Privacy Policy

Who runs Targa

Targa is run by its founder, who operates the Service personally and is responsible for the data described here (the “controller”) until the company that will take over Targa is incorporated. When it is, this policy will name the company, its address and its registration details, the change will be announced in the dashboard before it takes effect, and nothing about what is collected or how it is used will change with it.

The short version

We keep what an anti-spam service needs: your account details, and records of what Targa did in the groups it protects. Targa checks every message in those groups, on every plan. On paid plans the message text is also sent to our AI model providers for review; on the Free plan it is processed on our own servers only. Message text is kept for at most 90 days. We don't show ads, we don't sell data, and analytics runs only if you allow it.

What we collect

This website. Cloudflare, which hosts targa.dev, processes your IP address, browser details and the pages you request in order to deliver them. We run no advertising trackers, fonts are served from our own site, and analytics runs only if you allow it.

Dashboard account. Your email address, a salted hash of your password (never the password itself), the Telegram groups you connect, your plan and your settings. If you sign in with Telegram, Google or Apple, we store the identifier that method gives us. If you turn on push notifications in a Targa app, we store that device's push token.

In the groups Targa protects. Targa checks every message, join and join request as it arrives. To moderate, it records who did what: the member's numeric Telegram id and display name, the group, the message number, the score, which checks fired and the action taken, plus warnings, roles and ban-list entries that admins create. Text in images (read on our own server) and links in QR codes are checked as part of the message. Profile photos and bios are checked in memory and not stored.

Public notices. When Targa acts in a group, it posts a one-line notice in that group naming the member and what was done, so everyone in the group can see it. The group's admins can undo the action from the notice.

Removed messages. When Targa removes a message, it keeps what the message said (its text and a reference to an attached picture) for up to 90 days, so the group's admins can view it privately and restore it if the removal was a mistake.

Spam examples. When a group admin teaches Targa with /spam or /ham, the text of that message is stored as an example, without the author's identity, and deleted after at most 12 months.

Settings and the change trail. Settings you save for a group (guardrails, locks, blocklist patterns, keyword filters, notes, welcome text) are stored so the bot can apply them. The dashboard keeps a trail of who changed which setting.

Scam messages forwarded to the bot. If a member forwards a scam private message to the bot, its text is read by the AI to judge it. We keep the verdict and the numeric Telegram ids of the reported account and of the member who reported it, not the text.

Payment data. Paid plans are not on sale yet, so we hold no payment data. When they are, payments will be handled by Stripe, and payments in Telegram Stars by Telegram. We will receive the plan, the payment status and a payment reference, never your card details.

How Targa checks messages

Targa checks every message in every group it protects, on every plan. On paid plans the message text is also sent to our AI model providers (listed under “Who receives data”) for review; on the Free plan message text is processed on our own servers only and is not sent to those providers. Messages a member forwards to Targa privately to report a scam are checked by our model providers. Admins' messages are checked too, but Targa never acts on them. These checks cannot be switched off for a group. If you don't want a group's messages checked this way, don't add Targa to that group.

What the AI providers receive. To judge a message, we send AI model providers acting on our behalf: the message text, including text read from its images and links decoded from its QR codes; what our rules found about it (for example, how recently the sender joined); for a new or flagged sender, up to 20 recent messages from the same group (3 from the last hour for an established member), each cut to 300 characters, with the speakers shown as letters instead of names; a one-line summary of the sender's history in that group (how many messages, how long since first seen, earlier verdicts, removals and restorations); and notes about the group that Targa's review model writes, which never quote a message or name a member. On paid plans, when a member who is not an admin posts an image with no text, and Targa can read no text in it, the image itself is sent to a review model. A repeat of an image already known to be a scam is recognised without being sent. On the Free plan, images are processed on our own servers only. We never send Telegram ids, names, usernames or group names.

The recent messages used as context are held in our server's memory only and are never stored.

Similar messages. To compare a message with past spam, the text of some messages (from new or flagged senders, or that our rules doubted) is also sent to an AI provider to be turned into a list of numbers that captures its meaning. We keep those numbers, linked to the verdict, for 90 days.

Quality review. A review model re-checks a sample of the messages the AI let through, and writes the notes about each group described above. It works offline and cannot act in a group.

The terms the providers work under. The AI providers act on our instructions and process what we send under their business terms for use of their APIs: they do not use it to train their models, they keep it for a limited period (at most 30 days) to detect abuse, and they may not use it for any other purpose. These terms are in force on the accounts Targa uses today; when the company is formed, they will be re-signed in its name, with no change to what the providers receive.

