Friendly Elephant

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: October 24, 2026

Friendly Elephant is a service operated by Elephorium LLP, a limited liability partnership registered in India (“Elephorium,” “Friendly Elephant,” “we,” “our,” or “us”).

We believe meaningful connection should not require giving up control over your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, why we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights available to you.

This Privacy Policy applies to the Friendly Elephant mobile application (including test versions such as TestFlight), friendlyelephant.com, our waitlists, events, communications, Ira features, and other services that link to this Policy (collectively, the “Services”).

The Short Version

  • We collect what the app needs to work: your account details, your birth month and year (to confirm you are 18 or over), your answers, your journal, and your dinner activity.
  • Your journal is private to you. To write Ira’s replies and your nightly and weekly pieces, it is processed by Anthropic, an AI provider. A short scene description written from your week, never the journal itself, goes to OpenAI to draw your weekly illustration.
  • Usage analytics are off unless you say yes. If you agree, we see which screens you open and, during our beta, short recordings of some screens. Usage data never includes the words you write. You can turn it off at any time in Settings.
  • Crash reports are always on, so we can fix what breaks. They carry no names and no content you write.
  • We do not sell your data, show ads, or track you across other apps.
  • You can delete your account in the app, and we remove your personal data as described in Section 11.

1. Who We Are

Legal Entity: Elephorium LLP
Brand: Friendly Elephant
Registered Office: 9-5-1/VM/115, Ibrahimbagh, Hyderabad, Telangana 500031, India
Privacy Contact: ira@friendlyelephant.com

For purposes of applicable privacy law, Elephorium LLP is the entity responsible for determining how and why your personal information is processed.

Where the European Union or UK GDPR applies, Elephorium LLP acts as the data controller.

Where India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (“DPDP Act”) applies, Elephorium LLP acts as the Data Fiduciary.

2. Who May Use Friendly Elephant

Friendly Elephant is intended only for people 18 years of age or older. You may not create an account or use the Services if you are under 18.

After you create an account, we ask for your birth month and year. If the answer shows you are under 18, we delete the account and everything associated with it straight away, and we do not keep the date you entered. Accounts that never complete the age check may be deleted automatically after a short period.

3. Information We Collect

The information we collect depends on how you interact with Friendly Elephant and which features you use.

A. Account and Sign-In Information

  • First name or display name
  • Email address
  • Password, which is stored only in hashed (unreadable) form
  • One-time codes we email you to confirm your address or reset your password
  • If you choose Sign in with Apple: an Apple account identifier, your name and email (or Apple’s private relay address) if you share them, and a token we need to revoke Friendly Elephant’s access when you delete your account
  • If you choose Sign in with Google: a Google account identifier, your name and email
  • Notification preferences
  • A profile photo, if you choose one

Your profile photo. If you choose a profile photo, you pick one photo from your library (the app has no camera access). Before it is uploaded, the app crops and resizes it and removes its hidden metadata, including location. Your photo is private: only you can see it, on your own Profile. Your dinner companions and other members cannot. It is stored only with Supabase, our database provider, and is never sent to our AI providers (Anthropic, OpenAI) or to our analytics and crash-reporting providers (PostHog, Sentry). A copy is kept on your phone so it shows when you are offline, and that copy is removed when you sign out. We keep the photo until you remove or replace it, or delete your account.

B. Age and Demographic Information

  • Birth month and year, and when your age was confirmed
  • Age or age range calculated from your birth month and year
  • Gender, if you choose to provide it
  • Home city

We do not ask for your exact birth date.

C. Interests, Preferences, and Onboarding Responses

  • Hobbies and interests
  • Kind, Curious, and Brave onboarding responses
  • Dinner preferences
  • Other information you voluntarily provide to personalize your experience

We use this information to personalize Friendly Elephant and to form dinner groups.

