors.

Children’s privacy

Knit is not directed to children under the age of 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your jurisdiction), and Jeff Mixon does not knowingly collect personal information from children. As the app stores data only on the device and collects nothing on a server, no personal information about any user — child or adult — is gathered by Jeff Mixon.

Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct or delete personal information a company holds about you. Because Jeff Mixon does not collect or store your personal information on any server, there is nothing on Jeff Mixon’s side to access, export or delete. You remain fully in control of the data on your device: you can edit your profile inside the app, and clear or uninstall the app to erase it.

International users

Knit can be used anywhere. Since your data stays on your own device and is not transmitted to a central server, using the app does not involve Jeff Mixon transferring your information across borders.

Changes to this policy

Jeff Mixon may update this policy from time to time — for example, to reflect new features or legal requirements. When the policy changes, the “Last updated” date at the top of this page will be revised, and continued use of Knit or getknit.app after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Contact

This policy, the Knit Android app and this website are maintained by Jeff Mixon. If you have any questions about your privacy or about how Knit works, you can reach out by email at jeff.mixon@gmail.com.