1.Who I am

The Familiar is made and operated by Eva Lothian, an individual based in the United States (“I”, “me”). I am the person responsible for the data described here. You can reach me about anything on this page at familiarhelp@outlook.com.

2.The short version

3.What I collect

Your account

You sign in through Google or Bluesky (the AT Protocol). I receive an identifier from that provider and a display name — never your password. That’s what your Familiar and your data are tied to.

What you create in the app

The things you make: journal entries and chat, your Familiar’s name, pronouns and personality, the “motes” you tend, the stories and worlds you build together, any notes prepared for a therapist, your friend connections, feeding and gifting activity, and your Roam visit settings. This is your content. It is private to your account.

Purchases

Payments are handled by the Apple App Store or Google Play, with subscription and receipt validation through RevenueCat. I receive your purchase and entitlement status (what you’re subscribed to, and whether a receipt is valid) — I never receive your card number or full payment details.

Usage analytics and diagnostics

I collect basic analytics through Microsoft Azure Application Insights to understand how the app is used and to keep it reliable: which features are opened and for how long, general device and operating-system information, and crash and error diagnostics. This is coarse usage data, not your writing — the content of your journal, chat and stories is never sent to the analytics system.

4.AI processing of what you write

When you use the journalling and story features, the text you write — and material derived from it to build a story — is sent to Anthropic and OpenAI, who run the language models that produce your Familiar’s replies and its fiction. They process this text on my behalf, to generate that output and for safety monitoring, under their API terms. Under those terms this content is not used to train their models.

Some especially sensitive content is deliberately kept out of these features entirely — it is excluded before anything is sent to generate a story, a dream, or a game piece. See Care & safety for what that covers and why.

The creature itself, and the petting, chase, graze, feeding and Roam activities, run on your device and do not send your content to an AI provider.

5.What I do not do

• I don’t sell or rent your personal information to anyone.
• I don’t show your writing to other users. Friends can see each other’s creatures and display names — never each other’s journals, chats or stories.
• I don’t run advertising, ad networks, or third-party advertising trackers.
• I don’t use your content to build a profile of you for marketing.

6.Why I’m allowed to use this data

I use your content to provide the app to you (that’s the point of it); analytics and diagnostics to operate, secure and improve the service, which is a legitimate interest in running it well; and purchase data to fulfil and manage what you’ve bought. Where the law requires consent — for example, before AI features send your writing off your device — that consent is requested clearly in the app before it happens, and you can decline and still keep a free Familiar.

7.Your rights over your data

You can, at any time:

• Access and export your content from within the app.
• Correct anything that’s wrong — most of it you edit directly.
• Delete your account and everything in it, yourself, from Settings. See Delete your data.

Depending on where you live — for example under the GDPR in the UK and EU, or the CCPA in California — you may also have the right to object to or restrict certain processing, and to complain to your local data-protection authority. I honour these requests regardless of where you are. I have not sold or shared personal information in the sense those laws use, and I don’t use it for cross-context behavioural advertising. To make any request, email familiarhelp@outlook.com.

8.How long it’s kept

Your content is kept for as long as your account exists, so it’s there when you come back. When you delete something — an entry, or your whole account — it is removed from the live service promptly, along with the things derived from it, and cleared from routine backups within a short period in the ordinary course. Usage analytics are retained only for a limited period for the purposes above.

9.Where it’s processed

The service runs on cloud infrastructure in the United States. The AI providers named above may process your text in the United States or elsewhere they operate. If you use the app from outside the US, your information will be processed in countries whose data-protection laws may differ from your own; where required, appropriate safeguards for those transfers are used.

10.Children

The Familiar is intended for people aged 18 and over. It is not directed to children, and I don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has used the app, contact me and I’ll remove the account.

11.Security

I take reasonable measures to protect your information, including encryption in transit and access controls. No online service can promise perfect security, but your writing is treated as what it is: private, and often personal.

12.Changes, and contact

If this policy changes in a way that matters, I’ll update the date above and, for significant changes, tell you in the app. Questions, requests, or corrections: familiarhelp@outlook.com.