Direct messages and voice/video calls, as well as group chats are end-to-end encrypted, so they can only be accessed by the person who sends the message and the person who receives it, no one in between (including Viber). Users can hide their chats with a pin number and create ‘disappearing messages’, meaning they cannot be viewed after a set time. They can delete a message they’ve sent to someone else (who will no longer be able to see it). Users can chat with an AI bot. They can also use the ‘AI Chat Summary’ to get a bullet point summary of a group chat. People can pay for ‘Viber Out’ to make international phone calls using the app.
Under 16 accounts are not shown mature adverts and their personal data is not collected. However, a user can change their date of birth in the app.
Viber has some safety settings but no parental controls. Using the settings feature they are able to prevent other people from seeing their phone number, profile image, when they are online, and if they have read someone’s message. They can also block users and control who can add them to a group, whether friends are notified on their birthday and turn on the spam filter (which prevents a user from sending or receiving messages with a known spam account). They can decide whether to always attach their location to chat messages and prevent the app from gathering their personal data in order to show them personalised adverts.
