What OK2GO is not

Four things OK2GO cannot do

• It cannot show what happened afterwards

  A record made at nine in the evening shows that two people agreed to something at nine in the evening. It shows nothing about five past nine. Anyone reading an OK2GO record as an account of what took place later is reading it wrong — and the record says so itself, in a block printed on its first page that we do not let anyone remove.

• It cannot see pressure

  Software sees a tap on a screen. It does not see who else is in the room, what was said in the hour before, or what someone was afraid would happen if they said no. A person pressured into completing this flow produces a record that looks exactly like a freely made one, and we cannot tell the two apart. We have designed against it as far as design reaches — two accounts, two phones, no shared device, no countdown, no waiting screen for the other person to hover over, and an invitation that can be ignored without anyone being told it was declined. That narrows the problem. It does not solve it, and we will not pretend otherwise.

• It cannot outrank someone changing their mind

  Anyone can stop at any point, for any reason, without explaining and without apologising. Either person can mark an OK2GO record withdrawn with one tap, at any time, with no reason required; the other is told, and the record is permanently marked. A sealed copy carries a status page, so a withdrawal shows up even to someone holding a printed page from months earlier. The record loses to the withdrawal every time. That is the whole design.

• It has no proven standing in any court

  We do not know how a court where you live would treat one of these, and neither does anyone else. As far as anyone has been able to find, no record from any app in this category has ever been used in a court case anywhere. We are not lawyers, this is not legal advice, and we are not going to tell you that a record is protection against anything. If you need legal advice, get it from a lawyer where you live.

What it actually is

OK2GO records that a specific conversation happened: two people, each confirmed to be 18 or older, each on their own device, each having passed a short sobriety screening, agreed to something specific at a specific minute — and both of them walk away holding the same copy of it.

That is a narrow claim and it is the only one we make. Most disagreements between two people never go near a court. They are two people remembering the same evening differently, six weeks later, with nothing written down. Writing it down together at the time is what OK2GO is for.

Things we will not do

• We will not describe a record as proof that consent was given, as a contract, or as binding. It is a record of a conversation, and we will keep calling it that even when a shorter word would sell better.
• We will not sell OK2GO as protection from an accusation. That framing is what turned advocacy organisations against every app that came before us, and they were right about it. If you are here because you want a shield, we are not the product you are looking for.
• We will not give one person more control over a record than the other. Both hold the same copy, both can withdraw it, and neither can withdraw the other person out of it.
• We will not let a failed sobriety check produce a record. There is no continue-anyway button, and there will not be one. A record that documents someone was not in a clear state is worse than no record.
• We will not sell, rent, or advertise against anything in your records, and we delete unsealed ones on a schedule rather than keeping them in case they turn out to be useful.

On the obvious objection

The strongest criticism of this whole category is that a record like this helps the person accused more than the person accusing. We take it seriously, because it is not obviously wrong.

What we have done about it: both people hold identical copies and identical rights, so the record never favours whoever started it. Every sealed copy carries, on its first page, a statement that it cannot show what happened afterwards and that a withdrawal overrides it — so a copy waved around in an argument contains its own rebuttal. And every sealed copy carries a status page, which means the piece of paper is a pointer to a living record rather than a frozen permission.

What we have not done, because we cannot: stop someone showing a record to people it does not answer any question for. A record that exists can be misused. We think a record that argues against its own overreading is better than the alternative, which is two people remembering an evening differently and nothing written down at all. We might be wrong about that, and we would rather have the argument in public than avoid it.

Tell us where we are wrong

If you work in prevention, in support services, or in law, and something here strikes you as careless or harmful, we want to hear it — including if your answer is that this should not exist. Write to us. We read everything, we will not argue with you by email, and we publish substantive corrections on this page with the date they were made.

contact@ok2go.eu