1. Who we are
Say It Steady ("Say It Steady", "we", "us") is a coaching app for parents and guardians of children aged roughly 4–14. It helps you find calm, constructive words during everyday family friction — and repair afterwards. This policy covers the Say It Steady iOS app and its companion web pages.
Data controller: Say It Steady is designed, built, and operated by an independent development team (the "Say It Steady team"). The registered publishing entity's name and postal address are stated in the app's App Store listing and will be added here at public release; until then, privacy@sayitsteady.app reaches the team directly and is the fastest route to the data controller.
Say It Steady is not an app for children. It is a tool used by adults about their own parenting, and it is not directed to children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your jurisdiction).
2. Information we collect
2.1 Information stored on your device (local-first)
- Child profiles you create: a nickname, date of birth or age, and optional notes such as temperament or observable patterns. Profiles exist to tailor coaching to your child's age — we do not ask for real names, and we do not build personality profiles of your child.
- Your coaching content: the situations you describe, the plans you save, practice answers and feedback, repair scripts, and optional growth-journal notes and photos you add. These are stored on your phone by default.
- Preferences: reminder and audio settings, and your recorded AI-consent decision.
2.2 Information processed only if you choose the feature
- Situation text sent for AI generation: when you request a plan or practice set, the description you typed — together with the selected child's nickname and age, the scene label, and your mood/impact selection — is sent to our AI service provider (see §3). We ask for your explicit consent before the first generation, and we designed the request so you never need to include your child's real name or any other identifying detail.
- Practice answers sent for assessment: open practice answers you choose to submit are sent for scoring, together with the question text.
- Speech-to-text (if you use it): dictation in the app is handled by your device's platform speech recognition (Apple). Your voice audio goes to Apple under Apple's own terms; we do not receive or store your audio. Only the transcribed text you confirm is used.
2.3 Account information (optional)
- If you choose to create an account for cloud backup, we collect your email address and sign you in with a one-time verification code. Your account also holds a server-generated identifier and your subscription status (via the App Store).
- With sync enabled, the local content in §2.1 (child profiles, plans, practice records, journal entries) is backed up to our cloud database so you can restore it on another device.
2.4 Technical information
- A random, non-identifying guest identifier and a recovery code you can use to move your local data to a new phone.
- Server operation logs (for reliability and abuse prevention) — redacted and short-lived; they are not used for advertising or profiling.
- For input-routing safety checks, a cryptographic hash of your input and score values may be recorded to measure quality. Raw input text is not stored in these records.
3. How AI processing works
Say It Steady's core feature is generating a personalized coaching plan. To do that, the request described in §2.2 is transmitted over encrypted connections to our AI service provider, which processes it solely to produce your plan, practice questions, or feedback.
- Minimal by design: we send the situation text and coaching parameters (age, scene, mood) — never your account email, your journal, or your other plans.
- Consent first: before your first generation, the app shows a dedicated consent screen explaining this processing. You can start using Calm and other non-AI features without consenting, and the app keeps working if you decline.
- No training on your content: we do not use your situations, plans, practice answers, or journal entries to train AI models, and we select providers on terms that do not sell or share your content for their own purposes.
- Generation records: to make the feature reliable (retries, duplicate protection, abuse prevention), the service temporarily keeps the request needed to produce your result, tied to your account or guest identifier — not shared, not used for advertising.
You can withdraw AI consent at any time; non-AI features (Calm Room, Fix it repair content already saved, your saved plans) keep working.
4. How we use information
- To provide the coaching features you request (generate plans, score practice, keep your history).
- To sync and back up your data when you enable an account, and to restore it on a new device.
- To keep the service safe and reliable (rate limiting, abuse prevention, error diagnosis).
- To process subscriptions through the App Store.
- To send optional, in-app practice reminders you configure — never marketing messages.
We do not use your information for behavioral advertising, cross-app tracking, profiling of your child, or sale or rental to data brokers.
5. Children's privacy
Say It Steady is a tool for adults. It is not directed at children, does not offer child-facing content, and does not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your region), consistent with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and similar laws.
Because the app coaches you about your own family, some content about a child is provided by you, the parent or guardian:
- We ask only for what coaching needs: a nickname (not the legal name) and age. We deliberately avoid fields for school, address, or other identifying details.
- Only a parent or guardian should create a child profile, and only for a child in their care. If you believe a child has used the app to provide personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
- Child profile data is never shared with advertisers, never used to profile your child, and is deleted whenever you delete the profile, the app's data, or your account.
7. Storage, security & retention
- On device: app content is stored locally and remains until you delete it (delete a plan, reset the app's data, or remove the app).
- In the cloud (optional): synced content is stored in a managed PostgreSQL database protected by row-level access rules — your rows are only reachable through your authenticated session. Traffic is encrypted in transit (TLS).
- Retention: local content persists until you delete it; synced content persists until you delete the content or your account; AI generation records are kept only as long as needed for reliability of the feature; operation logs are short-lived and redacted.
- Security: no payment card data touches our systems (billing runs through Apple). We apply least-privilege access: secrets live server-side only, never in the app.
8. Your rights & choices
Depending on where you live (including under the EU/UK GDPR and U.S. state laws such as the CCPA/CPRA), you have rights over your personal information:
- Access & portability: your plans and history are visible in the app; with sync enabled you can restore them to any device, and you can ask us for a copy.
- Correction: edit child profiles, plans, and journal entries in the app at any time.
- Deletion: see §9 — delete content, local data, or your whole account.
- Withdraw AI consent: change your consent decision in the app; AI generation stops, other features keep working.
- Opt out of "sale/share": we do not sell or share personal information for cross-context advertising — there is nothing to opt out of, and no "do not sell" toggle is needed.
- Non-discrimination: exercising these rights never degrades the app's features.
To exercise any right, use the in-app options or email us (§10). We respond within the timelines required by applicable law.
9. Data deletion
- Delete content: every plan, practice record, and journal entry can be deleted individually in the app. Deleting a plan also removes its practice history.
- Delete local data: "Reset app data" erases locally stored profiles, plans, practice, and journal content from the device.
- Delete your account: you can delete your account and all synced cloud data from the app's account settings. If anything is unclear or unavailable, email us and we will delete your account and synced data, and confirm completion.
- Child profiles: deleting a child profile deletes that profile and its age personalization everywhere it is stored, locally and in any synced backup.
Deleted content is removed from production systems; residual encrypted backups expire on their normal schedule (no longer than 30 days).
10. Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle your family's information — for example, adding a new service provider — we will update this policy and the in-app consent screens where required, and change the effective date above. Material changes to AI processing will be asked about again, explicitly, in the app.
11. Contact us
Questions, requests, or concerns about privacy — especially anything about your child's information:
privacy@sayitsteady.app
We treat every privacy request as urgent by default, and we answer every message.