Privacy Policy

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IrisChat ("IrisChat", "we", "us," or "our") is developing a tool to support mental health and wellbeing. This Privacy Policy explains how we handle the personal information we collect from users of the IrisChat service.

Important: IrisChat is not a medical or clinical service. Iris is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or disorder, and is not a substitute for professional medical, psychiatric, or psychological care. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or medical emergency, please contact emergency services (911), the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988), or the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741) immediately. Do not use IrisChat to report an emergency. For more information about IrisChat's safety protocols, please visit irischat.ai/safety-protocol.

Use of IrisChat does not create a physician-patient, therapist-client, attorney-client, or any other privileged or confidential relationship.

Iris is powered by artificial intelligence. When you interact with Iris, you are communicating with an AI system, not a human being.

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Personal Information We Collect

Personal information you provide

  • Contact information (e.g., name, email address, phone number)
  • Demographic information (e.g., age, gender, occupation)
  • Onboarding and wellbeing assessment responses (e.g., lifestyle surveys, emotional state, support preferences)
  • Conversation and message content during your use of the service
  • Information you authorize sharing from third-party providers

Personal information we collect automatically or generate

  • Usage and interaction data (e.g., feature usage, in-app activity)
  • Information derived from your interactions, used to personalize your experience
  • Device and technical information (e.g., IP address, operating system, device type)
  • Payment and billing information (processed by our payment provider)

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Sensitive Personal Information

IrisChat is a mental health and wellbeing service. In the course of using our service, you may share information relating to your mental health, emotional state, physical health, relationships, and personal history. We treat this information as sensitive and apply heightened protections to it.

Specifically:

  • We do not use sensitive personal information to serve targeted advertising.
  • We do not sell or share sensitive personal information with third parties for their own purposes.
  • Access to sensitive personal information within IrisChat is restricted to personnel who need it to operate or improve the service.
  • Where required by applicable law, we obtain your explicit consent before processing sensitive personal information for purposes beyond delivering the service.

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How We Use Personal Information

We use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • Account management: Setting up and managing your account, verifying your identity, and storing your preferences and consents.
  • Personalizing your experience: Customizing content and providing personalized feedback based on your engagement with the service.
  • Service improvement: Analyzing usage patterns and interactions to improve the functionality and effectiveness of the service.
  • Safety monitoring: Iris includes automated safety features designed to detect certain types of crisis-related content and, where detected, display mental health and crisis resources. These automated systems are not guaranteed to identify all situations that may require intervention. You should not rely on Iris to recognize, detect, or respond to a mental health crisis or medical emergency. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, suicidal thoughts, or a medical emergency, please contact emergency services (911) or the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988) immediately. Do not use Iris to report an emergency. Safety monitoring is performed by automated systems, not clinicians. Iris does not include features to send alerts or notifications to health care providers or other support persons.
  • Legal compliance and rights protection: Complying with applicable laws and protecting our rights and yours.
  • Fraud prevention and security: Identifying and preventing unauthorized access and fraudulent activity.
  • Business operations: Supporting operational, customer support, and IT functions.

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How We Use Your Data for Product Improvement

We use information you provide through the app, including conversation content, to improve our products and services, conduct quality assurance, perform automated evaluations of our models, and support research and development.

For users who access the app through certain promotional or marketing channels, telemetry features may be enabled that allow our team to review conversation data in connection with these purposes. This conversation data may include the content of your interactions with the app and is not de-identified before use. We limit access to this data to authorized personnel who require it for the purposes described above.

Because this data is personal information, it is subject to your full privacy rights, including the right to request access, correction, and deletion. You may exercise these rights at any time by contacting us at privacy@irischat.ai.

We may also generate and use aggregate statistical data derived from usage patterns across our user base. Aggregate data reflects trends across groups of users and cannot be linked to any individual. This aggregate data is not subject to individual access or deletion requests.

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How We Disclose Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information to third parties, and we do not share it for marketing or advertising purposes.

