Privacy Policy

The data controller is ESSENCE LLC, a limited liability company organized in the State of California, USA.

Contact: hello@youressence.app

Essence is intended only for adults 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has provided us information, contact us at hello@youressence.app and we will delete it.

We do not intentionally collect precise geolocation, contacts, photos, or biometric data beyond what you choose to attach (for example, an image you add to a journal entry).

We use your information to:

• provide, maintain, personalize, and secure the Services — legal basis: performance of our contract with you;
• process your inputs through our guided tools and the Oracle to generate responses and reflections — legal basis: your consent and/or performance of the contract;
• sync your data across your devices and back it up — legal basis: performance of the contract;
• respond to support requests — legal basis: our legitimate interest in helping you, and/or the contract;
• diagnose issues, prevent abuse, and improve the Services — legal basis: our legitimate interests, balanced against your rights;
• send you service and (if you opt in) wellbeing notifications — legal basis: consent, which you can withdraw;
• comply with legal obligations — legal basis: legal obligation.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time (this does not affect processing already carried out).

Some of the content you enter may qualify as special-category data concerning your health or mental wellbeing under the EU/UK GDPR, and as sensitive personal information under California and other laws.

• We process this content only to provide the Services to you, based on your explicit consent, which you give when you choose to use these tools and accept this Policy.
• We do not use your personal content to build advertising profiles, and we do not sell or "share" it (see Section 8).
• You can withdraw consent by deleting the content or your account at any time.

The Oracle and certain guided features use a third-party artificial-intelligence provider (Anthropic, "Claude"), accessed through our secure server proxy, to generate responses.

• When you use these features, the text you enter is transmitted to that provider to produce a reply.
• We instruct the provider to process your input only to generate your response, and not to use it to train their models.
• AI responses are generated automatically, may be imperfect, and are not professional, medical, or crisis advice.
• We do not use your content to train our own models.

We share information only as follows, with providers bound by confidentiality and data-protection obligations:

• Hosting, database, authentication — Supabase — store your account and content securely.
• Content delivery, audio storage, secure proxy — Cloudflare (incl. R2) — serve audio, run our API proxy.
• AI generation — Anthropic (Claude) — generate Oracle/guided responses.
• Subscriptions — Apple App Store, RevenueCat — process and manage subscriptions.
• Email — Brevo, and Apple/Supabase auth emails — account and support emails.
• App build & delivery — Expo / EAS — build and update the app.

We may also disclose information: (a) to comply with law or a valid legal request; (b) to protect the rights, safety, or property of Essence, our users, or the public; and (c) in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, in which case we will notify you and this Policy will continue to apply.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not "share" it for cross-context behavioral advertising, as those terms are defined under California law.

We are based in the United States, and our providers may process data in the US and other countries. If you are in the EEA, the UK, Switzerland, Canada, or elsewhere, your information may be transferred to countries whose laws differ from yours. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and equivalent mechanisms). You may request a copy of the relevant safeguards by contacting us.

We keep your information for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account (in-app, under Privacy), we delete your associated personal content from our live systems, and it is removed from routine backups within 30–90 days. We may retain limited records where necessary to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, including encryption in transit and access controls. No method of storage or transmission is 100% secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we become aware of a data breach affecting your personal data, we will notify you and any competent authority as required by applicable law (for example, within 72 hours under the GDPR where applicable).

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to: access; correct; delete; restrict or object to certain processing; data portability; withdraw consent; and not be discriminated against for exercising your rights.

To exercise these rights, email hello@youressence.app or use the in-app Privacy screen. We will respond within the time required by law (generally one month under the GDPR). You may also lodge a complaint with your data-protection authority — in France, the CNIL (cnil.fr); in other EU countries, your local authority.

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know, access, correct, and delete the personal information we collect, and to limit the use of sensitive personal information. In the past 12 months we have collected the categories described in Section 3, for the purposes in Section 4. We do not sell or share your personal information, and we do not use sensitive personal information for purposes other than providing the Services. To exercise your rights, contact hello@youressence.app. You may use an authorized agent, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

The mobile app does not use third-party advertising trackers. Our website may use minimal cookies necessary for its operation; see any cookie notice presented there.

If you enable notifications, we use a device token to deliver them. You can turn notifications off at any time in your device settings or in-app.

We may update this Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you in the app or by email and update the "Last updated" date above. Your continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated Policy.

Questions or requests: hello@youressence.app — ESSENCE LLC, California, USA.