The AI's records. The AI's decisions are stored in the same database as the bot's other records, under the same numeric ids. A decision keeps the message text only when the AI acted on the message or was unsure, and for one in fifty of the rest, and only for 90 days. A message waiting to be read is held for at most a day. A small record per member per group (when first seen, how many messages, earlier verdicts) is kept until 180 days after the member's last message.

Automated decisions and how to contest them

Targa acts on its own. A newly protected group is enforced from the first message: Targa removes messages and can mute, kick or ban members without a person checking first. A ban made on the AI's verdict needs two AI models to agree. A group's owner can switch the group to shadow mode, where Targa only watches and logs, or turn off “Let Targa remove messages on its own”, so that the AI's verdicts are only listed for the moderators.

If Targa acted on you by mistake. Every action carries its reasons, and the group's admins can undo any removal, mute, kick or ban with one tap, which also clears the wrong verdict. Ask an admin of that group first. If you can't reach them, or you want a person at Targa to look at the decision, contact us (see Contact) with the group and the time, and we will review it.

Support

When you report a problem (from the Support page, a “Wrong call?” button or the bot), we keep the conversation: what you write, your account or Telegram id and name, the group, the last few dashboard pages you opened, and the decision you're reporting (its score, checks and verdict, and whether the group was in shadow mode). You can add up to three screenshots; we remove their metadata and store them privately. You can also attach the text of the message in question, which may be another member's message; you're asked before it is attached. Replies reach you in the dashboard and, if you wrote through the bot, in a Telegram private message.

Screenshots and attached text are deleted when the issue closes. The rest of the conversation is kept for 12 months after the issue closes, so that we can recognise a problem that comes back, and is then deleted. If you delete your account, you are anonymized in your support conversations at the same time: your name and ids are removed and what you wrote is deleted.

Fixing problems. When a report needs a code change, we write a short description of the problem in our code tracker on GitHub (GitHub, Inc., United States). We write it ourselves and leave out your name, ids, email, any message text and any screenshot, and nothing you typed is copied into it. Our development tools, including AI coding tools, read it to prepare the fix.

Cookies and analytics

Necessary cookies. The website keeps your answer to the analytics question in one cookie, and your theme and language in your browser's storage. The dashboard sets a session cookie that keeps you signed in, and cookies that remember your language, your time zone and your answer to the analytics question; your theme is kept in your browser's storage. These are needed to run the Service and are not used for tracking or advertising.

Analytics, only with your consent. If you choose “Allow Google Analytics”, we use Google Analytics to see which pages are visited and how the website and the dashboard are used. Google Analytics sets its own cookies and sends Google your IP address, details of your device and browser, and the pages you view. Google acts as our processor and may process this data in the United States. From the dashboard we send only the kind of page you are on (for example, a group's activity page), never the group, its id or a link that contains a token. We don't use this data for advertising. Nothing is loaded from Google Analytics and no analytics cookie is set unless you allow it, and “Only necessary” keeps it off. Your answer is remembered for six months, and you can change it at any time with the “Cookie settings” link at the foot of any page.

How long analytics data is kept. Google Analytics deletes data linked to a visitor's cookie no later than 14 months after that visitor's last visit. Statistics that identify no one are kept.

The public Spam Index

Counts aggregated across groups (never individual verdicts or identities) power the public Spam Index research pages. Nothing published there identifies a person, a group or a message.

How we use data, and our legal bases

We use this data to run the Service: signing you in, protecting the groups you connect, showing you protection stats and the decision log, sending the notifications you turned on, answering support requests, and keeping the Service secure and reliable. We don't sell or rent personal data, and we don't use it for advertising.

Where the GDPR or similar laws apply, we process account and settings data to perform our contract with you; group messages, AI review, the per-member records, the ban-list check, support conversations and security logs under our legitimate interest, and that of the groups' admins and members, in keeping groups free of spam and scams, which we have weighed against the members' rights and documented; analytics on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time; and, once paid plans are on sale, payment records to meet our legal obligations.

Roles. Targa decides how and why a group's data is processed to protect it, so for that data Targa is the controller; the group's admins are not our processors, and we are not theirs. Admins are responsible for their own decisions: adding Targa, choosing its settings, and telling their members that the group is protected by an automated moderator that uses AI, which the Terms of Service require.

Sensitive content. A message can reveal things about a person such as their health, beliefs, politics or sexuality. Targa reads a message only to decide whether it is spam or a scam: it draws no conclusion about the person, does not record such matters, holds the text for at most 90 days, and uses nothing for any other purpose.

