FAQ
Mack is in Beta: what does that mean for my family?
It means Mack is new and we're still teaching him. The design (Mack lives on the phone, no messages to our servers) is locked in. What's still improving is how accurate Mack is: which messages he flags, how often he's too cautious or not cautious enough, how well he handles slang we haven't seen yet. Expect Mack to get better with every app update. Crisis flags are deliberately on the cautious side. We'd rather flag an "are you okay?" moment too often than miss one. If you notice Mack getting things wrong, tap the alert in your Orbit app and tell us; that feedback shapes the next version of Mack.
Is Mack a version of ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini?
No. Mack is something we built and trained ourselves, from scratch. Mack runs entirely on your child's phone and doesn't rely on anyone else's service. We didn't want our safety story to depend on another company whose terms could change, whose servers could be ordered to hand over data, or whose product could be shut down at short notice.
Does Mack break end-to-end encryption?
No. Mack runs on the child's phone: on messages before they're sent (locked up), and on messages after they've been unlocked by your child's phone to be read. The only phones that ever see the unlocked message are the ones on each end of the chat. That's how every end-to-end encrypted messenger works; we just use those existing moments on your child's own phone to give Mack a look. Our servers only ever see the locked-up version and, if Mack flags something, a small alert (which category, which version of Mack, and the time) plus the flagged message re-sealed so that only your phone, the parent's, can open it. We never see the words. This is very different from products that scan messages on a server, where the company necessarily sees the actual words.
Why does Mack read incoming messages and not just outgoing?
Because the other family's Mack is set up by their parents, not by you. They might have Mack off, or have a category turned off that you keep on, or be using an older version of the app. If you only read outgoing messages, your child would be protected from things they said, but not from things people say to them. Reading in both directions, on your child's own phone, is how Orbit makes the rules you've chosen for your child the rules that actually apply.
How is Mack different from Bark or other monitoring apps?
Those products either unlock messages on a server, or get a copy of the actual words from the messaging app, meaning the company behind them reads your child's conversations. Orbit doesn't. Mack runs on the child's phone, what Mack decides stays on the phone, and what's sent through us is an alert with the flagged message sealed for your eyes only. We can't read it, and Mack never reports the words to anyone outside your family, ever.
Will Mack send my child's messages somewhere if it can't make up its mind?
No. There is no "send it to the cloud to be sure" back-up. If Mack can't decide, the message goes through normally and no alert fires. We will never ship a version of Orbit that secretly sends unsure messages to a server.
What happens if Mack gets it wrong?
Two kinds of "wrong" matter:
- Flagged something that was fine. In Hold mode, you approve it from your phone and the message goes through. In Block mode, your child sees the explanation and can edit and resend. Either way, you can tap the alert and tell us Mack got it wrong, so we can improve.
- Missed something it shouldn't have. This is the harder one, because by definition you don't get an alert. Mack is one layer, not the only one. The Watchlist, approving every new friend, and an open conversation with your child are the others. We keep training Mack to miss less, but we won't pretend Mack catches everything.
What if my child sees something upsetting that Mack doesn't catch?
They can tell you themselves, quietly. Any child on Orbit can press and hold a message they've received, tap "I don't like this message", pick a reason (Spam, Harassment, Hate speech, Inappropriate content, or Other), and add a note if they want. The report comes straight to you as an alert, with the message and their note sealed so only your phone can read them. The friend who sent it is never told, nothing changes in the chat, and the other family isn't involved, so there's no social cost to asking for help. Reports work completely independently of Mack: they get through whatever your filter settings are, even with Mack's filtering off. How reporting works →
Does Mack work without internet?
Yes. Mack lives on the phone and doesn't need a connection to do its job. If the phone is offline, Mack still runs, alerts stack up on the phone, and they're sent when the phone is back online.
How big is Mack? Does Mack slow my child's phone down?
Mack is small, built to be light enough to run on a phone. It does its work in a fraction of a second on a modern phone and you won't notice it's there. No noticeable battery hit.
What languages does Mack understand?
English at launch, with a UK child-style focus because that's where our training data is strongest. We'll add more languages as we grow.
Can my child turn Mack off?
No. While Mack is on duty, Mack reads every message your child trades with other children, sent and received. What Mack does when it flags something is up to you (Off / Hold / Block, plus turning individual categories on or off), and so is whether Mack runs at all: moving your child to the Open supervision level switches monitoring off entirely. Every one of those dials is on the parent's side. None of them is something a child can flip. Crisis flags always fire, whatever the mode or categories.
Where can I read more about how Mack fits in?
See the Security page for the encryption detail, the Our approach page for why we built Mack the way we did, and the Features page for how Mack sits alongside the other parent controls.