Terms of Service

1. Who we are and this agreement

TalkKiwi (“TalkKiwi”, “we”, “us”) is operated by TalkKiwi. These Terms of Service (“Terms”) form a binding agreement between you and us when you use the TalkKiwi website at talkkiwi.com, the installable web app and any related services (together, the “Service”).

By using the Service, ticking the box that says you are 18 or older, or creating an account, you agree to these Terms, our Community Rules, our Privacy Policy, our Cookie Policy and our Child Safety Policy, which are part of these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Who can use TalkKiwi

You may use the Service only if all of the following are true:

• You are at least 18 years old, and at least the age of majority where you live if that is higher. The Service is never intended for anyone under 18.
• You can form a binding contract and are not barred from using the Service under any law that applies to you.
• You have not been convicted of, or are not required to register as, a sex offender in any jurisdiction.
• We have not previously banned you, unless we have expressly lifted the ban.
• You are using the Service as an individual for personal, non-commercial purposes, not on behalf of a business.
• You are not subject to sanctions by the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom or the United States, and you are not located in a country subject to a comprehensive embargo.
• You are not located in a country or region where we have restricted access, and you do not use tools to get around such a restriction.

Minors may not use the Service under any circumstances, including with the consent, supervision or permission of a parent or guardian. Parents or guardians who believe their child has used the Service can contact [email protected] and we will close the child’s access and delete their data.

We may ask you to confirm your age, and we may suspend access while a moderator reviews your account. If we believe you are under 18, we will close or restrict your access immediately.

3. Using TalkKiwi without and with an account

You can chat as a guest. Some features, such as friends, private calls, posting in group rooms, filters, face masks and unlimited voice and video time, need a free account. Accounts are created with a third-party sign-in provider (for example Google or Discord); their terms also apply to that sign-in.

• The information you give at sign-up (username, display name, birth year, gender, country and language) must be true and must be your own.
• Usernames and display names must not impersonate anyone, contain contact details or advertising, or break the Community Rules.
• You may have one account. Accounts are personal and must not be sold, shared, transferred or rented.
• You are responsible for activity on your account and for keeping your sign-in provider account secure. Tell us at [email protected] if you think your account has been misused.

4. What the Service does, and what it does not

TalkKiwi connects you at random with other people for one-to-one text, voice or video conversations, and offers group rooms, a question mode, friend lists, private messages and private calls between friends, translation, interest matching and similar features. Features may change over time.

• We do not screen the people you meet. We do not run identity or background checks. Matching is random or based on preferences you set, and filters (such as gender, country or language) rely on information other users give, which may be wrong.
• Voice and video connect directly between devices (peer to peer). This means the other person’s device may learn your IP address, which can reveal your approximate location. When a direct connection is not possible, the stream is relayed through our server, which passes it on without storing it.
• Translation is automatic and may be inaccurate. Do not rely on it for anything important.
• Conversations are not confidential towards the other person. Anything you say or show can be seen, heard, remembered and, against our rules, recorded by the person you are talking to. Do not expect privacy from other users.
• You are responsible for your own device, browser, internet connection and any data charges from your provider.
• We do not guarantee that you will be matched, that the Service will be available at all times, or that any feature will continue to exist.

5. Your conduct

You must follow the Community Rules at all times. In particular, you must not use the Service to:

• show, share, request or describe nudity, sexual acts or sexual content of any kind, including on camera, in messages or in your profile;
• involve, depict, sexualise, groom or arrange to meet anyone under 18, or pretend to be under 18 in a sexual context;
• harass, bully, threaten, stalk, intimidate, blackmail or extort anyone, including “sextortion”;
• promote hatred or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age;
• share or threaten to share intimate images of someone without their consent, including AI-generated or altered images;
• share other people’s personal information (“doxxing”), or ask strangers for their address, phone number, school or workplace;
• show or encourage violence, self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, terrorism or violent extremism;
• engage in or promote prostitution, sex trafficking, human trafficking or the sexual exploitation of anyone;
• sell or promote drugs, weapons, sexual services, gambling, scams, pyramid schemes or any illegal goods or services;
• advertise, spam, post links to other sites, or recruit users for other platforms;
• impersonate another person, brand or TalkKiwi staff, or use a fake, pre-recorded or virtual camera feed;
• use bots, scripts, scrapers or automated tools, or interfere with, overload, probe, reverse engineer or bypass the security of the Service;
• get around a ban, restriction or safety feature, including by creating new accounts or using VPNs or proxies for that purpose;
• make false or malicious reports, or misuse the report, appeal or block tools to harass others;
• build a competing service using the Service, or copy, frame or embed the Service on another website without our written permission;
• break any law that applies to you or to the person you are talking to.

