Barney AI Privacy Policy

Masterful Coaching, Inc., a Massachusetts corporation (“we,” “us,” or “our”), operates Barney, accessible at talktobarney.ai. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect when you use Barney, how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and how you can delete it.

1. Information We Collect

We collect the following types of information:

• Account information — your name and email address, how you would like Barney to address you, and the company, role, industry, and preferred language you enter when you register
• Payment information — collected and processed by Stripe; we never receive or store your card number
• Conversation data — the messages you send Barney and Barney’s replies
• Uploaded files — documents and images you share in a session, and the text extracted from them
• Memory — summaries of your past sessions, and the goals and commitments you have set, which Barney carries into future sessions
• Usage data — frequency of use and general engagement patterns

2. How We Use Your Information

We use your information to:

• Provide and improve the Barney service
• Carry context from your earlier sessions into later ones
• Process payments and manage your subscription
• Respond to your questions or support requests
• Review selected conversations for quality assurance, product improvement, and support
• Send account and billing emails
• Comply with legal obligations

3. Privacy of Your Conversations

Your conversations are private. We do not share them with your employer or other users, we never sell them, and we never use them to train AI models. Only the following can access them, and only to run Barney:

• A small number of authorized Masterful Coaching staff in the United States, all bound by confidentiality, may review selected conversations and uploaded files for quality and to help with support requests. We do not read every conversation, and we review only what we need.
• Our developer, Snakescript Solutions LLP, in India, has server access and an administrator account to maintain the service.
• Your content is sent to our AI model provider to generate Barney’s replies, as described in Sections 4 and 5.

Barney has no organization-administrator view, so an employer cannot see what you discuss with Barney.

If your organization restricts sharing confidential information with outside services, check its rules before you share or upload it. If you share other people’s confidential or personal information, such as client records, you are responsible for having permission to do so.

4. AI Model and Data Use

Barney’s replies are generated by AI models from Anthropic, PBC, following Barney’s own methodology and instructions. Your content is never used to train AI models. Anthropic’s commercial terms prohibit it from training on what Barney sends, and we do not train models ourselves. Anthropic’s staff do not read your content by default; review happens only if its automated systems flag content under its usage policy.

5. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal information or share it with advertisers. We share it only with the service providers below, each of which receives only what its job requires, and when the law requires it:

• DigitalOcean — hosts Barney’s application and database in New York, United States, and keeps weekly backups
• Anthropic — generates Barney’s replies and runs its web searches; receives conversation content, uploaded files, the memory Barney carries between sessions, and search queries
• Resend, running on Amazon SES — sends account and billing emails; receives your name and email address
• Stripe — checkout, subscriptions, and payment; receives your name, email address, and payment details
• Snakescript Solutions LLP, in India — develops and maintains Barney; has server access and an administrator account
• Legal requirements — if required by law or to protect our rights

6. Data Retention

We keep your conversations until you delete them or delete your account. If you have not signed in for two years, we may delete your account; we will email you at least 30 days beforehand so you can sign in to keep it.

Deleting a conversation permanently removes its messages, its uploaded files and the text extracted from them, the documents Barney created in it, and what Barney learned from it. What Barney learned in your other conversations is kept.

If you delete your account, you can restore it by logging back in within 30 days. After 30 days, we permanently delete your account records, conversations, uploaded files, and memory, and we instruct our AI model provider to delete any files we stored with it. Deleting your account also cancels your subscription at the end of the period you have paid for.

Our servers are backed up weekly, and backups are kept for about four weeks, so deleted data can remain in a backup until it expires. Stripe keeps billing records for as long as tax law requires. You can also request deletion by emailing support@talktobarney.ai; we process requests within 30 days.

Our AI model provider deletes content it receives from Barney within 30 days, except files stored in its file service until we delete them, and content flagged for review under its usage policy.

7. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate data
• Request deletion of your data
• Object to or restrict certain processing
• Data portability

To exercise any of these rights, contact our Privacy Officer at support@talktobarney.ai. We respond within one month. You also have the right to complain to the data protection authority where you live.

8. Users Outside the United States

Barney’s data is stored in the United States. If you use Barney from outside the US, your information is transferred to the United States and to the other countries listed below:

• DigitalOcean — United States (New York): all account data, conversations, and files, to store and run Barney
• Anthropic — United States: conversations and uploaded files, to generate Barney’s replies
• Stripe — United States: name, email address, and payment details, to process subscriptions
• Snakescript Solutions LLP — India: technical access to the system, to maintain Barney

Each transfer happens when you use Barney, and the data is kept for the periods described in Section 6. Transfers to DigitalOcean, Anthropic, and Stripe are covered by each provider’s data processing terms, which include the standard contractual clauses approved for transfers out of the UK and the European Union.

sRepublic of Korea: a Korean version of this policy, written to Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), is at talktobarney.ai/ko/privacy. Korean-language questions can go to Myungsub Lee, CMOE Korea, myungsub.lee@cmoe.co.kr.

United Kingdom and European Union: we use your information to provide the service you signed up for (performance of a contract), review selected conversations for quality, support, and security because we have a legitimate interest in running Barney well, and keep billing records because the law requires it. UK users may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk); EU users, to the data protection authority in their country. UK questions can go to Lorina Waters, Managing Partner UK, lorina.waters@masterfulcoaching.com.

9. Children’s Privacy

Barney is intended for business professionals and is not directed at anyone under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors.

10. Security

We protect your information with measures including encrypted connections (HTTPS), passwords stored only as secure hashes, automatic session expiry, database queries limited so that each account can retrieve only its own data, and administrator access limited to two accounts. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a security incident puts your personal information at risk, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

11. Cookies

Barney uses only its own cookies, and only the ones it needs to work: one keeps you signed in, and one protects your account against cross-site request forgery. Our website, talktobarney.ai, sets no cookies. We do not use analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies, and no outside company sets cookies through Barney or our website. You can control cookies through your browser, but Barney will not work without its sign-in cookies.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by email or by posting a notice on the site. Continued use of Barney after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about this privacy policy or how your data is handled, please contact our Privacy Officer, Susan Youngquist:

Masterful Coaching, Inc.

640 Lexington Street, Waltham, MA 02452, USA

support@talktobarney.ai

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