Simply a Friend
This Privacy Notice for Simply a Friend ("we," "us," or "our") describes how and why we might access, collect, store, use, and/or share ("process") your personal information when you use our services ("Services"), including when you:
Questions or concerns? Reading this Privacy Notice will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Services. If you still have any questions or concerns, please contact us at support@simplyafriend.com.
What personal information do we process? When you visit, use, or navigate our Services, we may process personal information depending on how you interact with us, the choices you make, and the products and features you use.
Do we process any sensitive personal information? Some information may be considered "special" or "sensitive" in certain jurisdictions. We may process sensitive personal information when necessary with your consent or as otherwise permitted by applicable law.
Do we collect any information from third parties? We do not collect any information from third parties.
How do we process your information? We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law.
In what situations and with which parties do we share personal information? We may share information in specific situations and with specific third parties.
How do we keep your information safe? We have adequate organizational and technical processes in place to protect your personal information. However, no electronic transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.
What are your rights? Depending on where you are located, the applicable privacy law may mean you have certain rights regarding your personal information.
How do you exercise your rights? The easiest way is by visiting simplyafriend.com/your-data or by contacting us.
1. What Information Do We Collect?
2. How Do We Process Your Information?
3. What Legal Bases Do We Rely On?
4. When and With Whom Do We Share Your Personal Information?
5. Do We Offer Artificial Intelligence-Based Products?
6. Is Your Information Transferred Internationally?
7. How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
8. How Do We Keep Your Information Safe?
9. Do We Collect Information From Minors?
10. What Are Your Privacy Rights?
11. Controls for Do-Not-Track Features
12. Do United States Residents Have Specific Privacy Rights?
13. Do Other Regions Have Specific Privacy Rights?
18. Right to Withdraw From Matching
19. Do We Make Updates to This Notice?
20. How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?
21. How Can You Review, Update, or Delete the Data We Collect From You?
In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us.
We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you register on the Services, express an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and Services, when you participate in activities on the Services, or otherwise when you contact us.
The personal information we collect may include: names, email addresses, mailing addresses, usernames, passwords, contact preferences, billing addresses, debit/credit card numbers, contact or authentication data, job titles, personal life details and memories shared in letters, communication preferences and letter content, mailing address of letter recipients, subscription plan and payment history, approximate location data, and letter history and correspondence records.
Because Simply a Friend uses AI to write personalized letters, we process the content of the information you share with us — including personal stories, life details, memories, and preferences shared during onboarding and through ongoing correspondence. This content is used solely to personalize your letters and improve the pen pal relationship over time.
We only collect sensitive personal information if you voluntarily share it in your pen pal onboarding form or in your correspondence with us. We do not require you to share sensitive information. When such information is shared and processing is necessary, we do so only with your consent or as otherwise permitted by applicable law. Categories that may be shared voluntarily include: health data, financial data, genetic data, biometric data, data about a person's sex life or sexual orientation, information revealing race or ethnic origin, information revealing political opinions, information revealing religious or philosophical beliefs, information revealing trade union membership, credit worthiness data, student data, social security numbers or other government identifiers, and any other personal information voluntarily shared in letters and correspondence.
We may collect data necessary to process your payment, such as your payment instrument number and security code. All payment data is handled and stored by Stripe. You may find their privacy notice at https://stripe.com/privacy.
All personal information that you provide to us must be true, complete, and accurate, and you must notify us of any changes to such personal information.
In Short: Some information — such as your IP address and browser and device characteristics — is collected automatically when you visit our Services.
We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use, or navigate the Services. This information does not reveal your specific identity but may include device and usage information such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, and information about how and when you use our Services.
The information we collect includes log and usage data, device data, and location data. Location data tells us your approximate current location based on your IP address. You can opt out by disabling your Location setting on your device.
Our use of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
In Short: We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law.
We process your personal information for a variety of reasons, including:
In Short: We only process your personal information when we have a valid legal reason to do so under applicable law.
