Monkey

Is the Monkey app safe?

Not for teenagers, and adults should go in with low expectations of privacy. Monkey matches you with a random stranger for a live video chat, with a swipe to move on, plus text chat and friend lists. It has had a poor reputation with parents for years, it has been missing from Apple's US App Store since reports of its removal in 2020, and it now says it is strictly 18+ with AI that watches for minors and nudity. The most striking fact is in its own Google Play listing: the developer declares that data is not encrypted in transit, on an app whose whole point is live video. We score it 38/100, below Azar (47), a larger stranger-video app with stronger checks.

Who is behind Monkey

Google Play lists the developer as Oviedo Interactives Limited, at an office address in Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, with the brand Monkey Group. The listing still tells the founding story of "5 teens in LA" and claims over 30 million users worldwide; Google Play shows more than 10 million downloads.

The privacy policy is less clear. It speaks only of "Monkey", gives no company name, address or date, and lists only [email protected] as a contact. For a service that collects video, selfies and phone contacts, not knowing which legal entity holds the data makes it harder to use your privacy rights, especially under EU or UK law.

Why Monkey is not on the iPhone

In May 2020, blog posts collected by the developer Michael Tsai described Monkey as removed from the App Store over child-safety complaints, while some iPhone users still received its push notifications. Apple did not give a public reason. Apple's App Store guidelines say apps used mainly for "Chatroulette-style experiences" or "random or anonymous chat" do not belong in the store, and that is Monkey's core feature. We checked Apple's US store search on 27 October 2026, and Monkey is not there. Android users and anyone with a browser can still use it.

What Monkey checks now

Monkey's Safety Center says the app is "strictly 18+" and describes a set of tools added since late 2025:

• AI video monitoring (December 2025), which Monkey says identifies "the vast majority" of policy violations and underage users in real time. Flagged accounts are restricted and reviewed; confirmed minors are banned permanently.
• AI text analysis (April 2026) for public chat spaces.
• Instant Safety Exit (September 2026), in testing for verified women, to leave and report a match with one tap.

The privacy policy adds an optional selfie age check run with a partner, with the selfie deleted after the check. Monkey says it reports child sexual abuse material to NCMEC, and NCMEC's 2025 list confirms 949 reports from Oviedo Interactives, a company that did not appear in the 2024 list.

Those reports are a sign that the systems find something, not proof that minors are kept out. Automated age estimation is the main gate, and Google Play still rates the app 17+, not 18+. In random video, the harm usually happens in the first seconds of a match, before any review.

How much data Monkey collects

Google Play's label says Monkey shares device IDs for advertising and crash logs for analytics, and collects name, email, phone number, user IDs, photos and videos, precise location, app activity, emails and purchase history. The privacy policy goes further: your phone book (with consent), your Instagram account and friend list, profile pictures and selfies, messages, screenshots, who you talk to most and when you open a message. It says in capitals that Monkey does "not sell any personal data", but it lists third-party SDKs, affiliates and partners that receive device and log data, and may transfer data abroad.

Deletion is built in: the account is disabled, then data removed after 30 days, with some traffic data kept for one year. Beyond that, the policy gives no retention periods.

Security

The Google Play label states "Data isn't encrypted" and "Your data isn't transferred over a secure connection". That is the developer's own declaration, and we score it as written. Video and chats are not end-to-end encryptedEnd-to-end encryptionEncryption in which only the sender and the recipient can read a message. The company running the service cannot see its content.More in the glossary, since Monkey's own AI watches video in real time. We found no bug bounty programme and no reported breach.

How to use Monkey more safely

1. Do not let anyone under 18 use it. On a family Android phone, block Monkey in Google Family Link.
2. Assume every match can record you. Keep your face and anything identifying, such as a school jersey or a street sign, out of view.
3. Never share your Instagram, Snapchat or phone number with a match; Monkey's policy warns it cannot protect what you hand over.
4. End and report a match at once if someone exposes themselves; reporting is available during the match and afterwards from match history.
5. Skip contact and precise-location access when the app asks.
6. To leave, use Me, Settings, Delete account; uninstalling does not close it.

How we scored it

Security (28) and scams and harmful content (28) are the weakest factors: unencrypted transfers on the developer's own label, and random video with strangers on an app Apple no longer carries. Regulatory record (85) is the strongest only because no regulator has examined Monkey in public. For stranger chat with stricter identity checks, Yubo (56) is adults-only and checks every face at sign-up.