Privacy and Safety
Conversations on Sway are private to the people in them. This page says who that is, what Sway keeps, and what helps you spot a scam before it costs you.
Who can read a conversation
Nobody outside a conversation can open it, and nothing in it is public.
- A private or group chat: its participants.
- A crew channel: #general, everyone in the crew; an open channel, the people who joined it; a private one, the people added to it.
- A conversation between pages: the people who answer for either page. On a page, that is Answer pro messages on its Permissions screen; in a crew, the same feature in the crew's roles.
Access is read from the permissions each time: a person removed from a team, a crew or a channel stops seeing its conversations at once, including the ones they took part in.
Files
Files uploaded in a conversation are kept in private storage. Opening one asks Sway for a link that works for five minutes, and Sway only hands it to the people of the conversation: a link copied out of Sway stops working shortly after.
A file attached from a Drive is the exception: it keeps its Drive address, and whoever has that link can open it.
Scam alerts
Fake promoters ask young artists for a deposit, then move the conversation somewhere Sway cannot see it. When a message you receive looks like that, a box headed Be careful shows under it, for you only. The sender is not told.
| The message | The box says |
|---|---|
| asks for a payment or a deposit | This message asks for a payment or a deposit. Check who you are paying before you send any money. |
| holds bank details | This message holds bank details. Confirm them with the page through a channel you already know before you pay. |
| mentions crypto | This message mentions crypto. A booking is not paid in crypto. |
| mentions gift cards | This message mentions gift cards. No real booking is paid that way. |
| asks to continue elsewhere | This message asks to continue elsewhere. On Sway, the conversation and its record stay together. |
| holds a shortened link | This message holds a shortened link. Check where it leads before you open it. |
The trust panel of a page you do not know, on its request or when you write to it, adds what Sway knows about it: see Messages between pages.
Report a message
- Open the message's menu, More, and click Report.
- Pick a Reason: Spam, Scam, Harassment or Something else.
- Add Details (optional) if they help.
- Click Send the report.
A copy of the message and of the ten before it goes to the Sway team, who review it. The rest of the conversation stays private, and the person reported is not told who reported them.
Block a page
A page that writes to yours uninvited can be blocked, from its request or from the conversation's menu: it can no longer write to your page nor start a new conversation with it. See Messages between pages.
People are blocked from their profile, as in the app: see Your Account.
Where the rest lives
- Messages: who reads what, at a glance.
- Team and Permissions: who answers for a page.