Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Buddy Abroad AI is operated by BUDDY ABROAD AI LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company, 30 N Gould St, Sheridan, WY 82801, United States ("we", "us"). We are the controller of the personal data described here. Contact us about privacy at privacy@buddyabroadai.com and for anything else at support@buddyabroadai.com.

2. What we collect

From you, when you use the service:

• Account: e-mail address, first name, mobile number, passport country, nationality, home time zone, and whether you use the service for yourself, for someone else, or both.
• Trips: destination, travel dates, check-in times, your hotel or stay (name, phone number, address, and any notes you add such as a unit number), and how you want your hotel contacted if you go quiet. When you save a hotel phone number we check whether it is a mobile or a landline.
• Your Buddies: the names, mobile numbers and relationship of the people you choose, and whether each has agreed to be your Buddy.
• Guardian mode: the name, mobile number and relationship of the person you set up check-ins for, and their home address.
• Messages and calls: the check-ins and alerts we send, your replies, delivery status, and records of automated calls (who was called, when, whether it was answered, keys pressed, and the outcome). Calls to a hotel front desk are made by an automated voice agent; the conversation is transcribed by our voice provider so that the outcome can be passed to your Buddies.
• Your secret SOS word and, if you set one, a safety PIN. The PIN is stored only as a one-way hash; nobody can read it, including us.
• Location (optional, off by default): if you turn on emergency location sharing, your last known location when you open the app, or a location you send us in WhatsApp. We never track you in the background.
• Phone signals (optional): battery level, and whether your phone has moved recently (yes or no, never where). Used only to word alerts accurately, for example "the battery died" instead of "no reply".
• Medical notes (optional): only what you type, such as blood type or allergies. Kept for you on your safety card. Not sent to anyone, including your Buddies or a hotel.
• Trip updates (only when you send one): the photos and note you choose, and the message you approve.
• Purchases: your plan, trial dates and subscription status from Apple, Google or Stripe. We never receive your card number.
• Device: a push notification token if you allow notifications, and anonymous crash reports.

About other people, from you: your Buddies and the person you look after in Guardian mode. We message them once to ask whether they agree, and we only rely on them after they reply YES.

Automatically: basic technical data needed to run the service securely, such as the time of requests and error logs. Crash reports have phone numbers and e-mail addresses removed before they leave the device or server. We do not use advertising identifiers, ad networks, analytics trackers or data brokers.

3. Why we use it, and our legal bases

• To provide the service you asked for (contract): sending check-ins, alerting your Buddies if you go quiet or send your SOS word, contacting your hotel as you chose, building your safety card, sending trip updates, and managing your subscription.
• To protect your safety (vital interests and legitimate interests): sending an alert to your Buddies, with your stay and, if you turned it on, your last known location, when you do not reply or when you send your SOS word.
• With your consent: location sharing, phone signals, notifications and automated emergency calls. You can withdraw consent at any time in Settings; this does not affect what was done before.
• To keep the service working and secure (legitimate interests): checking that messages were delivered, retrying failed safety messages, preventing abuse (for example one free trial per phone number), and fixing errors. Our operations team sees alerts about failed deliveries so they can fix them.
• To meet legal obligations: tax and accounting records, and responding to lawful requests.

We do not sell your personal information, share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use it to build advertising profiles.

Automated processing: the check-in schedule and alert steps run automatically on timers you choose. They do not produce legal or similarly significant effects, and your Buddies decide what to do with an alert. Detection of your SOS word is an exact word match, not artificial intelligence. AI is used only to draft the text of a trip update from your photos and note, which you review and approve before anything is sent.

4. Who sees it

People you choose, by design:

• Your Buddies receive alerts only if you go quiet or send your SOS word: your first name, how long you have been silent, your destination, your stay and its phone number, and your last known location if you turned location sharing on. Each alert includes a personal link to a status page showing the same information; the link stops working after 72 hours. Buddies you mark for trip updates receive the updates you approve.
• Your hotel or host, only at the step you chose for that stay: a text or an automated call asking the front desk to check on you, giving your name and that your family is trying to reach you.
• Emergency services: we do not contact them. Your Buddies decide whether to.

