LegalPrivacypolicy.

Vera is operated by Veleria, based in Melbourne, Australia. In this policy, we and us mean that operator.

This policy covers the Vera app, the getvera.au website, and anything else we run that links to it. It sits alongside the Terms of Service and forms part of them.

We handle personal information under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.

Account details. Your email address, your name if you give it, and the credentials you sign in with. If you sign in with Apple you may choose to hide your email, and we then only receive a relay address.

What you put into the app. Your messages to the characters, and whatever you keep in the modules you use: calendar entries, tasks, notes, habits, health and mood entries, meals, money in and out, and files you add to the vault.

Photos and audio you send. If you point the camera at something or hold to talk, that image or recording is processed so the assistant can respond to it.

Technical information. Device type, operating system, app version, rough location derived from your IP address, and error reports. This is used to keep the service working and secure.

Purchase records. Whether you hold a subscription and when it renews. Payments are taken by the App Store, so we never see or hold your card details.

We do not ask for information we do not need, and you can use much of the app without filling in most of it.

To run the service. Signing you in, storing what you save, syncing it to your devices, and letting the assistant answer using what it already knows about your week.

To keep it working. Diagnosing faults, preventing abuse, and protecting accounts.

To handle your subscription, and to answer you when you write to us.

To meet legal obligations where we have them.

We do not use your information to build a profile of you for advertising, and Vera carries no advertising.

When you send a message, the assistant is given the parts of your information needed to answer it, which may include recent conversation, and entries from the modules relevant to what you asked. That is the whole reason a reply can be about your week rather than about the subject in general.

To produce a reply, that material is sent to the specialist providers that run the underlying models, on our instruction, under contracts that permit them to use it only to return a response to us.

Your information is not used to train any model, ours or anybody else's.

Conversations are stored so the characters keep their memory of you. You can delete a conversation, and you can ask for all of it to go.

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information, and we do not disclose it for anybody else's marketing.

We use a small number of providers to run the service: hosting and database, model providers for the assistant, speech processing for voice, email delivery, and error reporting. Each is engaged to act on our instruction only, and may not use your information for their own purposes.

We may disclose information where the law requires it, where it is necessary to prevent serious harm, or to establish or defend a legal claim.

If the business is ever sold or reorganised, information may transfer with it. If that happens, it stays subject to a policy no less protective than this one, and we will tell you.

Some of the providers described above are located outside Australia, principally in the United States. Using Vera therefore involves your information being handled overseas.

Before engaging a provider we take reasonable steps to satisfy ourselves that it handles information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles, and we bind it by contract to do so.

If you would like the current list of the countries involved, ask at contact@getvera.au and it will be sent to you.

A Shared Space is deliberately shared. Anything you put into one is visible to the other members of that space, including lists, tasks, entries and messages.

What you keep outside a space stays outside it. Your own modules and your private conversations are not visible to other members.

You decide what to put in, and you can leave a space at any time. Once another member has seen something, we cannot unsee it for them.

Information is encrypted in transit using current TLS, and encrypted at rest on the servers that hold it. Files in the vault are encrypted at rest as well.

Access to your rows in the database is restricted at the database itself, so one account cannot read another's data even if the application were asked to.

Administrative access is limited to what is needed to operate and support the service, and is used sparingly. We will not read your content out of curiosity, and where support requires looking at something we will ask you first wherever it is practical to.

No system is perfectly secure and we do not claim otherwise. What we can say is that the number of people with any access at all is very small.

While your account is open, what you have saved is kept so that it is there when you come back. That is the point of the app.

When you ask for your account to be deleted, deletion begins straight away and encrypted backups containing it roll off within thirty days. After that it is gone and cannot be restored.

We keep a minimal record of the deletion itself, and anything a law requires us to retain, such as records connected to a transaction.

If you simply stop using Vera without asking for deletion, your information stays until you do.

You can ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and it will be sent in a readable format.

You can ask us to correct anything that is wrong.

You can ask us to delete your account and everything in it.

Write to contact@getvera.au from the address on your account. There is no charge, and we aim to respond within a few days and in any case within thirty. If we ever refuse a request, we will tell you why in writing.

The website uses cookies that are necessary to sign you in and keep your session going. Without them it cannot work.

We keep a basic count of page visits so we know which parts of the site are used. It is not tied to an advertising network and it is not used to follow you across other sites.

There are no advertising cookies, no advertising pixels and no ad network on Vera, because there are no ads.

You can block or clear cookies in your browser. Blocking the essential ones will stop you being able to sign in.

Vera is not intended for children under 13, or under a higher minimum age where your country sets one, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

If you believe a child has given us personal information, write to contact@getvera.au and it will be deleted and the account closed.

If there is unauthorised access to or disclosure of personal information, we will assess it promptly.

Where it is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, and we will tell you what happened and what to do about it rather than the minimum we can get away with.

If you think your privacy has been mishandled, write to contact@getvera.au with the details. It goes straight to the person who runs Vera. We will acknowledge it and respond within thirty days.

If you are not satisfied with the response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au, or on 1300 363 992.

We may update this policy. Where a change is material, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect, and the effective date at the top of this page will change.

The change history at the bottom records what changed and when, so you can see for yourself rather than take our word for it.

Privacy questions and requests go to contact@getvera.au. It comes straight to the person who builds Vera rather than to a queue.