If you are located in the EU or UK: We may rely on the following legal bases — Consent, Performance of a Contract, Legitimate Interests, Legal Obligations, and Vital Interests. Our legitimate interests include analyzing how our Services are used, diagnosing problems, preventing fraud, deepening the pen pal relationship over time, and protecting the integrity of the Simply a Friend service.
If you are located in Canada: We may process your information if you have given us express or implied consent. You can withdraw your consent at any time. In exceptional cases, we may be legally permitted to process your information without consent — for example, for fraud investigations, business transactions, compliance with court orders, or where information is publicly available.
In Short: We may share information in specific situations and with specific third parties.
We may share your data with third-party vendors, service providers, contractors, or agents who perform services for us and require access to such information. We have contracts in place with our third parties designed to safeguard your personal information.
The third parties we may share personal information with are:
We may also share your personal information in connection with any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
In Short: We offer products, features, or tools powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, or similar technologies.
As part of our Services, we offer AI Products designed to enhance your experience. We provide these through Anthropic. Your input, output, and personal information will be shared with and processed by Anthropic to enable your use of our AI Products. You must not use the AI Products in any way that violates the terms or policies of any AI Service Provider.
We use Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate your letters. We do not use your personal stories or correspondence to train these models for third parties, nor do we allow our AI providers to retain your data for their own model training. All personal information processed using our AI Products is handled in line with this Privacy Notice and our agreement with Anthropic.
To opt out, you can log in to your account settings, contact us at support@simplyafriend.com, or cancel your subscription at any time.
In Short: We may transfer, store, and process your information in countries other than your own.
Our servers are located in the United States. If you access our Services from any other region, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored by, and processed by us and our third-party providers in the United States and other countries.
If you are a resident in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, we will take all necessary measures to protect your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Notice and applicable law, including the use of the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses where required. Our Standard Contractual Clauses can be provided upon request.
In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Notice unless otherwise required by law.
We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice. No purpose in this notice will require us keeping your personal information for longer than the period of time in which users have an account with us.
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize it, or securely store it and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
In Short: We aim to protect your personal information through organizational and technical security measures.
We have implemented appropriate and reasonable technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. However, no electronic transmission over the Internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk. You should only access the Services within a secure environment.
In Short: We do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 18 years of age.
We do not knowingly collect, solicit data from, or market to children under 18 years of age, nor do we knowingly sell such personal information. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 years of age. If we learn that personal information from users less than 18 years of age has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data. If you become aware of any data we may have collected from children under age 18, please contact us at support@simplyafriend.com.
In Short: Depending on your state of residence or region, you have rights that allow you greater access to and control over your personal information.
In some regions (like the EEA, UK, Switzerland, and Canada), you have certain rights under applicable data protection laws. These may include the right to request access and obtain a copy of your personal information, to request rectification or erasure, to restrict the processing of your personal information, to data portability, and not to be subject to automated decision-making.
If you are located in the EEA or UK and you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your Member State data protection authority or UK data protection authority. If you are located in Switzerland, you may contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.
You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at support@simplyafriend.com or by updating your preferences at simplyafriend.com/your-data. Please note that this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before its withdrawal.
If you would like to review or change the information in your account or terminate your account, you can log in to your account settings, visit simplyafriend.com/manage, or contact us at support@simplyafriend.com.
Upon your request to terminate your account, we will deactivate or delete your account and information from our active databases. However, we may retain some information in our files to prevent fraud, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our legal terms, or comply with applicable legal requirements.
Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems include a Do-Not-Track ("DNT") feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. At this stage, no uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you in a revised version of this Privacy Notice.
California law requires us to let you know how we respond to web browser DNT signals. Because there currently is not an industry or legal standard for recognizing or honoring DNT signals, we do not respond to them at this time.