Who receives data

We share data only with the providers needed to run Targa, each under terms that limit it to providing its service: hosting (Hetzner, Germany); content delivery, network security and hosting of the website (Cloudflare); the AI model providers described above; GitHub, as described under Support; Google, for analytics if you allow it and for sign-in with Google; Apple, for sign-in with Apple and for push notifications (an alert you turn on includes the member's name and the action); and an email delivery provider whenever we send you an email. When paid plans go on sale, Stripe will process payments, and Telegram will process payments in Telegram Stars.

Telegram. Everything the bot sends and receives passes through Telegram: the messages in your groups, sign-in with Telegram, private messages from the bot, and a private Telegram chat we use as a log of moderation decisions (each line carries the action's number, score and reasons, never the message text). Telegram processes this under its own privacy policy, as an independent controller, not under an agreement with us.

A list of these providers, with their roles and locations, is available on request. We may disclose data if the law requires it, or to protect the safety and integrity of the Service. If Targa is ever merged or sold, the data stays under this policy's protections and we will tell you.

Ban-list check (the one exception). When an account joins or is active in a group Targa protects, we check whether it is on a public anti-spam ban list by sending that account's numeric Telegram id, and nothing else, to the list's operator. That operator is not one of our providers: it runs the list under its own terms, not under an agreement with us. We keep its answer for 180 days.

How long we keep data

Your account is kept while it exists. Deleting it immediately removes your email, password hash, sign-in identifiers, connected groups, device push tokens and launch-list entries, anonymizes you in the change trail and in your support conversations, and deletes your customer record at the payment processor if there is one. It does not delete the records of what Targa did in your groups, which follow the periods below.

90 days: message text, removed messages, the per-message records, the similar-message numbers, the examples our review model labels, and the records of which account posted what in which group (used to spot spam spread across groups). 180 days from the member's last activity, or from the check or report: the member activity record, the per-member AI record, ban-list answers and records of forwarded scam messages. 12 months: spam examples admins submit, and the change trail. 13 months: monthly usage counts. Ban lists that admins or federations keep are retained while they are in force, as an anti-abuse measure.

AI decision records. After 90 days the message text is removed, and after 180 days the rest of the record (group id, member id, message number, verdict, score and the model's one-line reason) is deleted. It is deleted sooner when a member's data is erased on request. What remains is only a daily count of model calls and their cost for each group, which names no member and no message.

Logs and backups. Our server logs are deleted after 90 days. Backup copies of our databases are deleted within 30 days, so data erased from the Service can remain in a backup until that copy is deleted. The moderation log chat on Telegram is our audit trail of what Targa did and is kept for as long as the Service runs; its lines carry numeric ids, scores and reasons, never message text. A group's message text, removed messages and action records can be kept for a shorter period on request.

Security

Passwords are stored only as salted hashes, all traffic is encrypted in transit with TLS, access to production systems is restricted, and message text is held only for the 90-day window. No system is perfectly secure, but we design so that the data we hold is of little use to an attacker.

Your rights and controls

From the dashboard you can disconnect any group, change your password, download a copy of your data (Account → Download your data, an immediate export of your account, groups, devices and settings history) and delete your account, with no email and no waiting period. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to access, correct, export or delete your personal data, to restrict or object to its processing (including processing based on legitimate interest), and to withdraw consent at any time. For anything the dashboard doesn't do, or if you can't sign in, contact us and we will answer within 30 days.

Group members. If you're a member of a group Targa protects rather than an account holder, the data we hold about you is your numeric Telegram id, your display name, the moderation events about you in that group, the per-member records described above, the AI's decision records about your messages, and the text of your messages kept for review (at most 90 days). To get a copy, or to have it erased sooner, contact us and we will do it within 30 days, except ban-list entries, which are kept as an anti-abuse measure.

Complaints. You have the right to complain to a data protection authority, in particular in the country where you live or work, or where you think your rights were infringed.

International transfers

Our servers are in the European Union (Germany). Some of our providers process data outside your country, including in the United States: the AI providers, Cloudflare, Google, GitHub and Apple; Telegram operates worldwide. For transfers out of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland we rely on the safeguards those laws recognise: the provider's certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, with its UK and Swiss extensions, where it holds one, and otherwise the European Commission's standard contractual clauses included in the provider's data-processing terms.

Children

You must be at least 18 to hold a Targa account, and we don't knowingly collect personal data from anyone younger through the dashboard. The members of a group Targa protects can be of any age Telegram allows: Targa does not know a member's age and treats every member the same way, under the rules above. If you believe we hold personal data about a child that we should not, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, we update the date at the top. For material changes, we show a notice in the dashboard before they take effect.

Contact

Questions or data requests: write to support@targa.dev, use the dashboard's Support page, or reach us on Telegram at @targapraetorian or on X at @targapraetorian.