Wire

Wire is a cross-platform encrypted communication and collaboration service created by Wire Swiss.

8.6/10

How we calculate ratings →

Handling

Does the policy allow personally-targeted or behavioral marketing? No

10/10

Does the service allow you to permanently delete your personal data? Yes, using an automated mechanism

5/5

Even if there is a reasonable delay before the data is fully deleted (as is common), the data still counts as "permanently deleted" and satisfies the parameters for this question.

Score

Yes, by contacting someone

60%

Yes, using an automated mechanism

100%

N/A

The service doesn't collect any personal information.

100%

Citation

"We store your profile information only for the duration of your account usage. If you delete your account, we will delete your profile information immediately. You can change or delete your profile data at any time."

"When you contact Wire Customer Service for a support request, we process the personal information you provide in the support request for the purpose of processing your support request. We delete your personal data processed for the processing of the support request after the processing of your request has been completed."

"if we collect and store data for tax reasons, we delete this data within 6 months after our contract with you is terminated or after the expiry of any existing legal obligation to retain data."

Does the service allow third-party access to private personal data? Yes, all parties specified (only to critical service providers)

8/10

This may come in the form of outright data sharing or by using local third-party analytics software (such as Google Analytics, which collects a plethora of user information).

Note that whether the policy allows sharing aggregated user data does not affect this question.

If the personal data is encrypted when it passes through the third-party, it does not count as third-party access (as the data is inaccessible to that party).

If personal data has been made public by, for example, posting it to a blog, it does not count as private personal information (and is therefore not considered by this question).

Score

Yes

The policy allows sharing personal data with third parties (not just critical service providers), and does not explicitly list the third parties.

Yes, all parties specified (including non-critical service providers such as advertisers)

30%

Yes, not all parties specified (but only to critical service providers)

70%

Yes, all parties specified (only to critical service providers)

80%

100%

Citation

"Wire undertakes to select only third-party providers for the provision of Wire services in the EU and/or Switzerland."

"Wire will disclose personal data to third parties only if and to the extent necessary to provide the third party service (e.g., to respond to a support request), if required by law or legal process, or if necessary to enforce the Terms of Use and/or protect Wire's rights."

"In addition, to the extent permitted by data protection law, Wire may disclose your personal data to third parties if we (or our affiliates) are acquired by that third party with any of our assets or voting securities (or those of our affiliates) or if we are otherwise involved in a transaction with similar financial effect. In such a situation, we will use reasonable efforts to require the third party to process your data in accordance with this Privacy Policy in relation to your personal data."

"If you use third-party services such as YouTube, Spotify, Giphy etc. via the Wire application, all data that you share with these services is subject to their privacy policies."

When does the policy allow law enforcement access to personal data? Only when required by a court order or subpoena

4/5

Score

Always

This includes cases in which law enforcement either runs the service or has a known backdoor into (or relationship with) the service.

Not specified

When reasonably requested

60%

Only when required by a court order or subpoena

80%

N/A (no personal data to share)

The service would have no personal data to share with law enforcement.

100%

Never (special legal jurisdiction)

The service operates in a jurisdiction in which sharing data with law enforcement is never required.

100%

Citation

"Wire follows European privacy laws. Wire will not disclose your data to public authorities unless Wire is obliged to do so under Swiss law."

"The Wire Transparency Report contains details about how often authorities request user data from Wire Swiss GmbH."

Transparency

Does the policy outline the service's general security practices? Yes, including independent audits

3/3

Score

Somewhat

The policy provides only a very vague overview of its security practices.

30%

Yes

60%

Yes, including audits

"Reviews," "monitoring," etc. also count as audits.

80%

Yes, including independent audits

Independent "reviews," "monitoring," etc. also count as independent audits.

100%

N/A

The service doesn't collect any personal information.

100%

Citation

"All conversation content is encrypted with strong encryption on the sender's device and is only decrypted on the recipient's device (also known as end-to-end encryption). Wire doesn't hold the decryption keys, and our software contains no backdoor. Your conversations are yours - Wire has no access to them. In addition, Wire also uses transport encryption to encrypt metadata."

Notes

"Your privacy is very important to us. Find out more. All communication through Wire is secured with end-to-end encryption — messages, conference calls, files. Wire is the most extensively publicly audited collaboration and communication software on the market."

Is the policy's history made available? Only the date it was last modified

3/5

Does the policy require users to be notified in case of a data breach? Not necessarily

0/7

Will affected users be notified when the policy is meaningfully changed? Yes

5/5

Collection

Does the service collect personal data from third parties? No

10/10

Is it clear why the service collects the personal data that it does? Yes

10/10

Does the service allow the user to control whether personal data is collected or used for non-critical purposes? N/A (no data used for non-critical purposes)

10/10

Does the policy list the personal data it collects? Yes, exhaustively

10/10

Score

The policy does not claim to not collect personal data, but it also doesn't provide any meaningful insight into the types of personal data it collects.

Only summarily

The policy uses overly vague language to provide a summary of the types of collected personal data.

30%

Yes, generally

All general categories of collected personal data are listed, though not all types of personal data are explicitly mentioned (for example, the list might use a phrase like 'such as' when listing types of personal data).

70%

Yes, exhaustively

All types of collected personal data are listed specifically

100%

N/A (no personal data is collected)

100%

Citation

"We are transparent about the data we collect and what we do and don't do with it." "When you create an account with Wire, we ask you to provide a name and a mobile phone number or email address ("Profile Information"). The Profile Information you provide will be used for the purpose of providing Wire services and may be displayed to other Wire users when they search for you or connect to you through Wire services. If you have registered with a phone number, this information will not be displayed to other Wire users. If you registered with an email address, your email address may be visible to other users when using Wire Pro, depending on your preferences."

"If you create a Team Admin account or Team Member account with Wire, we may ask you for additional information for billing purposes and may share that information with a billing provider ("Data relevant to payment"). In order to make purchases through Wire services using a Team Admin account, Team Admins must provide a payment method and may be required to provide additional information such as billing address, phone number, email address, and zip code if required for tax purposes or to complete billing. In addition, other types of information related to the specific transaction may be collected, such as transaction amount and duration."

"You are free to give Wire services access to your address book contacts. This is for the purpose of communicating with other users of Wire services. In this case, only hashed phone numbers are processed volatilely. The rest of your address book content is never uploaded to our servers."

"If you send us an inquiry about our products as an interested party, we collect the information you provide, such as your name, e-mail address or other contact information you provide us with. If you have provided an e-mail address, Wire may send you e-mails to inform you of important changes (e.g. to confirm your e-mail address or to inform you that a new device has been added to your account)."

"If you have given us your consent for the purpose of receiving our newsletter with information about Wire's offers and products by e-mail, Wire will process your e-mail address and name to send you the newsletter. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time."

"When you contact Wire Customer Service for a support request, we process the personal information you provide in the support request for the purpose of processing your support request."

Notes

"Wire stores additional technical data (such as the type of device through which you authorized the Wire application) to be able to route data between user devices. The Wire service is designed to keep additional technical data to the minimum required to operate the service. More information about additional data can be found in the Privacy Whitepaper and the Security Whitepaper."

"When you use Wire services, we may collect technical data, so-called "log files", with each access. Log files are kept for a maximum of 72 hours, and only to facilitate troubleshooting, improve the service and prevent misuse."

Last Updated

May 14, 2021

Sources

Source #1 ↗

Contributors

erotavlas