In Short: If you are a resident of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, or Virginia, you may have specific privacy rights.
| Category | Examples | Collected |
|---|---|---|
| A. Identifiers | Real name, alias, postal address, unique identifier, IP address, email address, account name | YES |
| B. Personal information (California Customer Records) | Name, contact information, education, employment, financial information | YES |
| C. Protected classification characteristics | Gender, age, date of birth, race and ethnicity, national origin, marital status | YES |
| D. Commercial information | Transaction information, purchase history, financial details, payment information | YES |
| E. Biometric information | Fingerprints and voiceprints | NO |
| F. Internet or other network activity | Browsing history, search history, online behavior, interest data | YES |
| G. Geolocation data | Device location | YES |
| H. Audio, electronic, sensory information | Images and audio, video or call recordings | NO |
| I. Professional or employment-related information | Business contact details, job title, work history | YES |
| J. Education information | Student records and directory information | NO |
| K. Inferences drawn from personal information | Profile or summary of an individual's preferences and characteristics | YES |
| L. Sensitive personal information | Account login information, contents of messages, debit/credit card numbers, financial information, health data, racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs | YES |
We only collect sensitive personal information as defined by applicable privacy laws or with your consent. We will use and retain all categories of collected personal information for as long as the user has an account with us.
You have rights under certain US state data protection laws, including the right to know, the right to access, the right to correct inaccuracies, the right to request deletion, the right to obtain a copy, the right to non-discrimination, and the right to opt out of the processing of your personal data for targeted advertising, the sale of personal data, or profiling.
To exercise these rights, visit simplyafriend.com/your-data, email us at support@simplyafriend.com, or visit simplyafriend.com/contact.
Under certain US state data protection laws, if we decline to take action regarding your request, you may appeal our decision by emailing us at support@simplyafriend.com. If your appeal is denied, you may submit a complaint to your state attorney general.
California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits our users who are California residents to request information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please contact us using the details in Section 20.
We collect and process your personal information under the obligations and conditions set by Australia's Privacy Act 1988 and New Zealand's Privacy Act 2020. If you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you have the right to submit a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or the Office of New Zealand Privacy Commissioner.
At any time, you have the right to request access to or correction of your personal information. If you are unsatisfied with how we address any complaint, you can contact the Information Regulator (South Africa) at inforeg@justice.gov.za.
Your personal stories and correspondence are never used to train AI models for other people. Everything you share with your pen pal stays between you and Simply a Friend — always.
Simply a Friend preserves your data indefinitely even after cancellation. Your pen pal remembers everything. If you return after weeks, months, or years, your account picks up exactly where you left off. Data is only permanently deleted upon your explicit written request to support@simplyafriend.com or through simplyafriend.com/your-data.
Simply a Friend may facilitate anonymous letter exchanges between willing subscribers as part of our human connection mission. Participation is entirely opt-in. No subscriber's personal information is shared with another subscriber without explicit consent from both parties. All exchanges are facilitated through Simply a Friend as intermediary. Subscriber identities remain anonymous until both parties explicitly consent to sharing contact information.
Simply a Friend builds compatibility profiles for subscribers who opt in to human matching. These profiles are derived from letter correspondence and onboarding information. Compatibility profiles are used solely for the purpose of suggesting human pen pal matches and are never shared with third parties or used for any other purpose.
While Simply a Friend facilitates the introduction between matched subscribers, we are not responsible for the behavior, actions, or communications of human pen pals following a match. All participants are responsible for their own conduct. Simply a Friend acts solely as an intermediary and does not supervise, monitor, or guarantee the behavior of any matched subscriber.
Subscribers may withdraw from the human matching program at any time by contacting support@simplyafriend.com or through their account settings. Withdrawal from matching does not affect their subscription or any other aspect of their Simply a Friend account.
In Short: Yes, we will update this notice as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated date at the top of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this Privacy Notice frequently.
If you have questions or comments about this notice, you may contact us at:
Simply a FriendBased on the applicable laws of your country or state of residence, you may have the right to request access to the personal information we collect from you, change that information, or delete it. To request to review, update, or delete your personal information, please visit simplyafriend.com/your-data or email us at support@simplyafriend.com.