Tellonym

Is Tellonym safe?

It is safer than its rivals in some ways, but not a good place for younger teens. Tellonym is a Berlin-made anonymous Q&A app: you share a link, people send you anonymous "Tells", and only the ones you answer appear on your profile. That approval step, plus language filters on every message, gives the person receiving messages more control than many similar apps. No regulator has fined or ordered it. The weak points are elsewhere: anyone can message you without an account, location data feeds ads, the privacy policy carries a 2016 date, there is no two-step login and no age check. We score it 45/100, ahead of NGL (38) and Sendit (34), behind Wizz (47).

How anonymous Tellonym really is

Anonymous to other users, not to Tellonym. The privacy policy says the company records the IP address of each Tell sent, and its help pages say it hands sender data to law enforcement when there is a legal basis, typically after a police report. In Germany, insults and threats can be criminal offences, so a serious threat is traceable.

Tellonym Plus, from $7.99 a week on the App Store, removes ads and adds "sender hints", one per message: whether it came via Instagram or Snapchat, the sender's rough location, whether you share followers, whether the sender knows you personally, or whether they have written before. That is less than NGL or Sendit promised with their paid reveals, and Tellonym says plainly that names are never shown. In a small class, though, "knows you personally" plus a town name can be enough to guess.

Bullying and the tools against it

Cyberbullying is the reason most parents hear about Tellonym, through school warnings in the UK, Ireland and elsewhere. The design invites it: messages can come from strangers and from people without an account, and the person writing pays no social price.

Tellonym's answer has several layers. Every message goes through machine-learning language filters, and you can set their strength from "very low" to "very high" for your own profile. A custom word filter deletes any Tell containing words you choose. You can switch off messages from unregistered users, block senders and report content to moderators. Because nothing is public until you answer it, a cruel message reaches only you.

Those tools help, but they rely on the user setting them up, and filters work on words, not intent. The terms say that receiving messages from people without an account needs you to be 17 or older, yet age is whatever the user types in. Apple rates the app 18+; Google Play still rates it Teen.

What data Tellonym collects

Apple's label lists location, identifiers and usage data as used to track you across other companies' apps, and purchases, location, identifiers and usage data as linked to you. Google Play says Tellonym shares approximate location, device IDs and other information for advertising and analytics, and collects email, phone number, contacts and, optionally, precise location.

The privacy policy matches that picture but is old. It shows an effective date of 1 April 2016, predating the GDPRGDPRThe EU's General Data Protection Regulation, which sets rules on how organisations collect and use personal data and allows large fines.More in the glossary, and still refers to features and partners of that era. Tellonym's third-party page allows it to share "pseudonymous demographic information" with partners for targeted advertising and look-alike audiences, and lists Google, Facebook, the German ad firm Emetriq and ad companies that no longer exist in that form, such as MoPub and Oath. For an EU company, that is a thin account of who receives your data today.

Settings let you turn off anonymous usage statistics, marketing emails and being found by phone number, but all three are on by default.

Security

Google Play says data is encrypted in transit. Tells 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, and cannot be, since Tellonym filters and moderates them. The privacy policy says the company "may enable" multi-factor authenticationTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary in the future; it is not offered. We found no bug bounty programme and no reported breach.

How to use Tellonym more safely

1. Set the filter strength to "very high" and add recurring insults or names to the custom word filter.
2. Turn off Tells from unregistered users, which removes the easiest route for one-off abuse.
3. In privacy settings, switch off "Allow Others to Find Me by Phone" and usage statistics.
4. Do not answer, and so publish, messages about other people's looks or secrets; you are responsible for both the question and the answer under the terms.
5. If a message threatens you, screenshot it and report it to the police. Tellonym says it gives sender data to the police, not to users.
6. To leave, delete the account in settings, then cancel any Plus subscription in your app store account.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (86) is the strongest factor, with no fines or orders in ten years. Privacy (35) and scams and harmful content (35) are the weakest: location-based ad tracking under an outdated policy, and an open anonymous inbox with self-declared ages. The filters, the approval step and in-app deletion keep Tellonym above NGL and Sendit, but a teenager who wants honest questions from friends is better served by a named question sticker on Instagram.