D. Your Journal (Moments), Ira, and Practice

  • Moments you write in your journal, and Moments Ira drafts from a conversation that you choose to keep (you can edit them)
  • Your nightly piece, weekly summary, and weekly illustration, which the app writes for you from your journal
  • Practice activity: completed practices, streaks, badges, and breathing sessions
  • Letters to your future self: a letter you write to yourself, with when it was written and when it opens
  • Collected cards: which of the daily cards you collected and on which day, and any note you write about what happened
  • Messages you send to Ira

Letters and collected cards. You can read a letter only once its open date arrives. A note on a collected card is in your own words, and it may mention other people. Letters and collected cards are stored only in our database (Supabase) and are never sent to our AI providers (Anthropic, OpenAI) or to our analytics and crash-reporting providers (PostHog, Sentry). We keep a letter until you delete it or your account, and a collected card, with its note, until you remove it or delete your account.

These features are intended to support reflection, learning, and connection. They are not medical, psychological, therapeutic, or crisis services.

How Ira works. When you send a message to Ira, that message and the earlier messages in the same conversation are sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, to generate a reply. We send the messages only, without your name or account ID. We do not store your Ira conversations on our servers. If you tap Save as Moment, the conversation is sent to Anthropic again so Ira can draft a Moment, and only the Moment you choose to keep is stored.

Please avoid including highly sensitive personal information in your journal or Ira conversations unless it is necessary for what you are intentionally doing.

E. Dinners, Events, and Other Members

  • Dinner registrations, cancellations, table assignments, and check-ins
  • Attendance, including reports by other members about attendance
  • Compliments and “dine again” votes you give and receive
  • Restaurant and evening ratings, and any complaint you write
  • Blocks and safety reports, including reports others make about you
  • Event feedback and reflections

If another member submits a safety report, feedback, or other information concerning you, that information may also become part of our records.

F. Payment and Transaction Information

When you pay a dinner platform fee in the app, the payment is processed by Razorpay, our payment provider. We receive and keep the amount, currency, transaction ID, date, and refund status of each payment. We never receive or store your full card number or card security code.

G. Device, Usage, and Technical Information

  • Device model, operating system, app version, language, and time zone
  • When you last opened the app
  • Push-notification token, if you turn notifications on
  • Crash and diagnostic information (always collected; see Section 4)
  • Usage analytics and, during our beta, screen recordings (only if you agree; see Section 4)
  • Security and authentication logs

H. Device Permissions

Today the app asks for a device permission only when you use the feature that needs it: notifications, when you choose to turn them on, and the microphone (and, on some iPhones, speech recognition), the first time you tap the microphone. The app does not access your location, contacts or camera, and does not use an advertising identifier. It uses your photo library only when you choose a profile photo, and then only the one photo you pick. It uses the microphone only when you tap the microphone to speak instead of type. If you use the microphone, what you say is turned into text on your phone. No recording is kept, and no audio is sent to us or anyone else.

If a future feature needs another permission, we will explain the purpose and ask through your phone’s system prompt. Declining an optional permission will not prevent access to unrelated features.

4. Usage Analytics, Screen Recordings, and Crash Reports

Usage analytics are off until you say yes. After you save your first Moment or join a dinner, we ask once: “Can we learn from how you use the app?” Nothing is sent to our analytics provider before you answer, and nothing at all if you choose “No thanks.” Your answer is saved with your account, and you can change it at any time in Settings → Share usage data.

If you say yes, we use PostHog to see which screens you open, which of our buttons you tap, and your device and app version, linked to your account ID (never your name or email). Usage data never includes the words you write.

Screen recordings (during our beta). If you say yes, we also record short videos of some screens to find where people get stuck. We only record screens that show no writing of yours and no sensitive details, such as Home (paused while your name, your personal piece, or a booked dinner is showing), Reflect, Settings, and the breathing exercise. We never record your journal, your conversations with Ira, your profile, the age check, or any screen where you type. If you turn usage analytics off, recording stops immediately; anything captured just before may finish uploading.

