# Rules and privacy
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The WhatsApp bot is built so the most important rules for automated communication are hard-wired: it always discloses that it is a bot, links your privacy notice, honors opt-outs immediately and respects WhatsApp's 24-hour window. You cannot switch these building blocks off by accident; they are protected system nodes in every flow.
## Bot disclosure
Every new conversation starts with a greeting that discloses the bot (your office name is inserted automatically; guests are addressed formally in German):
> "Hallo und herzlich willkommen bei Mustermann Immobilien. Sie schreiben mit unserem automatischen Assistenten. Sobald es persönlich wird, übernimmt ein Mensch aus unserem Team." (Hello and welcome to Mustermann Immobilien. You are writing with our automated assistant. As soon as things get personal, a human from our team takes over.)
If someone asks directly whether they are talking to a bot, the bot answers honestly:
> "Ja, ich bin der automatische Assistent von Mustermann Immobilien. Für persönliche Anliegen verbinde ich Sie gern mit dem Team." (Yes, I am the automated assistant of Mustermann Immobilien. For personal matters I am happy to connect you with the team.)
Under the EU AI Act, chatbots fall into the "limited risk" category. This entails a transparency obligation: people must be able to recognize that they are writing with an automated system. That is exactly why the bot disclosure is a protected, mandatory system building block in every flow and can neither be deleted nor weakened in the [Flow Studio](/tools/wa-bot/flows).
## Privacy notice
Right after the greeting comes the privacy notice with the link from your [settings](/tools/wa-bot/einstellungen):
> "Wie wir Ihre Daten verarbeiten, lesen Sie hier:" (How we process your data, read here:) followed by your privacy link.
Without a stored https privacy link the bot cannot go live (the go-live gate of the [connection](/tools/wa-bot/verbindung)). This building block is a protected system node as well.
## STOP and opting out
If a contact sends a pure opt-out message, the bot stops immediately. Recognized are the whole messages "stop", "stopp", "abmelden", "abbestellen", "unsubscribe", "keine weiteren nachrichten" and "keine nachrichten mehr" (case does not matter). The contact receives one final confirmation:
> "Sie erhalten keine weiteren Nachrichten von Mustermann Immobilien. Falls Sie sich wieder melden möchten, schreiben Sie uns einfach erneut." (You will receive no further messages from Mustermann Immobilien. If you want to get back in touch, simply write to us again.)
After that the bot sends nothing more, and the composer in the [inbox](/tools/wa-bot/inbox) is locked too. If the contact reaches out again later on their own, that counts as a wish for contact and the bot replies again. The opt-out always applies, even while flood protection is active.
Only whole opt-out messages trigger the stop. A message that merely contains one of the words does not opt anyone out.
## The 24-hour window
WhatsApp (Meta) mandates: free-form messages to a contact are only allowed if the contact has written within the last 24 hours. The platform enforces this rule everywhere:
- **Bot replies** only ever happen in reaction to incoming messages anyway.
- **Team replies** in the inbox are locked once the window has expired (the chip shows "Fenster geschlossen", window closed).
- **Reminder timers** in flows and **tool workflows** (for example a WhatsApp appointment reminder from the [booking tool](/tools/booking)) only send while the window is open.
Appointment confirmations and reminders outside the window will run through Meta-approved message templates in the future; the platform sets up the mandatory templates automatically after connecting (the templates page in the tool shows the status).
## Protection against message storms
If more than 15 messages per minute arrive from one contact (for example spam or a foreign auto-responder), the bot keeps recording silently and pauses its replies until things calm down. A STOP opt-out is honored immediately even then.
The bot also bundles several messages sent in quick succession: it waits a few seconds and answers once, collectively, instead of replying to each message individually.
## Data retention
Two deadlines run automatically, daily and without your involvement (visible in the [settings](/tools/wa-bot/einstellungen) on the **Daten & Löschung** tab):
- **Technical raw data** from the WhatsApp inbound feed is permanently deleted after **14 days**. It only serves debugging.
- **Message contents** of conversations with no activity for **24 months** are anonymized. Statistics (counts, timestamps) are kept.
## What the bot never does
- **Overwrite CRM data:** captured details (name, email, phone, location) enrich the contact in your address book but only fill empty fields. Maintained data, for example from onOffice, is never overwritten.
- **Write outside the window:** neither bot nor team nor workflows send free-form messages after the 24-hour window has expired.
- **Send after STOP:** after an opt-out, no automatic message goes out until the contact reaches out again themselves.
- **Guess or promise something wrong:** if an action fails (slot taken, no listing, brochure missing), the bot hands over honestly to your team instead of making something up.
## Next steps
How the protected system building blocks look in the editor is shown on [Flows and Flow Studio](/tools/wa-bot/flows). The retention rules live in the [settings](/tools/wa-bot/einstellungen). Back to the [overview](/tools/wa-bot).