Privacy Policy (Draft)

Who this policy covers

It covers the person who creates the account and pays (we call them the account holder), the person who talks with Dearly (the parent), and family members who are invited to receive weekly summaries.

Dearly is for adults. It is not meant for children under 18.

What we collect

From the account holder

Name, email address and password (stored only as a one-way hash).
Optionally, a mobile number for safety alerts, and whether you agreed to receive alerts by text.
Subscription and billing status. Card details are handled by Stripe, not by us.
The parent’s profile you set up: first name, pronouns, city, relationship to you, language and speech settings.
Memories you add about the parent, such as favorite music, family names or hometown.
The email addresses of family members you invite to receive summaries.

From the parent

What they say to Dearly, as text. When they speak, the audio is turned into text by Deepgram and then discarded; Dearly does not keep recordings.
Memories suggested from conversations. They only become part of what Dearly remembers once the family confirms them. Details about health, mood or risk are never stored as memories.
Their answers to our consent notices, with the exact words they were shown.

Automatically

Basic usage events, such as a page being viewed or a button being tapped. We honor Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control: when either is on, we record nothing.
How much each conversation costs us (voice minutes, characters read aloud, AI tokens), so we can run the service sustainably.
Technical error reports, with personal details removed.

How we use it

To hold kind, personal conversations with the parent, using confirmed memories.
To write a short weekly summary about what was talked about in general — never the conversation word for word, never quotes, money or other people’s private matters. Summaries are only sent once the parent has said yes on the talk screen and each recipient has accepted an invitation.
To keep people safe: every message is checked for signs of a crisis. If the parent may be in danger, the family member who set Dearly up is told by email (and text, if they agreed), and the parent is told this will happen. Our team may review flagged conversations.
To run, secure, bill for and improve the service. We do not sell personal information and we do not use it for advertising.

Who we share it with

We share personal information only with the service providers below, only for the purpose listed, and with family members as described above. We may also disclose information if the law requires it or to protect someone’s safety.

Anthropic — The AI model that writes the companion’s replies, checks messages for safety concerns, suggests memories and writes conversation summaries. Data: Conversation text, the parent’s first name and profile settings, and approved memories.
Deepgram — Turns the parent’s speech into text. Data: The audio of one spoken turn at a time. We ask Deepgram not to use it to improve its models (Model Improvement Program opt-out on every request). Dearly does not store the audio.
ElevenLabs — Reads the companion’s replies aloud. Data: The text of the companion’s reply. Never the parent’s own voice.
Resend — Sends account emails, family invitations, weekly summaries and safety alerts by email. Data: Recipient email addresses and the content of those emails.
Twilio — Sends safety alerts by text message to the family member who set Dearly up, if they gave a phone number and agreed to texts. Data: That phone number and the alert text. (Not active yet.)
Stripe — Takes payments and manages subscriptions. Data: Billing details and card information, which go directly to Stripe. Dearly never sees or stores full card numbers.
Sentry — Tells us when the app has an error, so we can fix it. Data: Technical error details. We scrub email addresses, conversation text and other personal details before anything is sent.
Vercel — Hosts the website and app. Data: Everything the app processes passes through its servers; it also keeps short-lived request logs.

How long we keep it

Conversation transcripts are deleted automatically 30 days after they are created.
Short conversation summaries and confirmed memories stay until you remove them or delete the profile.
When you delete a parent profile or your account, it is removed from the app straight away and permanently purged within 30 days.
Records of consent, safety reviews and costs are kept as long as the law or our safety duties require, without conversation text.

Your choices and rights

Export: ask us for a copy of your data (contact details below) and we will send it to the account email. A self-serve download button is coming.
Delete: delete your whole account from the Account page, or ask us to delete a single parent profile. Deleting also cancels the subscription.
Correct: edit or remove memories and profile details at any time.
Summaries: the parent can say “Not now” to weekly summaries, and the account holder can remove any family member from the summary list.
Depending on where you live (for example California), you may have further rights, such as to know, correct or delete your information. Contact us to use them; we will not treat you differently for doing so.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit, passwords are hashed, talk links can be revoked, and access is separated so one family can never see another family’s data. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will tell you as the law requires.

Not a medical service

Dearly is a companion, not a medical device or a health service. It does not diagnose or treat any condition and is not a substitute for family, caregivers, doctors or emergency services. In an emergency, call 911.

Changes to this policy

If we make an important change, we will tell account holders by email before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when this policy last changed.

Contact us

Questions or requests about privacy: privacy@dearly.example.com.