Our mission is to create a pragmatic approach to privacy.
💬 We're a communication app that focuses on how users exchange information about themselves.
🔗 We're decoupling digital identity from physical person.
🎭 We're creating tools that help increase transparency when swapping details.
Allowing someone to contact you shouldn't mean giving someone a piece of yourself.
⛓️💥 Our chat app uses one-time codes to create unique connections between users.
✌️ Users can 'veto' their contact at any time, meaning they will have to swap codes again to reconnect.
🔐 Users can share details through the Veto app - which will let the other person know how frequently this information changes.
We know decoupling identity is a powerful tool and we're realistic about it.
🚫 We aim to create privacy from, not for, weirdos.
🤐 Messages are encrypted. But not end-to-end. Our app is no place for wrongdoing.
🎤 We're a text only app. No photos. No videos. No links.
Heed our warning, though, there are a lot of words in this bit.
In 5 words: Veto is a chat app.
In more words than that, we’re a chat app with a different approach to connecting with people. We want to enable users to separate their online identities from their ability to be contacted.
Right now, if someone asked you to hand over a way to get in touch, you would likely give them your email address; your phone number; your Instagram username or some other identifier that links back to you.
But what happens when it goes wrong? When the person you have given your details to uses them to harass you or to overstep the boundaries you have created?
This is the inherent problem with how we have come to communicate, to connect with others online.
Veto is a chat app that allows you to create a unique connection to someone with no usernames, phone numbers, nor addresses. Instead, you share a one-time code, or tap your phones together, and when you want the contact to stop you Veto the connection.
There’s no way to reconnect unless you meet that person again and tap your phones, or share another code with them.
We operate on 3 fundamental principles:
Separate: Veto keeps you separate from your phone number, email address or a username that could help identify you elsewhere online. Connections are made between two people and don’t use any persistent, ‘unique-to-you’ identifier.
Controlled: With Veto, you’re in control. Once you Veto contact with someone, they can’t connect with you again by creating a new account or changing their number. Your connection with that person is unique and one-time. If you want to get in touch again, you need to exchange another 1-time code or tap your devices together again.
Familiar: Veto doesn’t aim to be complicated or different from what users are already familiar with. Veto is a text-only messaging app that works like any other. The only difference is that there is no permanent point of reference, like a username or phone number.
Sadly, we've thought a lot about evil people, and it has helped form our ethos: Veto provides protection from, not for, weirdos. This simple statement may be tongue in cheek, but it drives the decisions we make and the approaches to privacy and security we take.
Veto is safe, it uses modern cryptographic and security tools and technology. However, Veto is not a place for people who have something to hide.
Veto uses ‘Encryption in Transit’ and not ‘End-to-End Encryption’. This means that our messaging infrastructure can decrypt your messages before sending them onward to the intended recipient. We’re open about that, not because we want to read your messages, but because combining ‘End-to-End Encryption’ with our anonymising technology is a powerful mix for criminal enterprises, and we don’t want those people on our platform.
Veto also does not allow link or media sharing. We might do in the future, but right now, we’re keeping it simple: text only.
Veto is serious about security, our team is comprised of engineers with expertise in Cryptography and Information Security. But Veto will always be a hostile environment for weirdos.