Privacy Policy
Effective date: 11 October 2026
Who we are: Textbound is made by Gitesh Shastri ("we", "us"). Contact: support@heyjarvo.com.
Where it's available: Textbound is available worldwide, on the web and as an iPhone app, only to adults 18 and older.
The short version
- Textbound is an interactive story. The character who texts you (Vantar, Venn or Morrow: you choose) is an AI character, not a person.
- Reading needs a free account. You sign in with Google, or with Apple in the iPhone app. There are no payments right now.
- The story's choices run on our own servers. Only if AI replies are on and you agree, what you type to your character, recent story messages and what the character remembers are sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, to write the character's reply. It's a paid service whose terms say your data isn't used to train its models.
- We don't sell your personal information, we don't put analytics or ad trackers in your browser (our server sends pseudonymous usage events to Mixpanel, which you can turn off in Settings), and we don't use your chats for advertising.
- You can see and edit what your character remembers, and delete your chats, that memory, or your whole account at any time.
1. What we collect
| What | Examples | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | that you confirmed you're 18+, and when; or that you didn't (so the block sticks) | you. Your date of birth is checked on our server when you enter it and is not stored. |
| Account | you sign in with Google or Apple. Google shares your Google email address and a Google user ID; Apple shares your email address (which can be a private relay address if you choose "Hide My Email") and an Apple user ID. We store only the email and the ID (never your password, name or photo); for Apple, also an encrypted Apple token we use only to revoke Sign in with Apple when you delete your account; session records (hashed) | you |
| Profile | first name or nickname, pronouns, who you chose to text you (Vantar, Venn or Morrow; "Surprise me" picks one and we store it), time zone, story clock ("your evening", or your night-shift start) | you |
| Story | your choices, what you type to your character, the character's messages, and which character the story is told by | you and the story |
| Memory | the few facts you give the character when they ask (e.g. "your sister Maya") | you; editable on the memory screen ("What he knows", "What she knows" or "What they know") |
| Usage events | pages viewed, steps completed (including which character you chose), buttons like "Notify me", with the ad campaign that brought you (UTM tags), and the country your connection comes from. Stored on our servers; a pseudonymous copy of allowed events (never safety, age, consent or report events) goes to Mixpanel, as described in section 3. | this website and the app |
| Safety records | that a crisis step-out happened and when (no message, no account, no browser id); reports you submit, including the reported character message | this website, you |
| AI usage | when AI replies are on: token counts and cost per reply, linked to a one-way hash of your account id. Never the text. | this website |
| Reading extras | earlier editions of your story when you choose “Read again”, your vote for the next story, and scene-ready reminder settings (only if you turn reminders on) | you |
| Waitlist | your email address and whether you confirmed it | you |
| Support messages | emails you send us | you |
Story messages can include personal things you choose to share, such as feelings, health or relationships. Please share only what you're comfortable with. You can delete any of it at any time.
We don't collect your contacts, photos, precise location, or microphone audio. We use the country your connection comes from (provided by Cloudflare) to show crisis lines for where you are; we don't store it with your story. Cookies (web): a sign-in cookie, a short-lived cookie used during Google sign-in, and a cookie that remembers a failed age check. No advertising cookies. The iPhone app keeps its sign-in token in the iPhone's secure storage and has no advertising SDKs.
2. Why we use it
| Purpose | Data used |
|---|---|
| Run the story: play your scenes on your clock, remember things, keep your place | profile, story, memory |
| Write your character's replies to what you type (only with AI replies on and your consent) | what you type, recent story messages, memory, first name, pronouns, story clock |
| Keep you safe: detect possible crisis messages and show crisis resources for your country; review reports | what you type (checked automatically, not stored by the check), your connection's country, safety records, reports |
| Keep it adults-only | eligibility |
| Sign you in and keep your account secure | account |
| Understand what works and fix bugs | usage events |
| Email you when a new scene is ready, only if you turn this on (at most one a day, at your evening, never in quiet hours; the email never contains story text) | account email, story clock, reminder settings |
| Tell you when a new story launches | waitlist email (confirmed by you; unsubscribe any time) |
| Meet legal duties, for example annual reports of how many crisis referrals we showed | safety records (counts only) |
We don't use your story or memory to target ads, and we don't send them to advertising partners.
