WHAT WE HOLD, AND WHAT WE DO NOT

Talk to the Tree is operated by Talk to the Tree Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, at 124 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, United Kingdom. For anything on this page, including a request about your own information, write to privacy@talktothetree.app.

Talk to the Tree Ltd is the data controller for the information described here. If you are in the UK, we handle personal information under the UK General Data Protection Regulation.

Company registration number: [TO CONFIRM: company registration number (England and Wales)]. Registration number with the Information Commissioner’s Office: [TO CONFIRM: ICO registration number, if registered].

• Your conversation is held in your own browser, not in our database, and ends with the visit.
• To answer you, your message and the context listed in section 3 are sent to an AI model through the Base44 AI gateway. The reply is not saved by this app.
• If the library has nothing on a subject you ask about, we record the subject only — no name, no email address, no account link.
• Memory is off by default, and nothing is saved unless you confirm that individual item.
• Your reflections are private to your account until you mark one as shared and give someone an active care circle code.
• A care circle code works for whoever holds it, and access through a code is not rate limited per visitor.
• There is no advertising code and no analytics code in this app itself.
• Talk to the Tree is for people aged 16 and over, and the age check is enforced on the server, not just on the screen.
• You can delete individual records, and your whole account, yourself.

What you type, and what the Tree answers, is kept in your browser’s session storage so the conversation survives a page move inside the app. It is tied to the account it was written under, or to an anonymous visitor if you are not signed in, and it is not written to our database. It ends when you close the tab or press “Start again”.

Session storage is normally cleared when a tab closes, but that is browser behaviour rather than a promise we control: browsers that restore tabs after a restart can restore session storage with them. Pressing “Start again” or clearing site data removes it immediately.

What is sent when you ask a question. To write a reply, the app sends the following through the Base44 AI gateway to a language model:

• your current message;
• the earlier turns of the conversation still on screen, so a follow-up keeps its thread;
• the perspective or lens you selected, and the named teacher if you selected that lens;
• your three introduction answers, if you have given them;
• any memories you have saved that the app judges relevant to this turn, if memory is switched on;
• the guidance state for this conversation — for example what has already been offered, and any clarifying question in progress;
• your age-declaration version, so the companion can refuse a visitor it has no declaration from.

Nothing else about your account is sent. The reply is generated for that turn and is not stored by this app. What the platform and the model provider do with a request is described in sections 9 and 11.

If the library has nothing on your subject. A gap is recorded so that the subject can be covered later. That record holds a stable key derived from the subject; the shortened subject; the search terms retrieval used; the lens it was asked in, and any later lenses; how often it has been asked about; when it was first and last asked; an editorial status; an optional editorial note; and whether it was noticed by retrieval or entered by hand.

It holds no account identifier, no name, no email address and no transcript. It is not deleted when an account is deleted, because it is not connected to any account. It is visible only to the app’s editor and administrators.

Please avoid entering information about another person without their permission, or where it is not needed for your question.

• Your account: your email address, your name if one has been set, the date you confirmed you are 16 or over, your three introduction answers, the lens you last chose, and the layer arrangement you last saved so the Tree looks the same when you return on another device.
• Memories, only if you switch memory on and confirm each one: short notes such as a goal, an interest, or a preference about how you like to be answered.
• Reflections, only if you keep one: the title and words you write, the lens, centre, path or concept you attach them to, a one-word mood, and whether you have marked them as shared.
• Saved tree views, if you save a combination of layers to return to.
• Care circle details: a companion’s name, an optional email address you choose to enter for them, their relationship to you, what you have chosen to share, your invitation note, the circle’s status, and any guidance they have written for you.
• Legacy community preferences, if you used those features before they were switched off — including an optional private note on beliefs, which is never shared or inferred.

Community and marketplace sections are switched off in this release. Records that earlier versions created are closed to app users and are deleted with your account, with the exceptions described in section 14.

One thing to be aware of: if you create a care circle, the companion’s name and any email address you enter are stored on your account. That person has no account with us and we do not write to them from that entry — it is for you to tell them what you are sharing.

Memory is off until you turn it on, and turning it on is the only thing that allows anything to be kept. Nothing is inferred from ordinary use of the app, and nothing is saved automatically.

When you ask the Tree to remember something, it shows you what it would keep and asks you to confirm that item. Only after you confirm is a memory created. Adding one yourself on the My Memory page is also a deliberate action by you.

