In short
There are two kinds of Connection: between an organization and a person, and between two people. They run on the same machinery and feel similar in the App, but they follow different rules about who may read the conversation and who is allowed to start it.
The distinction worth learning is not “which is more secure”. It is who is on the other end. A brand channel exists so that a brand's staff can answer it; a person-to-person channel has no third party in it at all, and cannot be given one later.
On this page
One engine, two grammars
Every Connection is the same underlying thing: a persistent, private channel created by a Fusion binding, which survives the touchpoint that started it. What changes is the shape of the relationship on either side of it.
An organization is an institution. It has a console, staff who take turns answering, a record it is expected to keep, and accountability if it behaves badly. A person is a person. They answer for themselves, keep nothing on anyone's behalf, and are entitled to a channel that nobody else can read.
Those two facts produce every other difference on this page. They also produce the one rule that cannot be negotiated: an organization's channel is readable by that organization, and a channel between two people is not readable by anyone else. You cannot ask for a brand channel that no member of the brand's staff can open — that would remove the reason it exists — and you cannot add a supervisor to somebody's private conversation.
The two side by side
| Organization to person | Person to person | |
|---|---|---|
| How it starts | The person scans, taps or enters a code and agrees. The organization cannot initiate | Either side asks; the other must accept before anything opens |
| Who can read messages | The person, and the organization's authorized staff through its console | Only the two people |
| What the other side sees at the start | Nothing about the person unless they choose to share it | Your display name, and nothing else |
| What you see of them | A named, identified organization | Whatever that person has chosen to disclose to you specifically |
| Who is accountable | The organization, institutionally — it can be reported, suspended or removed | Both individuals, equally. Block and report work in both directions |
| Typical purpose | Support, ownership, offers, service, updates about a thing you bought | Staying in touch with somebody you actually met |
| Ending it | You can remove your side at any time | Either party can remove their own side at any time, without the other's agreement |
Organization to person
This is the relationship you get by connecting through a brand's touchpoint — a product, a pack, a card, a sign. On the organization's side it appears in a console where staff can answer, hand a conversation to a colleague, and keep a record. That is the legitimate reason the channel is readable by more than one person: a company that cannot answer you tomorrow because the individual who read your message has left is not providing support.
What the organization does not get is the ability to start the relationship, or to learn anything about you that you did not agree to. Both of those are enforced rather than promised. Every one of these Connections begins with you, and begins with a screen that tells you what is being asked for.
Person to person
Two people, equal footing, no console, nobody else in the room. It starts as a request and only becomes a Connection when the other person accepts — there is no path that connects two people automatically, and requests that are never answered expire after fourteen days.
The default disclosure here is deliberately minimal: your display name is shared and nothing else. Name, email address, phone number and photo are each individually optional, and each is set per person — so the colleague you swapped cards with can have your phone number while the stranger from the same event does not.
Connections made at an event
A Connection formed at an event — attendee to attendee — is an ordinary person-to-person Connection. It follows the same rules: mutual agreement, display name only, per-person disclosure, either side can end it.
What is different is only the context in which it happened and the fact that it persists afterwards. When the event finishes the Connection does not. This is usually the reason people want it, and occasionally a surprise — if you would rather not keep an event contact, remove it like any other.
Event group rooms are a separate thing and not a Connection. A room has many participants and behaves like a room: assume anything you post there is read by everyone in it.
When there is no account on the other side
Someone can interact with a touchpoint without the Linxy App and without an account at all. On the organization's side that shows up as an anonymous participant, identified by device rather than by person. It is a real interaction and it can carry a conversation, but it is not a Fusion binding: no biometric proved a person was present, and nothing about it can be recovered onto a new device.
This is what a brand's admission floor is for. An organization that needs to know it is dealing with a verified person — a warranty claim, anything involving money, anything sensitive — sets the floor above device-only, and anonymous participants are asked to step up before the channel opens.
How to tell which one you are looking at
- An organization's Connection shows an organization's name and, usually, a logo. A person shows a display name.
- If you arrived by scanning something in a shop, on a pack, or on commercial signage, it is almost certainly an organization.
- If the relationship waited for somebody to accept before it opened, it is person-to-person.
- If you can see a “what they can see about you” control listing individual fields, you are looking at a person-to-person Connection.
- If in doubt, open it. The Connection states what it is and who is on the other end — that screen is the answer, not the inference.
Symptoms, causes and fixes
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| A brand replied from a different name than before | Normal — the channel is staffed, and a colleague picked it up | Nothing to fix. The relationship is with the organization, not with an individual there |
| You want a brand channel only one named person can read | Not available, by design | Use a person-to-person Connection with that individual for anything genuinely private |
| You want a third person added to a private conversation | Peer channels are two-party and cannot be extended | Use an event group room, or connect to each person separately |
| A person-to-person request never opened | Not accepted yet, declined, or expired after fourteen days | Send a fresh request, or exchange an invitation link instead |
| A brand seems to know your name and you do not recall sharing it | A floor applied at connection time and the consent screen asked for it | Open the Connection to see exactly which fields are shared, and turn any of them off |
| An event contact you did not want is still there | Event Connections persist after the event | Remove it. Block as well if you would rather they could not reconnect |
Things people commonly get wrong
Related reading: What Fusion actually means, Consent, and what each side can see, Brand-to-consumer Linxy Fusion, Person-to-person Linxy Fusion, and Ending a Connection.