Service providers that process data for us under contract, only to run the service: Supabase (database, sign-in and servers), Twilio and Meta / WhatsApp (messages and calls), Vapi (automated calls to hotels), Google (hotel search, maps, places and time zones), Anthropic (drafting trip update text; your content is not used to train their models), Apple, Google Play, RevenueCat and Stripe (purchases), Apple Push Notification service and Firebase Cloud Messaging (notifications), Resend (sign-in e-mails), Sentry (crash reports) and Vercel (website hosting).

Our staff: a small operations team can see account, trip, Buddy and delivery details to fix failed deliveries and help when you contact support. They never see your SOS word, your safety PIN, your medical notes, the text of your messages, or your location coordinates. Every account they open is logged.

Legal and safety: if the law requires it, or to protect someone from serious harm, and in a merger or sale of the business, where your data would stay protected by this policy.

Text messaging: we do not share mobile phone numbers or text-messaging opt-in data or consent with any third party for marketing or promotional purposes. Mobile information is shared only with the service providers above, to deliver the messages you asked for.

5. Where it is stored

Our servers are in the United States. If you are outside the United States, your data is transferred there and to the countries where our service providers operate. Where the law requires it, we rely on the European Commission Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent safeguard for these transfers.

6. How long we keep it

• Location and phone signals: deleted automatically after 30 days.
• Buddy page links: stop working 72 hours after the alert.
• Everything else (account, trips, Buddies, message and call history, photos): while your account exists.
• When you delete your account (Settings → Delete account), your profile, trips, Buddies, history and photos are deleted for good. We keep only the fact that your phone number has used its free trial, and the payment records that tax law requires us to keep. Copies in backups are overwritten in the normal backup cycle.

7. Security

Data is encrypted in transit. Access is restricted per person at the database level, so the app can only ever read your own data. Your safety PIN is stored as a one-way hash and locks after five wrong tries. Staff access is limited and logged. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

8. Your choices

• Turn location sharing, phone signals, notifications and emergency calls on or off in Settings at any time.
• Pause check-ins in the app or by texting "away 6 hours".
• Add, change or remove Buddies at any time.
• Reply STOP to any text or WhatsApp message to stop all messages to that number; reply START to resume. Reply HELP for help.
• Delete your account in the app: Settings → Delete account.

9. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you can ask us to give you access to or a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, or transfer it to you or another service, and you can withdraw consent at any time. Write to privacy@buddyabroadai.com. We will confirm your identity, usually by a message to the phone or e-mail on the account, and answer within 30 days (45 days where California law applies). You will not be treated differently for using your rights.

EU, EEA and UK: you can also complain to your local data protection authority.

California and other US states: you have the rights to know, delete and correct, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information and of targeted advertising. We do not sell or share personal information and do not do targeted advertising. We use sensitive information (precise location when you turn it on, and health notes you type) only to provide the service you asked for. An authorized agent can make a request for you with your written permission.

10. Buddies and people you look after

If someone named you as their Buddy, or set up Guardian check-ins for you, we received your name and number from them. We message you once to ask whether you agree, and do nothing more unless you reply YES. Reply STOP at any time and we will stop all messages to you. You can ask us to delete your details at privacy@buddyabroadai.com.

11. Children

Buddy Abroad AI is for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from children. In Guardian mode an adult sets up check-ins for another adult, who must agree by replying YES.

12. Changes

We will post any change here with a new date, and tell you in the app or by e-mail before a significant change takes effect.

13. Contact

BUDDY ABROAD AI LLC, 30 N Gould St, Sheridan, WY 82801, United States. Privacy: privacy@buddyabroadai.com. Support: support@buddyabroadai.com.