Privacy
Are AI girlfriend apps safe? Privacy and safety compared
Mostly yes, if you pick the app carefully, and the risks are different from what people expect. The real dangers so far have been weak security at small apps, vague privacy policies and missing age checks, not robots going rogue. Here is what the evidence shows and how the main apps compare on paper as of October 2026.
Are AI girlfriend apps safe to use?
The well known ones are reasonably safe for most people; the risk sits with small apps that collect a lot and protect little.
In February 2024 Mozilla's Privacy Not Included team reviewed 11 romantic AI chatbots and put its warning label on all of them; 10 of the 11 failed its minimum security standards, and one app showed more than 24,000 ad trackers within a minute of use. In October 2025 researchers at Cybernews found that two companion apps, Chattee Chat and GiMe Chat from Hong Kong based Imagime Interactive, had left a server open without a password, exposing 43 million messages and more than 600,000 images and videos from over 400,000 users.
What has gone wrong with the big apps?
Mostly privacy law and age checks.
Italy's data protection authority fined Luka, Replika's maker, 5 million euros in a decision dated 10 April 2025, finding no valid legal basis for the processing, insufficient information in the privacy policy and no age verification. Character.AI ended open-ended chat for users under 18 in November 2025 after lawsuits involving teenagers. Since 1 January 2026, California's SB 243 requires companion chatbot operators to disclose clearly that users are talking to an AI and to have protocols for suicide and self-harm.
How do the main apps handle your data?
On paper, the main differences are training, advertising and where the company sits.
| App | Company | Chats used for training? | Advertising | Minimum age |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Replika | Luka, Inc., USA | Small anonymised portions, for internal safety and performance | Conversations never shared with ad partners; website data can be | 18 |
| Nomi | Glimpse.ai, Inc., USA | Policy refers to training archives | Does not sell or rent personal information | 18 |
| Candy.ai | EverAI Limited, Malta | Yes, after aggregation, anonymisation or de-identification | Policy allows sharing de-identified data with partners | Adult platform |
| X-Friend | German company | No | No; chats never used for advertising | 18 |
Who can read my AI girlfriend chats?
The app operator and the company whose model writes the replies, in practically every app.
No companion app can be end to end encrypted while a language model writes the answers, because the model has to read the message. What matters is what the operator promises to do with it, where it is stored and whether you can delete it. Our article on who can read your AI chats goes through the details.
How do I choose a safe AI companion app?
Five checks, ten minutes.
- Does the privacy policy name the company and the country it is registered in?
- Does it say plainly whether chats are used to train models or for advertising?
- Can you delete your account and conversations inside the app?
- Is there an age check, and is the app rated 18+ if it allows adult content?
- Has the app been in a data leak? Search its name with "leak" or "breach" before signing up.
How does X-Friend handle safety and privacy?
X-Friend is an 18+ app with an age check, from a German company under the GDPR.
Data is stored in London (UK, AWS eu-west-2), outside the EU under a regime the EU treats as adequate. Chats are never sold and not used for advertising or AI training. Deleting your account in the app removes the account and the conversations. Messages are not end to end encrypted, for the reason above; that is true of every app in this category.
Questions people ask
Are AI girlfriend apps safe?
The large, established apps are reasonably safe for most people, but the category has a poor record on privacy. Mozilla found in 2024 that 10 of 11 romantic chatbots failed its minimum security standards, and in 2025 two small apps exposed 43 million private messages through an unprotected server.
Can AI girlfriend apps leak your chats?
Yes, it has happened. In 2025 Chattee Chat and GiMe Chat left a server without authentication, exposing 43 million messages and over 600,000 images and videos, according to Cybernews and Malwarebytes.
Is Replika safe?
Replika is an established app with an 18+ rating, and its privacy policy says conversations are never shared with advertising partners. It was fined 5 million euros by Italy's data protection authority in 2025 over legal basis, transparency and age verification.
Do AI girlfriend apps use your chats to train AI?
Some do. Candy.ai's privacy notice allows training on de-identified exchanges, Replika uses small anonymised portions for internal safety and performance, and X-Friend does not use chats for AI training.
Where to go from here
- Who can read your AI companion chats?
- Safety at X-Friend
- About X-Friend
- What AI companion apps are actually allowed to do
Sources
- Mozilla Foundation, Privacy Not Included, 14 February 2024: review of 11 romantic AI chatbots.
- Malwarebytes, 10 October 2025, on the Cybernews discovery of the Chattee Chat and GiMe Chat exposure.
- GDPR Enforcement Tracker, ETid-2611: Garante decision of 10 April 2025 against Luka Inc.
- Character.AI blog, 29 October 2025. Skadden and Future of Privacy Forum summaries of California SB 243.
- Privacy policies of Replika, Nomi and Candy.ai, checked 20 October 2026. X-Friend: own policy.