Privacy Policy

What we collect

• Your phone number (or the Apple ID email iMessage uses), and which BestFriend you signed up for.
• Your messages: the texts, photos and other media you send, the replies you receive, and reactions.
• Timestamps and delivery details, such as when messages were sent, delivered or failed, and whether they went over iMessage or SMS.
• When you confirmed you're 18+ and agreed to receive texts, and whether you've opted out.
• Short notes and summaries our system writes about your conversations so your BestFriend can remember things you've told it.
• Basic technical data from the website (such as IP address and browser type) used for security and abuse prevention.

We don't ask for your name, address, or payment details. Please don't share sensitive information you wouldn't want stored.

How we use it

• To deliver texts and generate your BestFriend's replies.
• To give your BestFriend memory of earlier conversations.
• To keep people safe: detecting possible crisis messages so we can share crisis resources, spotting signs a user may be under 18, and preventing abuse.
• To honor opt-outs and meet legal obligations, including reports that contain only aggregate counts and no personal information.
• To understand and improve the service, for example by measuring how many messages are sent each day.

Who processes your data

We use a small number of service providers who process data on our behalf:

• SendBlue (messaging): delivers texts between you and your BestFriend over iMessage and SMS.
• DeepSeek (AI replies): receives conversation text and photos you send in order to write replies. DeepSeek may process and store data on servers in the People's Republic of China.
• Amazon Web Services (hosting): runs our servers, database and file storage.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or when we believe in good faith that it's needed to protect someone's safety.

We never sell your data

We do not sell your personal information, and we don't share it for targeted advertising.

How long we keep it

We keep your phone number and conversation history while you use BestFriend, so your companion can remember you. Raw delivery logs are kept only as long as we need them to run and debug the service. When you ask us to delete your data, we remove your messages, conversation history and phone number from our active systems; backup copies expire on a rolling basis.

Your choices

• Reply STOP at any time to stop receiving texts.
• To access or delete your data, email privacy@bestfriend.im from an address you can verify, and include the phone number you used. We may ask you to confirm the request by text.
• Depending on where you live (for example, California), you may have additional rights, and we'll honor them.

Adults only

BestFriend is for people 18 and older. We don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have, we'll delete it.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit, and access to conversations is limited to a small number of people who need it to keep the service running and safe. No system is perfectly secure, so please keep that in mind when sharing personal details.

Changes and contact

We'll post any changes to this policy here and update the date at the top. For significant changes, we'll let you know by text.

Privacy questions or requests: privacy@bestfriend.im.