Crash reports are always on. When something goes wrong in the app, Sentry receives the error, your device model and app version, and, once you have passed the age check, your account ID. We remove names, email addresses, and IP addresses before reports are stored. An error message can occasionally contain a fragment of what failed; we limit its length and never send your journal or chats on purpose.

5. How We Obtain Information

  • Directly from you
  • Automatically from your device when you use the Services
  • From Apple or Google, if you choose to sign in with them
  • From other Friendly Elephant members, such as through reports or feedback
  • Generated by the Services from information you provide, such as your nightly piece and weekly summary
  • From service providers acting on our behalf

We do not purchase personal profiles.

6. How We Use Personal Information

Provide Friendly Elephant

  • Creating and securing your account
  • Confirming you are 18 or over
  • Operating app features, including your journal, daily practice, and Ira
  • Writing your nightly piece, weekly summary, and weekly illustration
  • Managing dinners and other events
  • Sending notifications you have turned on
  • Communicating with you about your account or participation

Match and Personalize

We use information such as your age range, gender, city, interests, hobbies, and onboarding responses to form dinner groups and personalize content.

Keep the Community Safe

  • Preventing fraud and abuse
  • Investigating reports
  • Enforcing our Terms and Community Standards
  • Protecting members, venues, and the public
  • Complying with legal or safety obligations

Improve the Services

We use crash reports to diagnose problems, and, if you agree, usage analytics to understand which features are useful and where people get stuck.

Communicate With You

We may send account and security notices, event information, service announcements, policy updates, support responses, and marketing communications where permitted. You may unsubscribe from promotional email at any time.

Comply With Law

We may process information when reasonably necessary to meet legal obligations, respond to lawful requests, establish or defend legal claims, and investigate suspected illegal activity.

We do not use your information for advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not use it to train AI models.

7. Legal Bases for Processing

Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, our legal bases include:

  • Performance of a contract: to provide the Services you request, including your account, journal, Ira, nightly and weekly pieces, practice features, and dinners.
  • Consent: for usage analytics and screen recordings, notifications, marketing, and any processing for which consent is required.
  • Legitimate interests: for crash reporting, security, abuse prevention, and keeping dinners safe, where those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms.
  • Legal obligations: where processing is necessary to comply with law, including our age requirement.
  • Vital interests: where appropriate in unusual safety circumstances.

Where India’s DPDP Act applies, we process personal data for lawful purposes based on consent or other processing permitted by applicable law.

You may withdraw consent at any time where consent is the basis for processing. Withdrawal does not affect processing that was lawful before withdrawal.

8. Matching and Automated Processing

Friendly Elephant uses automated rules to form dinner groups. These may consider your age range, gender, city, hobbies and interests, onboarding responses, availability, prior participation, and safety-related eligibility.

Automated matching organizes and personalizes the Friendly Elephant experience. It is not intended to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you. We may adjust our matching methods as the product develops. Where applicable law gives you rights relating to automated decision-making, you may contact us using the details below.

9. When We Share Personal Information

We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we do not use it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Other Friendly Elephant Members

Members at a dinner you share see your first name. We do not show your onboarding responses, journal, nightly or weekly pieces, or Ira conversations to other members.

Service Providers

We use the following providers, each only for the job described and under contractual and security obligations:

Provider What they do for us What they receive
Supabase Database, sign-in, file storage, and server functions The information the app stores
Anthropic Ira’s replies, Moment drafts, and your nightly and weekly pieces Your Ira conversations and journal entries
OpenAI Your weekly illustration A scene description written from your week, your gender, and an age band
PostHog Usage analytics and screen recordings Only if you said yes (Section 4)
Sentry Crash reports Errors, device details, and your account ID (Section 4)
Resend Sending sign-up and password emails Your email address and the one-time code
Razorpay Processing dinner payments and refunds The payment details you enter at checkout, and the amount
Expo, Apple, and Google Delivering push notifications and app updates Push token, notification text, and app version
Apple and Google Sign in with Apple or Google, if you choose it What you approve on their sign-in screen

Artificial Intelligence Providers

Ira, your Moment drafts, and your nightly and weekly pieces are powered by Anthropic, which receives your Ira conversations and your journal entries for these purposes. Your weekly illustration is drawn by OpenAI, which receives a short scene description written from your week, your gender, and an age band (for example, “in her thirties”). Your journal itself is never sent to OpenAI, and the illustration never shows a face.

