Wizz

Is Wizz safe?

Safer than it was, but still a risky app for teenagers. Wizz is a swipe-to-chat app for meeting strangers your own age, owned by the French games company Voodoo, which also owns BeReal. In January 2024 Apple and Google both pulled it after a child-protection group warned that sextortion gangs were using it. Since then Wizz has raised its minimum age to 16, checks every new user's age with a selfie and screens every message before it is delivered. Those are real changes. But the app's core purpose is still putting young people in private chats with people they do not know, and it pays for itself with ads from 13 networks. We score it 47/100, below Snapchat (52).

Why Apple and Google pulled Wizz in 2024

On 30 January 2024 Apple removed Wizz from the App Store and Google suspended it from Google Play, NBC News reported. Both moves followed emails from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) about the use of Wizz in sextortion scams, where criminals pose as teenagers, get intimate photos and then demand money. Google cited its policy against apps that facilitate the exploitation of children.

A report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) had singled out Wizz alongside much bigger apps. Its authors wrote that the evidence suggested criminals had "saturated" Wizz, which NCRI estimated had about 20 million active users. At the time, Wizz accepted users from 13 and grouped them by age, but NCRI's researchers said the selfie check could be fooled with a relative's photo.

Wizz told users it was "taking a break from the app stores due to a technical hiccup". Internet Archive captures show its US App Store page back online by 23 February 2024, and it is in both stores today.

What Wizz checks now

The July 2026 terms set a minimum age of 16, and say some features are for adults only. The sign-up process has two steps. First you take a selfie, which an outside provider uses to estimate your age; the provider deletes the image, though Wizz keeps its own copy for account checks. If the estimate does not fit the birthday you entered, Wizz can ask for an ID document and compare it with your face, which requires your explicit consent. Anyone found to be under 16 cannot open an account.

After that, Wizz sorts users into age clusters and only matches people within the same band. Its DSA page says recommendations use age, country or state, gender and online status, and users can narrow the age range to one year either side. Every written message is run through automated moderation before delivery, and photos and videos go to an outside moderation company. Ads shown to users must suit a young audience, with no dating, gambling, alcohol or weight-loss ads.

Wizz now reports what it finds. NCMEC's figures list 233 reports from Wizz App to the CyberTipline, the US clearing house for suspected child sexual exploitation, in 2025; Wizz did not appear in the 2024 list. A count of reports shows that a company detects and passes on cases, not how much abuse happens on the app.

The gaps are the ones every stranger-chat app has. A 16-year-old can still be matched with someone who passed the selfie check and has bad intentions, and the risky part of sextortion usually happens after a conversation moves to another app. Users can also pay to "boost" a profile so it appears first in other people's suggestions.

How much data Wizz collects

More than its App Store label suggests. Apple's label lists usage data as used to track you across other companies' apps, and says the rest (contact info, identifiers, diagnostics) is not linked to your identity. The privacy policy describes a different picture: selfies, ID document scans and biometric comparisons for some users, chat messages and media for moderation, phone number and email, and advertising IDs and IP addresses for ads.

Google Play's label goes further. It says Wizz shares approximate location for analytics and advertising, and that the app can collect optional race and ethnicity, political or religious beliefs and sexual orientation for personalisation. Wizz's own partner list names 13 ad networks, among them Meta, Google AdMob, AppLovin, Pangle and Bigo, each of which collects data through its own code in the app. In the US, the policy admits this may count as a "sale" or "sharing" of data under state laws.

Retention is spelled out: account data goes one year after your last visit, but your date of birth and email are kept for five years.

Security

Google Play says data is encrypted in transit. Messages 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 Wizz screens them before delivery. We found no bug bounty programme on HackerOne or Bugcrowd and no reported breach. The privacy policy explains transfers outside the EU but says nothing about how data is protected.

How to use Wizz more safely

1. If your teen uses Wizz, set it up together and check that the birthday is correct, so the age matching works.
2. Treat any new contact who quickly asks for photos, moves the chat to Snapchat or Instagram, or offers money as a red flag. Block and report in the app.
3. If someone threatens to share images, do not pay and do not delete the chat. Report it to the police and, in the US, to NCMEC's Take It Down service.
4. Refuse ad tracking when the app asks, and turn on "Limit Ad Tracking" or reset the advertising ID on the phone.
5. Skip the optional profile fields about ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation.
6. To leave, delete the account in the app settings. Removing the app alone does not close it.

How we scored it

Privacy (34) is the weakest factor, because of 13 ad networks and a label that understates the policy. Scams and harmful content (38) is close behind: Wizz exists to connect young strangers and was pulled from both stores in 2024 over sextortion, and only the newer age checks keep it from scoring lower. Regulatory record (86) is the strongest, with no fines or orders. For an app with similar risks that is now for adults only, see Yubo.