3. Who we share it with
We share data only with service providers that work for us under contract, and only what each one needs:
| Provider | What they get | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic (Claude, AI model) | only when AI replies are on and you've agreed: what you type, your recent story messages, the facts your character remembers, your first name, pronouns and story clock. Never your email. | to write your character's replies. Anthropic does not use API data to train models; Anthropic may retain inputs and outputs for up to 30 days for trust and safety, then deletes them. |
| Amazon Web Services (hosting and database, United States, us-east-1) | everything on this website and in the app: account, profile, story, memory, events, stored in the United States | to run the service |
| Cloudflare (DNS and content delivery) | your requests to this website as they pass through its network, including your IP address | to deliver the site quickly and protect it from attacks |
| Mixpanel (product analytics, United States) | pseudonymous IDs and usage events only (for example "started night one"), sent from our server. Never your email, what you type, your story, what your character remembers, or any safety, age, consent or report events. | to see what works; turn it off in Settings → Privacy |
| Google (sign-in) | when you continue with Google: Google shares your Google email address and a Google user ID with us | to sign you in |
| Apple (Sign in with Apple, iPhone app) | when you continue with Apple: Apple shares your email address (or a private relay address) and an Apple user ID with us; when you delete your account we ask Apple to revoke the sign-in | to sign you in, and to end it when you delete your account |
| Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES) (email) | your email address and the waitlist or reminder message we send you | to deliver emails you asked for |
We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or as part of a sale or merger of our business. A buyer would have to keep the protections in this policy.
We don't sell or rent your personal information, and we don't "share" it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
4. How long we keep it
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Full chat text | 180 days, then kept only as a summary, or until you delete it or your account |
| Memory | until you delete it or your account |
| Safety records (counts only, no message text) | 3 years, needed for annual reports |
| Reported messages | 180 days after the report is resolved |
| Usage events | 13 months |
| Waitlist email | until launch plus 90 days, or until you unsubscribe |
| Data with Anthropic | up to 30 days for trust and safety, then deleted; never used for training |
5. Your choices and controls
- See and edit memory: the memory screen ("What he knows", "What she knows" or "What they know", named for your character) lists everything your character remembers. Edit or delete any item, or Forget everything.
- Delete chats: Story settings > Delete all chats.
- Download your data: Settings > Download my data (a JSON file with your account, story and memory).
- Delete your account: Settings > Delete account. This deletes your account, chats, memory and settings.
- Timing: everything you delete disappears from the app right away and from our systems (including backups) within 30 days.
- AI provider consent: withdraw it any time in Story settings > AI provider. Your character then won't write replies to what you type; the scripted story keeps working.
- Requests: for a copy of your data, a correction, a deletion, or any other privacy question, email support@heyjarvo.com. We'll respond within 30 days (one month). Wherever you live, we honor these requests; some places give you extra rights, described in section 8.
6. Adults only
Textbound is for adults 18 and older. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If we learn that a reader is under 18, we lock the story and delete its data. If you think a minor is using Textbound, email support@heyjarvo.com. AI companion chatbots may not be suitable for some minors.
7. Security
We encrypt data in transit and at rest, store sessions only as hashes, limit access, and keep message text out of our safety, AI-usage and analytics records. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal information, we'll notify you as the law requires.
8. Where your data is processed
Textbound is available worldwide. Wherever you are, your data is stored and processed in the United States: our servers and database run on Amazon Web Services in the US East (N. Virginia) region (us-east-1), Anthropic processes AI replies in the United States, and Mixpanel (when it receives events) is in the United States.
Your rights in the UK, the EU and the EEA (GDPR and UK GDPR)
- Who is responsible: Gitesh Shastri, the operator of Textbound, is the controller of your personal data. Contact: support@heyjarvo.com.
- Legal bases:
- Contract (to provide the story you signed up for): your account, profile, story, memory and story clock.
- Consent, which you can withdraw at any time in Story settings: sending what you type to Anthropic for AI replies, scene-ready reminder emails and notifications, and the waitlist.
- Legitimate interests (keeping the service secure and adults-only, preventing abuse, and understanding what works): sign-in security, rate limits, the age check record, reports and first-party usage events. You can object to these (see below).
- Legal obligation and vital interests: crisis step-outs and the count-only safety records we must report.
- Special categories: things you choose to tell the story can reveal health or relationship details. We use them only to run your story, with your explicit choice to type them, and you can delete them at any time.
- International transfers: your data is transferred to and processed in the United States by us and the providers in section 3. We rely on those providers' standard contractual clauses (and, where they're certified, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension) to protect it.
- Your rights:
- Access: ask for a copy of your data, or download it yourself in Settings > Download my data.
- Rectification: correct your profile (including who texts you) in Story settings and what your character remembers on the memory screen, or ask us.
- Erasure: delete chats, memory or your whole account in the app, or ask us.
- Portability: Download my data gives you a machine-readable JSON file.
- Objection and restriction: object to processing based on legitimate interests, or ask us to restrict it. Turn off Mixpanel in Settings > Privacy.
- Withdraw consent at any time, without affecting what was done before.
- Complain to a supervisory authority: in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk); in the EU or EEA, the data protection authority where you live or work.
- We make no decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects. The crisis check pauses the story and shows resources; it doesn't lock your account.
- We don't send usage events to Mixpanel for visitors from the UK, the EU/EEA or Switzerland.
9. Changes
If we make a material change, especially to who receives your data or which AI provider we use, we'll tell you in the app and ask for your consent again where needed.
10. Contact
Gitesh Shastri · Contact: support@heyjarvo.com