Under their business terms, these providers do not use your information to train their models, and we do not authorize them to use it for advertising. They may keep it for a limited period to prevent abuse. If we add or change AI providers, we will update this Policy.

Event and Venue Partners

If a venue ever needs information to administer a reservation or a safety issue, we will provide only the minimum necessary. We do not provide venues with your journal or other unrelated profile information.

Legal, Safety, and Enforcement Purposes

We may disclose information where we reasonably believe disclosure is required by law or necessary to respond to valid legal process, investigate fraud or illegal activity, protect someone’s safety, enforce our Terms, or protect the rights and property of Elephorium LLP, our members, or others.

Corporate Transactions

If Elephorium LLP is involved in a merger, financing, acquisition, restructuring, sale of assets, or similar transaction, information may be disclosed as part of that transaction subject to appropriate safeguards, and this Policy will continue to apply.

With Your Direction or Consent

We may share information when you ask us to or otherwise give permission.

10. Data Retention

  • Your account, answers, journal, practice history, and pieces written for you: kept until you delete your account.
  • Ira conversations: not stored by us, unless you choose to save one as a Moment.
  • The age of someone under 18: not kept; the account is deleted at once.
  • Screen recordings: deleted automatically after 30 days.
  • Usage analytics: kept by PostHog to understand how the app is used, and deleted on request.
  • Crash reports: deleted automatically within 30 days.
  • Safety records (attendance and moderation reports, and blocks others have placed on you): kept, without your name, for as long as reasonably necessary to protect members and prevent repeat abuse.
  • Records of past dinners shared with others (compliments, votes, ratings): kept after you delete your account, with your identity removed.
  • Copies held by AI providers: kept by them only for their limited abuse-monitoring period.
  • Information required by law: kept for the legally required period.

Residual copies may remain temporarily in encrypted backups until those backups are overwritten according to our normal backup cycles.

11. Account and Data Deletion

You can delete your account at any time:

Deletion cannot be undone. There is no grace period and no way to recover a deleted account.

What is deleted. Your name, email address, and sign-in; your birth month and year and your age check; your onboarding answers, gender, hobbies, and city; your profile photo, and the copy kept on your phone; your journal (every Moment); your letters to your future self, opened or not; your collected cards, and the notes you wrote on them; your nightly pieces, weekly summaries, and weekly illustrations; your practice history, streaks, badges, and breathing sessions; your notification settings and push tokens; your usage-analytics choice; and any upcoming dinner bookings. If you used Sign in with Apple, we also revoke Friendly Elephant’s access with Apple.

Your email address is released, and you may use it to sign up again as a completely new account with no history.

What is retained. Some records involve other members, and removing them would take something away from someone else. These are kept with your name removed:

  • Compliments and “dine again” votes you gave or received
  • An anonymous record that a seat was taken at past dinners
  • Restaurant and evening ratings

Safety records, such as reports involving you and blocks other members have placed on you, are retained for as long as they are needed to protect other members.

Analytics and crash data. Usage analytics and screen recordings linked to your account are deleted when you ask us. Crash reports expire on their own within 30 days.

Where information must be retained for a legitimate legal reason, such as fraud or abuse prevention, safety investigations, legal claims, or compliance with law, we will limit its use to that purpose.

12. Your Privacy Rights

Privacy rights vary depending on where you live. We provide a reasonable way for all members to request access, correction, deletion, or other privacy rights, even where a particular law does not apply to us.

To submit a request, contact ira@friendlyelephant.com. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling a request. Your birth month and year cannot be changed in the app once confirmed; if they were entered by mistake, write to us.