Before anything is stored, the app applies fixed, written rules to the text. They refuse categories the app has decided it must never keep as a memory — among them crisis or self-harm wording, health and treatment information, intimate detail, statements of identity such as religion or ethnicity, financial and banking details, passwords and other secrets, another person’s private information, and contact details. A memory that trips one of these rules is refused, with an explanation, and nothing is stored. These are text-matching rules, not an assessment of you and not a clinical or diagnostic judgement.

You can read every memory, change it, or delete it one at a time on that page. Switching memory off stops anything new being saved and leaves what is already there in place, so nothing disappears without your asking.

A reflection belongs to your account and is readable only by you. It becomes readable by someone else only when you mark it as shared and that person holds an active code for your care circle. Withdrawing the share, pausing the circle or revoking it closes the reflection again. Every reflection can be edited, exported or deleted on the Reflections page.

Marking a reflection as shared is a separate choice from keeping it, and it is one you can undo at any time. Sharing only has an effect while a circle with that permission exists and is active.

A care circle is the only part of your account that ever leaves it. When you create one, you choose what is shared: reflections you mark as shared, and permission for that person to leave you guidance. That person opens the view with a code you give them; they do not need an account.

A code can be forwarded. Anyone holding an active code can open whatever that circle shares, whether or not they are the person you intended. Treat a code as you would a key: if it has been shared further than you meant, or you are no longer sure who holds it, revoke it from the care circle page. Revoking stops it opening anything on the next request; pausing does the same while keeping the circle in place. Either can be given back.

Two limitations we would rather state than leave you to assume. Access through a companion code is governed by possession of the code and is not currently rate limited per visitor, so a code cannot be protected by attempting to slow repeated guesses. And we cannot tell who opened a view with an active code.

Guidance a companion leaves is stored against your circle, readable by you and by the person who wrote it. If a companion has copied or saved what they were shown, revoking their access cannot retrieve those copies.

Spiritual exploration can involve information about religious or philosophical beliefs, physical or mental health, relationships, or other matters that data protection law treats as special category. Reflections, guidance notes and, to a lesser degree, memories can hold this kind of information because that is what people write about.

We aim to collect and keep as little of it as possible. Memory has an explicit opt-in, asks you to confirm each item, and refuses several sensitive categories outright. Reflections and care circle guidance are ordinary content you choose to write: the app does not ask a separate consent question before they are written, and this page does not claim that it does.

The legal basis on which we rely for each use of your information, including the additional condition required for special category information, is [TO CONFIRM: legal basis for each use, including the condition for sensitive information]. This page does not establish that any condition or consent mechanism is already in place.

Answers are produced by a large language model reached through the Base44 AI gateway, operated by the platform that hosts this app. The gateway selects the underlying model, and which provider serves a particular request is not visible to this app.

Your message and the context listed in section 3 are sent for that one purpose. The model provider’s own retention and training terms are [TO CONFIRM: AI provider's retention and training terms] and must be confirmed before this policy is relied on.

No automated decision is made about you with legal or similarly significant effect. The app does not profile you, does not sell anything about you, and does not use your conversations to train a model of its own.

This app sets no cookies of its own. It contains no advertising code, no tracking pixels and no analytics events: nothing you read or ask is reported by the app to an advertising or analytics service.

Kept on your device until you clear it: the sign-in token managed by the Base44 SDK that keeps you logged in; a copy of your age declaration; your three introduction answers; the lens you last chose; your saved layer arrangement; and whether you prefer reading mode.

Kept only for the visit: the conversation on screen; the working state of a guided path in progress; and a flag recording that the lens prompt has already been shown.

Clearing your browser’s site data removes all of it, though it will also sign you out and remove your preferences.

The hosting platform loads its own scripts into the page to provide hosting, sign-in and the app runtime. We cannot inspect what those scripts record, and whether the platform performs analytics, session recording or technical logging on its own account is [TO CONFIRM: platform analytics, session recording and request logging]. The platform may keep standard technical logs of requests, such as an IP address and the time of a request, as any web host does; its retention period is [TO CONFIRM: hosting log and backup retention periods].

The app runs on the Base44 platform, which provides hosting, sign-in, the database and the AI gateway, and which in turn runs on Cloudflare’s infrastructure. Your account and the records described above are stored on that provider’s infrastructure on our behalf, and your message passes through its gateway to be answered. Those organisations may act as processors or subprocessors depending on their role.