6. Recording and screenshots

You must not record, screenshot, stream, save or share any part of another user’s video, voice, image or messages without that person’s clear consent. Doing so may also be a crime where you or they live. We cannot technically prevent other people from recording you, so never show or say anything you would not want to be seen or heard by others.

7. Safety, moderation and enforcement

We work to keep the Service safe, but we cannot guarantee that everyone you meet will follow these Terms. Our safety measures include:

• an on-device check that blurs likely nudity in a stranger’s video on your own screen;
• where enabled, automated checks of occasional low-resolution video frames and profile photos by a moderation provider;
• report buttons in every chat, which send the recent conversation and, for video, a few frames to our moderators;
• human review of reports, a trust score, rate limits, banned-word filters and human checks (“CAPTCHA”) to stop bots and abuse.

We are not obliged to monitor all activity, but we may review content and conduct on the Service, including reported conversations, to enforce these Terms and comply with the law. If we believe you have broken these Terms or the law, or put anyone at risk, we may, without prior notice: remove content; warn you; disconnect a chat; restrict features; pause your account for an age review; or suspend or permanently ban your account, devices and connections. We may also preserve information and report it to the authorities where required or where we believe someone is in danger.

Automated tools can make mistakes. They may miss harmful content or flag content that is allowed, so they never replace your own judgement. Serious or permanent decisions are reviewed by a person. When we restrict your account or ban you, we tell you the reason and give you a ban ID, unless the law or safety reasons prevent this.

Online Safety Act (UK) and Digital Services Act (EU)

• We assess the risk of illegal content and harm to users and take proportionate steps to reduce it, including the measures listed above.
• Proactive technology we use: on-device nudity detection, automated image and text checks (where enabled), banned-word filters, rate limits, human checks and VPN/proxy detection.
• Anyone, including people without an account, can report illegal content and complain about our decisions using the Report button or the contacts on our contact page.
• For EU users, we give a statement of reasons for restrictions, run a free internal complaint system, cooperate with certified out-of-court dispute bodies and trusted flaggers, and publish the information required by the Digital Services Act, including the average number of monthly active recipients in the EU, on our contact page.

8. Child safety

We have zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation and abuse. Anyone who shares, requests or produces child sexual abuse material, sexualises minors or attempts to groom a minor will be permanently banned. We report apparent child sexual abuse material and exploitation to the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and to other authorities as required by law, and we preserve the relevant information. See our Child Safety Policy.

9. Reports, complaints and appeals

• You can report any user in the chat, from a friend conversation or a group room, or by email to [email protected].
• You can appeal any ban or restriction for free, using your ban ID on the appeal page or by email to [email protected]. A person reviews it, where possible someone who was not involved in the original decision. We never sell unbans.
• If you are in the European Union, you can also use our internal complaint system for any moderation decision for six months after it, and you may refer the dispute to a certified out-of-court dispute settlement body under the EU Digital Services Act. This does not affect your right to go to court.
• To report illegal content or infringement of your rights, see Copyright and content removal.

10. Your content

You keep ownership of the messages, images, profile information and other content you share (“Your Content”). You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, transmit, display, translate, format and process Your Content only as needed to operate, secure, moderate and improve the Service and to comply with the law. This licence ends when Your Content is deleted under our Privacy Policy, except where we must keep it for safety, legal or evidential reasons. You confirm you have the rights to Your Content and that it does not break these Terms or the law.