To operate our service, we may disclose personal information as follows:

  • Analytics providers — to understand how the service is used and improve it over time
  • Onboarding and messaging platforms — to manage your initial signup experience and deliver communications
  • Payment processors — to handle billing and subscriptions
  • AI technology providers — to deliver conversational AI features; these providers are prohibited from retaining your data or using it to train their models
  • Session monitoring tools — to support the quality and safety of AI interactions
  • Professional advisors — lawyers, auditors, and insurers as necessary to support our business
  • Authorities and others — law enforcement or government authorities where required by law or necessary to protect rights and safety
  • Business transferees — in connection with a merger, acquisition, or similar transaction, in accordance with applicable law

Our service providers are contractually required to use your personal information only for the purposes we specify. A summary of the categories of trusted service providers we use is available upon request at privacy@irischat.ai. We update this list from time to time and will notify you of material changes.

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Children and Minors

IrisChat is intended for use by individuals 18 years of age and older. By accessing or using the Service, you represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years old. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 18.

If you are under 18, please do not use IrisChat or provide any personal information through the service. AI companion services, including IrisChat, may not be suitable for minors.

If we learn that we have collected personal information from a minor under the age of 18, we will delete that information promptly. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has used IrisChat or provided us with personal information, please contact us at privacy@irischat.ai.

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Your Privacy Rights

Your rights regarding your personal information depend on where you are located.

California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA):

  • Right to know: You may request information about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the purposes for which it is used, and the categories of third parties with whom it is shared.
  • Right to access: You may request a copy of the personal information we have collected about you.
  • Right to deletion: You may request that we delete personal information we hold about you, subject to certain exceptions.
  • Right to correction: You may request that we correct inaccurate personal information.
  • Right to opt out of sale or sharing: We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
  • Right to limit use of sensitive personal information: You may direct us to limit our use of your sensitive personal information to only what is necessary to provide the IrisChat service. To exercise this right, email us at privacy@irischat.ai with the subject line "Limit SPI Use."
  • Right to non-discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your CCPA/CPRA rights.

To exercise your privacy rights, please email us at privacy@irischat.ai. We will verify your identity before processing your request and respond within 45 days, with one possible 45-day extension where reasonably necessary.

All Other Users

If you are located outside California, your rights regarding your personal information are subject to IrisChat’s policies and practices as described in this Privacy Policy. If you reside in a U.S. state with an applicable consumer privacy law, we will honor rights granted under that law. We handle personal information of all users with care and in accordance with our internal standards. If you have questions about our privacy practices, you may contact us at privacy@irischat.ai.

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Privacy Questions

For questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, please email us at privacy@irischat.ai. You will be connected with a member of our privacy team.

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Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the service. Conversation and message content, including information derived from your conversations, is generally retained for up to twelve months to support your experience with the service. Content retained for product improvement, research, or model evaluation purposes may be retained for longer periods as described in the How We Use Your Data for Product Improvement section above. When you request deletion, we delete or de-identify your personal information across our active systems in accordance with our standard deletion processes. Residual copies may exist in backup or disaster-recovery systems and will be overwritten in the ordinary course of those systems’ operation.

Some information may be retained longer where required or permitted by law, for example, payment and billing records for tax and financial compliance, and security logs for incident response purposes. We will confirm completion of your deletion request.

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Data Security

We employ commercially reasonable technical and organizational safeguards to protect personal information. However, no security measures are failsafe, and we cannot guarantee the security of your information.

Please contact us at privacy@irischat.ai with any security or privacy concerns.

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Changes to This Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of [effective date]. We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, services, or applicable law. When we make material changes, we will notify you by posting the updated Privacy Policy on our website with a revised effective date and, where appropriate, by notifying you through the service or by email. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically.

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Do Not Track

IrisChat does not currently respond to "Do Not Track" browser signals. If we do so in the future, we will describe how in an updated version of this Privacy Policy.

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