Beyond that, we do not sell your information, do not share it with advertisers, and do not pass it to anyone else except where the law requires it or where you have asked us to.

Some providers may process information outside the United Kingdom. The countries involved and the safeguards that apply are [TO CONFIRM: processing locations and international transfer safeguards] and must be confirmed with the platform before this policy is relied on.

• Conversations: not kept on our servers at all; held in your browser as described in section 3.
• Memories and reflections: until you delete them, or until your account is deleted.
• Care circles and guidance notes: until you revoke or delete the circle, or your account is deleted.
• Your account: until you delete it, subject to the exceptions in section 14.
• Gap records: kept as editorial backlog, with no account link to delete.

Backups, security logs and the platform’s own records are kept by the hosting platform for [TO CONFIRM: hosting log and backup retention periods], which should be confirmed with the platform before this policy is relied on.

You can delete your account yourself from My Space, confirming the request by typing your own account’s email address. Deletion removes:

• your reflections;
• your memories, and your memory setting;
• your care circles;
• your saved tree views;
• your community and personalisation preferences;
• your community profile, and any meetup, meetup request, booking, experience or product records you created;
• guidance notes written for your circles, and guidance notes you wrote into anyone else’s circle;
• and finally the account record itself, which holds your email address, name, age declaration, introduction answers, lens and saved arrangement.

The account record is removed last, deliberately: deletion is not a single transaction, so a step can fail after others have succeeded. If that happens we tell you that deletion did not complete, and your account itself remains intact, so you can still sign in and repeat the request rather than being locked out of records that no longer have an owner. Records already deleted are not restored — repeating the request simply finishes the job.

We would rather say this plainly than imply otherwise.

• Meetup requests and bookings where you were the host or the provider. If another person made the request, the record was created by them, not by you, and it is not removed when your account is deleted. It can still contain your account identifier as host or provider, together with that person's message. The same applies to a host name or practitioner name you typed into a listing, and to other people's records that refer to you. These records are closed to app users in this release, but they are not deleted.
• Gap records, as described in section 3, which carry no account identifier and so are not deleted with an account.
• Platform backups, security logs and any records held by the AI provider, which we do not control and which may persist for a period set by those providers.
• Records we must keep by law, and email records for verification and password-reset messages sent to your address.
• Anything another person has already copied or saved — for example a companion who kept what they were shown.

The residual meetup and booking records are a known gap, not a deliberate policy. This page will say they are removed only once that has been implemented and tested.

Depending on the circumstances and the law that applies to you, you may have the right to be told how your information is used, to see a copy of it, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to restrict or object to certain processing, to receive applicable information in a portable form, and to withdraw any consent you have given. These rights are subject to the conditions and exceptions the law sets.

Most of this you can do yourself, without asking: memories and reflections each have their own delete control, the care circle page controls sharing, and My Space holds the account deletion step. For anything else, write to privacy@talktothetree.app. We may need to verify that the request comes from you before acting on it.

If you are in the UK and you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

Talk to the Tree is intended for people aged 16 and over. Before the AI companion or any personal feature opens, the app asks whether you are 16 or over. Your answer and the date you gave it are recorded on your account, with a copy kept on the device so you are not asked again. No date of birth, no age and no identity document are collected: the answer is a declaration, not proof of age.

The check is enforced on the server as well as on the screen. Requests for personal features, and requests to the companion, are refused without a declaration, so closing or editing the page does not get past it.

Someone who says they are under 16 is shown a notice instead of the companion. No account is created for them and nothing they typed is kept. The Tree, the library, the teaching pages, this policy, the Terms of Use and the Support page stay open to everyone.

If you are 16 or 17, the protections described above apply to you exactly as they apply to everyone else: memory is off until you switch it on, a reflection is shared only if you share it, and a care circle exists only if you create one. The app does not build a profile of you and does not infer your age from anything you write.

A declaration is not proof of age, and it does not by itself establish compliance with every requirement that may apply to younger users.

If you are under 16 and something is troubling you, the Support page lists where to find help.

When this page changes, the date at the top changes with it. A change that affects what is done with your information will be described here in plain terms rather than quietly applied.

See the Terms of Use for what the app is and is not, and Support if you need help with your account or your data.