Sottorio Privacy Policy
Sottorio keeps everything on your phone. It has no permission to use the internet, so it cannot send your messages, contacts, or any other information to us or to anyone else. We do not collect, store, sell, or share any of your data.
What Sottorio does
Sottorio screens text messages from phone numbers that are not in your contacts. When a text arrives from an unknown number, Sottorio silences its notification and replies once, asking the sender to answer with a word you choose. When the sender answers with that word, Sottorio lets their texts through from then on.
Information Sottorio reads
Incoming message notifications. With the notification access you grant, Sottorio reads the notifications that Google Messages shows for incoming texts: the sender’s name or number and the message text. It uses them to decide whether to let a text through, to silence the notification of a text it holds, and to send the challenge reply. Sottorio ignores notifications from other apps.
Your contacts. With the contacts permission you grant, Sottorio checks whether a sender’s number is saved in your contacts, so texts from people you know always come through. Sottorio only looks up numbers. It does not copy, store, or change your contacts.
Information Sottorio stores on your phone
Sottorio keeps the following in its private storage on your phone, where other apps cannot read it:
- Your settings: the reply word, the challenge message, and when to mark held texts as read.
- The numbers you have allowed, and the numbers you have chosen to ignore.
- The date each unknown number was last sent a challenge.
- For each number that has not yet answered, up to 20 of its most recent texts, so you can review them in the app.
- A count of how many texts Sottorio has held.
This information is excluded from Android’s cloud backups. It stays on your phone and leaves it only if you copy it yourself.
What Sottorio sends
When a text arrives from an unknown number, Sottorio uses the Reply button on the Google Messages notification to send the challenge message to that sender. The challenge is an ordinary text from your phone number, the same as a reply you type yourself, and your carrier’s usual messaging terms and charges apply. You choose the wording of the challenge in the app.
Sottorio may also use the Mark as read button on a Google Messages notification for a text it holds, according to your settings. Sottorio sends nothing else.
Permissions
| Permission | Why Sottorio needs it |
|---|---|
| Notification access | To read incoming Google Messages notifications, silence the ones it holds, and use their Reply and Mark as read buttons. |
| Contacts | To check whether a sender is in your contacts. |
| Notifications | To alert you to texts it lets through, and to tell you when a sender has been verified. |
Sottorio does not request internet access, location, your phone’s identifiers, or access to your stored messages.
What we do not do
- No accounts or sign-ins.
- No advertising.
- No analytics, crash reporting, or tracking.
- No sale or sharing of any information.
Deleting your information
You can remove a number from Sottorio’s held list at any time in the app. To delete everything Sottorio has stored, open your phone’s Settings › Apps › Sottorio › Storage and clear its storage, or uninstall Sottorio. Uninstalling removes all of its data from your phone.
Children
Sottorio is not directed to children under 13, and it collects no information from anyone.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new effective date.
Contact
Questions about this policy: email privacy@sottorio.com.