European Economic Area

Where the EU GDPR applies, you may have the right to access, correct, or delete your personal data; restrict or object to certain processing; receive your data in a portable format; withdraw consent; object to direct marketing; exercise rights concerning automated decision-making; and lodge a complaint with the data-protection authority in your country. These rights may be subject to lawful exceptions.

United Kingdom

Where UK data-protection law applies, you may have corresponding rights of access, correction, erasure, restriction, objection, portability, withdrawal of consent, and complaint to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.

India

Where the DPDP Act applies, you may have rights including access to information about the processing of your personal data; correction, completion, and updating of your data; erasure where applicable; withdrawal of consent; grievance redressal; and nomination of another individual to exercise your rights where permitted by law.

United States

Depending on your state and whether the relevant law applies to Elephorium LLP, you may have rights to confirm whether we process your personal information; access, correct, or delete it; obtain a portable copy; opt out of sale, targeted advertising, or certain profiling; limit certain uses of sensitive personal information; appeal our decisions on privacy requests; and exercise your rights without discrimination.

We do not sell personal information or use it for cross-context behavioral advertising. If our practices change, we will update this Policy and provide the legally required controls.

13. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Our website may use essential cookies and similar technologies that are necessary for security, navigation, preferences, and operation of the website, and may use analytics or measurement technologies to understand website usage.

Where applicable law requires consent before placing non-essential cookies or similar technologies, we will request that consent before activating them. You may adjust available cookie preferences through our cookie controls or your browser. Where legally required, we honor supported browser-based privacy preference signals.

The Friendly Elephant app does not use advertising identifiers and does not track you across other companies’ apps or websites.

14. International Data Transfers

Friendly Elephant is operated by Elephorium LLP in India. Our database and sign-in provider, Supabase, stores your information in the United States (Ohio), and most of our other service providers, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and PostHog, also process data in the United States. As a result, personal information may be processed outside the country where you live.

Where required, we use legally recognized safeguards for international transfers, which may include European Commission Standard Contractual Clauses, UK-approved transfer mechanisms, adequacy decisions, or other lawful mechanisms.

15. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information, including encryption in transit, encrypted cloud storage, database rules that limit each account to its own data, access controls, authentication safeguards, logging and monitoring, security updates, data minimization, and internal access limitations.

No digital service can guarantee absolute security. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as required by law. If you believe your account may have been compromised, please contact us promptly.

16. Children and Teenagers

Friendly Elephant is an adult-only service. The Services are not directed to anyone under 18, and people under 18 may not create an account.

If our age check shows a person is under 18, their account and its information are deleted at once. If we otherwise learn that a person under 18 has provided personal information, we will delete the account and information.

Parents, guardians, or others who believe a minor is using the Services may contact us at ira@friendlyelephant.com.

17. Marketing

We may send promotional communications if you request them or where otherwise permitted by law. You may unsubscribe using the link in a marketing email or by contacting us. We will continue to send essential service messages where reasonably necessary to operate your account. We do not sell our marketing lists.

18. Third-Party Websites and Services

Friendly Elephant may contain links to restaurants, venues, app stores, or other third-party services. Those services operate independently and have their own privacy practices. This Policy does not apply to an independent third party’s processing.

19. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as our Services, technology, providers, or legal obligations change. If a change materially affects how we use personal information, we will provide additional notice where appropriate or legally required. If a change widens what we collect with your consent, we will ask for your consent again in the app before it takes effect.

The date at the top of this Policy identifies the latest version.

20. Contact Us and Grievances

Questions, privacy requests, and grievances may be sent to:

Elephorium LLP
Operating the Friendly Elephant service
9-5-1/VM/115, Ibrahimbagh, Hyderabad, Telangana 500031, India

Grievance Officer: Vani Mohan Gali
Email (privacy and grievances): ira@friendlyelephant.com

We will acknowledge privacy grievances within 48 hours, and respond within the time required by applicable law.