Privacy Policy

1. Overview

SapioChat (“we,” “us,” or “our”) provides an AI-powered chat platform designed for young people, managed by their parents or guardians. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect information when you use our service at sapiochat.com.

We believe in transparency. This policy is written to be honest and specific about exactly what happens with your data—including what third-party services receive it and why.

2. Information We Collect

Account information (parents):Email address, display name, and a hashed password. If you subscribe, Stripe also receives your email, payment method details, and subscription data (see Section 7).

Child profiles:A username, display name, and date of birth—all provided by the parent. Parents may optionally add an email address or phone number for a child.

Conversation data:Messages exchanged between children and the AI assistant are stored to provide conversation history and enable safety monitoring. Conversations may also trigger web searches via Tavily (see Section 7).

Usage data: We track token usage (message counts) per child profile for billing and usage limits. We do not use third-party analytics or tracking cookies.

Cookies & local storage: We store a JWT session token in an HTTP-only cookie for authentication. We do not set third-party tracking cookies. No advertising identifiers are used.

3. How We Use Your Information

• To provide the AI chat service and maintain conversation history
• To apply family guidance settings and safety policies configured by parents
• To classify message safety levels and generate safety event summaries for parents
• To send transactional emails (account invitations, password resets, safety alerts)
• To process payments and manage subscriptions
• To perform web searches when conversations require current information

We do not use conversation content to train AI models.

4. AI Processing & Third-Party AI Disclosure

Messages are processed by OpenAI’s API to generate AI responses. We send conversation context and family guidance settings to OpenAI for each interaction.

OpenAI data retention:Under OpenAI’s API data usage policy, API inputs and outputs may be retained by OpenAI for up to 30 days for abuse and misuse monitoring. OpenAI does not use API data to train their models.

SapioChat does not use conversation content to train AI models. Conversations are used solely to provide the chat service and safety monitoring features.

5. Parental Visibility & Safety Monitoring

SapioChat gives parents visibility into their children’s conversations through a tiered system based on the child’s age and safety events:

• Children under 10: Parents can view all conversations in full.
• Children 10 and older: Parents see conversations only when the child explicitly shares them.
• Low and medium safety events:Parents receive a summary of the flagged topic—not the full conversation text.
• High and critical safety events: Parents can see the specific flagged exchange (the relevant messages) that triggered the alert.

6. Children’s Privacy (COPPA)

SapioChat is designed to be set up and managed by a parent or guardian. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. All child accounts are created and managed by a parent, and parents maintain control over their children’s profiles, safety settings, and data.

Parents can review and modify their child’s profile information at any time through the parent dashboard. To delete a child’s account or request deletion of all associated data, see Section 10 (Your Rights).

If you believe a child has provided us with personal information without parental consent, please contact us at admin@sapiochat.com and we will promptly delete it.

7. Data Sharing & Third-Party Services

We do not sell or rent personal information. We share data with the following service providers, each of which is necessary for the operation of SapioChat:

• OpenAI— Receives conversation messages and family guidance context to generate AI responses. OpenAI may retain API data for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring. API data is not used to train OpenAI models.
• Tavily— Receives search queries derived from conversations when the AI performs web searches to provide current information. Tavily does not receive the full conversation—only the search query.
• Stripe— Payment processor. Receives parent email address, payment method details, and subscription data. Stripe handles all payment card information directly; we never store card numbers.
• Resend— Transactional email provider. Receives recipient email addresses and child display names as needed for email content (invitations, safety alerts, password resets).
• Supabase— Database host. All application data (accounts, conversations, safety events, settings) is stored in a Supabase-hosted PostgreSQL database.
• Vercel— Application hosting platform. Processes HTTP request and response data as part of serving the application. Vercel may collect standard server logs (IP addresses, request timestamps, URLs).

8. Data Retention

Conversations: Chat messages are retained until you delete them. There is no automatic expiration or time-based deletion of conversations. You can delete individual conversations or archive them at any time.

Archive vs. delete:“Archive” moves a conversation into an archived folder—it is still stored and can be restored. “Delete” permanently removes the conversation and its messages from our database.

Account data:Account information is retained for as long as your account is active. See Section 10 for account deletion.

Third-party retention:OpenAI may retain API data for up to 30 days per their data usage policy. Other providers retain data per their respective policies.

9. Security

We implement the following security measures to protect your data:

• Encryption in transit: All connections use TLS (HTTPS) encryption.
• Password hashing: Passwords are hashed using bcrypt and are never stored in plain text.
• Authentication: Sessions are managed with JWT tokens stored in HTTP-only cookies.
• Credential management: All API keys and database credentials are stored as environment variables, never in source code.
• Access control:Role-based access ensures parents can only access their own household’s data, and children can only access their own conversations.

No system is 100% secure. If you discover a vulnerability, please report it to admin@sapiochat.com.

10. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Accessyour personal data and your children’s data via the parent dashboard.
• Correct inaccurate profile information through the parent dashboard.
• Delete conversations directly from within the app (this permanently removes them).
• Delete your account: Self-service account deletion is not yet available. To delete your account and all associated household data, contact admin@sapiochat.com.
• Export your data: To request an export of your data, contact admin@sapiochat.com. We will respond within 30 days.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify registered users by email. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page reflects when the policy was most recently revised.

12. Contact

For privacy-related questions, data requests, or concerns, contact us at admin@sapiochat.com.