Nest is in private beta testing with invited families. This notice explains how we handle personal information during the beta. Our full privacy policy is being finalised with our legal adviser and will replace this notice before Nest is in the app stores. We'll tell you in the app before any important change.
Who we are
Nest is a family messenger provided by Sable Invest (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2024/242176/07), 2 Sinclair Avenue, Bonnie Doon, East London, 5241, South Africa. We are the responsible party for your personal information under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA). Our Information Officer is Arthur Ledgerwood.
For anything about your information, email privacy@sableconnect.app.
What we collect, and why
| Information | Why |
|---|---|
| A parent's email address and password (stored scrambled; we can't read it), name, and what the children call them | To sign in, recover the account and show who is talking |
| A child's first name and birth year | To show who is talking and set monitoring to suit their age |
| Profile photos and a family cover photo, if added | To show who is who |
| Messages, replies, reactions, voice notes and photos, and when each was sent, delivered and read | To deliver conversations and show ticks |
| Calls: who called whom, when, for how long, voice or video. Calls are never recorded | To connect calls, count call time and show parents their children's calls |
| Safety flags, daily minutes of use, quiet hours and limits, friend and group approvals | To run the parental controls each parent chooses |
| Reports and blocks, and for reports to Nest, a copy of the reported message and a few earlier ones | To alert parents, stop unwanted contact and let our safety team act |
| A notification token for each phone | To deliver alerts |
| Beta sign-ups: first name, email, optional mobile number and town, phone type, children's ages (no names), how you heard of Nest, and whether you want Nest news | To invite you to the beta, and to send Nest news only if you ticked that box |
We don't collect your location or advertising identifiers, we don't use advertising or third-party analytics, and we never sell information.
Messages can contain sensitive information, such as about health or religion. We don't ask for it or analyse it, apart from the automatic safety check, and we process it only with the parent's consent.
Children and parents
A family is set up by a parent or legal guardian aged 18 or older, who consents in the app for themselves and their children. Children can't sign up on their own. Each parent chooses a monitoring level for each child, and the child is told which one applies:
- Full view (suggested under 13): parents can read the child's chats.
- Safety view (suggested 13 to 15): parents see who the child chats with and when, and the text of messages flagged for safety.
- Activity only (suggested 16 and 17): parents see who the child chats with and when, but not what they say.
At every level, parents can see photos, hear voice notes and see call times in their children's chats. A friend from another family can chat with a child only after both families' parents approve. A child can also talk to Nest's safety team privately, without their parents being told, so that they always have somewhere to turn.
Who else handles the information
| Service | What it does | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Stores accounts, messages, photos, voice notes, call records and beta sign-ups | Amazon Web Services, Paris, France |
| Expo, Apple and Google | Deliver notifications. They carry no names and no message text | United States and elsewhere |
| LiveKit | Connects voice and video calls. Sound and picture pass through during a call; nothing is recorded | Outside South Africa |
| Resend | Emails our safety team when a report comes in (no names or messages) | Ireland |
| GitHub | Hosts this website. It sees visitors' internet addresses; anything you type into a form goes straight to Supabase | United States |
| Apple TestFlight | Delivers the iPhone test version, under Apple's own terms | United States |
Some of these services are outside South Africa. We send information to them with your consent (POPIA section 72) and only so that they can provide their service to us. Information stored in France is also protected by European Union data protection law.
Security
Information is encrypted while it travels between the app and our servers and while it's stored. The database itself enforces who can read what, and our technical staff's direct reads of messages are logged.
Beta notice: messages are not yet end-to-end encrypted, so they're stored on our servers in a form our systems can read.
If someone gains access to personal information without permission, we'll tell the Information Regulator and the people affected as soon as reasonably possible (POPIA section 22).
How long we keep it
- We keep information while the family account is active. A parent can delete the account in the app at any time; if they're the only parent, the whole family is deleted straight away.
- Deleted messages are removed straight away, and deleted photo and voice files the same night, unless they're held for a report to Nest.
- Reports to Nest are kept for 12 months after they're closed, or until any referral to the authorities ends.
- Beta sign-ups are kept until you join Nest or ask us to remove them, and deleted 12 months after the beta ends.
Your rights
You can see the main details Nest holds about you on the My profile screen in the app. You can ask us at any time to show you what we hold about you or your children, correct it, delete it, or stop processing it, and you can withdraw your consent. A parent can also do this in the app by removing a child or deleting the account. Email privacy@sableconnect.app; we'll respond within 30 days.
Giving us information is voluntary, but Nest can't work without a parent's email, the children's first names and birth years, and the messages themselves.
If you're not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Regulator: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za, 010 023 5200, Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191 (inforegulator.org.za).