If you send us feedback or ideas, we may use them without any obligation to you.

11. Our rights

The Service, its software, design, logo and the TalkKiwi name belong to us or our licensors. We give you a personal, revocable, non-transferable, non-exclusive licence to use the Service for its intended purpose under these Terms. You must not copy, modify, sell, frame or create derivative works of the Service without our written permission.

12. Third-party services

The Service relies on third parties, such as sign-in providers, a human-check provider, a GIF library, translation services, push notification services of your browser and advertising partners. Their own terms and privacy policies apply to their services. We are not responsible for third-party websites or services you reach through the Service.

13. Advertising and fees

The Service is free and funded by advertising. Ads are shown according to your consent choices described in our Cookie Policy. If we ever offer paid features, they will have separate terms that you will be shown before you pay.

14. Ending your use

You can stop using the Service at any time and delete your account in Settings. We may suspend or end your access as described in section 7, or if we stop offering the Service. Sections that by their nature should survive (including 6, 8, 10, 15, 16, 17 and 18) continue after your access ends.

15. Disclaimers

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent the law allows, we make no warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, availability, accuracy or security. We are not responsible for the conduct of any user, on or off the Service. If you choose to meet or continue contact with someone you met on TalkKiwi, you do so at your own risk. Nothing in these Terms removes rights you have under consumer law that cannot be excluded.

16. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, goodwill or reputation, arising from your use of, or inability to use, the Service or from the conduct or content of any user. Our total liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim and (b) 50 euros (or the equivalent in your currency).

Nothing in these Terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited under the law that applies to you.

17. Indemnity

To the extent the law allows, you agree to compensate us for claims, losses and reasonable legal costs brought by others that result from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Service or your violation of the law or of anyone’s rights.

18. Disputes and governing law

Please contact us first at [email protected]; most concerns can be resolved quickly. These Terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction where TalkKiwi is operated, and disputes are handled by the competent courts there. If you are a consumer living in the European Union, the United Kingdom or another country whose laws give you mandatory protections, you keep those protections and may bring proceedings in the courts where you live.

Arbitration for users in the United States

If you live in the United States, you and we agree that any dispute relating to the Service will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court, except that either of us may bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and either of us may seek an injunction for misuse of intellectual property. Before starting arbitration, the claimant must send a written notice describing the dispute and try to resolve it informally for 30 days. We will pay arbitration filing and arbitrator fees beyond what you would pay to file in court, unless the arbitrator finds your claim frivolous.

Class action and jury trial waiver: to the extent the law allows, disputes will be resolved only on an individual basis, not as a class, collective or representative action, and you and we waive the right to a jury trial.

Opt-out: you can opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing [email protected] within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, with your name, username (if any) and a statement that you opt out. This section does not apply to users outside the United States.

Time limit for claims

To the extent the law allows, any claim relating to the Service must be brought within one year after it arises, or it is permanently barred. This does not shorten any limitation period that cannot be shortened under the consumer law that applies to you.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service or the law changes. For material changes, we will give notice on the Service at least 15 days before they take effect, unless a change is needed sooner for legal or safety reasons. If you keep using the Service after a change takes effect, you accept the new Terms.

20. General

• These Terms, together with the policies they refer to, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service.
• If any part is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Not enforcing a right is not a waiver of it.
• You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may transfer ours to a successor that continues the Service.
• We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control.
• You agree that we may send notices and other communications to you electronically, by email or on the Service, and that they satisfy any legal requirement for written communication.
• You must comply with all export control and sanctions laws that apply to your use of the Service.
• Except where these Terms say otherwise, no one other than you and us has any right to enforce them.
• You may link to our home page in a fair and lawful way that does not suggest any endorsement by us, but you may not frame or embed the Service.
• If these Terms are translated, the English version prevails to the extent the law allows.

21. Contact

TalkKiwi. General support: [email protected]. Legal: [email protected]. Abuse reports: [email protected]. Appeals: [email protected]. More options are on our contact page.