Privacy

The short version

• Your messages are stored in London and only open to people with the link.
• We use a few trusted services to turn your voice into a message that reads in a word. We list every one below.
• We never sell your data and there are no advertising trackers.
• We count visits to our website with Google Analytics. Never on your messages, your inbox or anything you record.
• Delete your account yourself: on the web in Your messages (your account menu, then Delete account), or in the app (You, then Delete account). Or ask us at privacy@inaword.ai and we’ll delete any message, or your whole account.

Who we are

In a Word is run by Sugarloaf Consulting Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 15028503). Registered office: Building 18 Gateway 1000, Whittle Way, Arlington Business Park, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2FP. We’re responsible for (the “controller” of) what you share with In a Word. Contact us at hello@inaword.ai, or privacy@inaword.ai for anything about your data.

What we keep

• Your voice messages: the recording, the transcript, and what we make from it (the headline, the line, points, questions and the written message), plus any edits you make to it.
• Answers and replies: taps on answer buttons, answers written to open questions, the name someone gives with them, and voice replies.
• When a message is opened, so its sender can see it was. On our website, that’s when someone first puts a hand on the page (a tap, a click, a key, a scroll or a real move of the mouse), never just by loading it or after a timer. In the iPhone and Android apps, it’s opening the message. In Chrome, see below. We also count how many times it’s opened, and whether its recording is played (once an hour per person at most), which Pro senders see. Only numbers and times: never who.
• If you buy Pro: which plan you’re on, until when, and the IDs Stripe gives your customer record and subscription. Your card and billing details go to Stripe (through Link), never to us.
• Your name, as you type it or as your Google, Microsoft or Apple account gives it.
• Your email address, if you sign in, so we can tell you when someone answers. If you sign in with Google, Microsoft or Apple, we receive your name, your email address and a stable account ID from that account, and nothing else: we only ask for your name and email. Apple gives your name only the first time, and if you choose Hide My Email we get Apple’s relay address, not your own.
• In the app, if you turn on notifications: your phone’s notification address (a token from Apple or Google, through Expo), which messages it follows, and which notifications you’ve switched on, so we can tell you when one is opened, answered or replied to. The notifications themselves carry who it’s from, the headline, and the questions and answers. Turning notifications off, or deleting the app, stops them.
• Emails we send for you (“Email it for you”, signed in): the addresses you send a message to, and the name you give with each, kept with the message as the record of who it went to (and to keep to our limits on how many go out). If someone asks us not to email them again, their address goes on our stop list, so nobody can email them through us again.
• People you pick in the app: when you choose someone from your contacts to send to, the app sends us their email addresses, signed in only, to check which of them are on In a Word so it can send straight to them. We check them and don’t keep them.
• If you have an account: the messages people send you that you’ve opened (on the web or in the app, or sent to you in the app), so they’re in Your messages on every device. And in the app, which account your phone is signed in to, so it hears about your messages wherever you sent them. Signing out stops that.
• Who you’re connected to, if you have an account: once you answer or reply to someone’s message while signed in (or they answer or reply to yours), you can each send the other a message straight into the app. Opening a link never connects you to anyone.
• Error reports: when something breaks on our website or in the app, what broke (the error, the page or screen, and the app’s version), with the scrambled network address below. Never a recording, a message’s text, a name or an email address. Kept for 90 days.
• A scrambled form of your network address (a keyed one-way hash that can’t be turned back into the address), to stop people abusing the service without an account.

Who can see a message

Anyone with its link. Links are long and random, so they can’t be guessed, and messages aren’t listed or indexed by search engines. Anyone you share a link with can pass it on, so share it as you would the message itself.

Keeping it safe

As each message is written up, the same step checks it for content our terms don’t allow (threats, harassment, hate, sexual content, scams). A message that clearly breaks them is held back and never published; we keep its transcript so we can check the decision, then delete it with the rest of the message. Reported messages are emailed to us so we can act on them.

Services we use

These companies process data for us, only to run In a Word:

• Supabase: our database and audio storage, in London (UK).
• Vercel: hosts the website; our server code runs in London (UK).
• ElevenLabs: turns the recording into text. The audio is sent to ElevenLabs in the United States for this. ElevenLabs doesn’t use it to train its models (we’ve switched that off), and we delete each transcript from ElevenLabs as soon as it comes back; anything deleted leaves their backups within 30 days.
• Groq: does the same job if ElevenLabs is busy or down, also in the United States. Groq doesn’t keep it: we’ve turned on zero data retention, so nothing is stored or logged.
• Anthropic: reads the transcript, writes the headline word, line, points and questions, and checks it against our rules. The transcript is sent to Anthropic in the United States for this. Anthropic doesn’t train its models on data sent through its API, and deletes it within 30 days (longer only if it’s flagged as breaking their usage policy).
• Resend: sends our emails (sign-in codes and links, “they replied” and “they answered” emails, messages you ask us to email for you, and the welcome and tips emails below), from Ireland (EU). Its records of what was sent (the address, subject and whether it arrived) are kept in the United States.
• Stripe and Link: sell Pro. If you buy it, Link (Stripe’s, the seller) takes your payment, works out the tax, sends your receipts and handles payment questions. It receives your email address, your name, your billing address and your payment details, and as the seller it decides how it uses them, under its own privacy policy (stripe.com/privacy). We tell Stripe which In a Word account is subscribing, and nothing about your messages.
• Google: only if you choose “Continue with Google” to sign in.
• Microsoft: only if you choose “Continue with Microsoft” to sign in.
• Apple: only if you choose “Continue with Apple” to sign in.
• Google Analytics: counts visits to our website’s public pages (such as the home page, pricing, terms, support and the record page; never a message, your inbox or signing in), so we can see how people find us and what they use. In the EU, the EEA and Switzerland, and wherever your browser doesn’t say its time zone, it’s off unless you turn it on (below). It sees the page, roughly where you are (country and city), your device and browser, and the site that sent you. It never runs on a message, your inbox or an invite, so it never sees what you say, a name, an email address or a message link. Google doesn’t store your IP address, we’ve turned off Google using the data for advertising or its own products, and the detailed records are deleted after 2 months.
• Expo, Apple and Google: deliver the app’s notifications (Apple on iPhone, Google on Android). They receive the notification’s text (who it’s from, the message’s headline, and any questions and answers in it) to show it on your phone.

When data goes to the United States, it’s protected by the safeguards UK law requires for international transfers.

In a Word for Chrome

The extension puts a mic on the message boxes you write in (in Gmail, Outlook, Slack, WhatsApp Web, LinkedIn and Teams, on each one on screen; on other sites only if you switch on Every site, on the box you click into). A recording you start from Chrome’s toolbar shows its panel on the page you’re on, and moves with you to another tab in those apps (on any site, with Every site on). It records only after you tap the mic, click In a Word in Chrome’s toolbar (one click starts it) or press the shortcut, and stops when you tap Done or Cancel. The recording goes straight to us, exactly as from our website, and becomes a message like any other.

• When you tap Done, it puts the link or the message’s card into the box you were writing in. In Gmail it also reads the names in the To field of that email (not the addresses), so the write-up knows who it’s for. With the recording it also sends your time zone, so “Friday” or “tomorrow” in the write-up means the right day. Nothing you’ve written is sent to us or kept.
• In those six apps it looks through the links in what you’re reading for In a Word ones, and shows that message right there, fetched from us, with its answer buttons. Only those messages’ links are sent to us; nothing else on the page is sent anywhere. It counts as opened (so its sender sees it was) once you’ve touched the page and the card has been in view for a second on the tab you’re on, or when you use the card itself. When you answer from the card, it sends a random key made for this browser (not your name or address), so a message sent to a group keeps each person’s answer apart. You can switch this off in the extension’s settings.
• It keeps your sign-in and your settings in Chrome, on your computer: which sites you’ve switched it off on, whether the mic is on every site, and whether messages open up where you’re reading. A recording that hasn’t gone through yet (no signal, or Try again) is held in the extension, on your computer, until it goes or you cancel it; it isn’t kept once Chrome closes. Signing out ends that sign-in with us too; your settings stay until you remove the extension.
• You don’t need an account. Without one, your messages are a guest’s, as on our website (kept 30 days after the last activity), and the extension keeps each one’s private edit key on your computer, so they become yours if you sign in later. Signing in sends those keys to us once, to move the messages into your account.
• Signing in or out of the extension signs you in or out of our website in the same browser, and the other way round.
• No analytics, no advertising, and nothing sold or shared beyond the services listed above.

How long we keep it

• Messages and their recordings are kept until you take them down (from the message, or by deleting your account), or ask us to delete them. Without an account, a message’s link works for 30 days after the last activity (opened, answered or replied to), and with one for a year; a link that has run out comes back when its sender signs in.
• A message you take down yourself, a recording you replaced by recording again, and a reply or practice message that was never sent: deleted, words and recording, within a week.
• Your account: until you delete it (on the web in Your messages, or in the app) or ask us to. Deleting it takes down every message you sent, recordings and all, and the links stop working.
• Sign-in links and codes: 20 minutes. Signed-in sessions: 180 days.
• Your plan and its Stripe IDs: as long as your account. Stripe keeps payment records as the law requires.
• The record of who a message was emailed to: as long as the message. The stop list: until you ask us to take an address off.
• Error reports: 90 days.

Cookies and storage

One cookie keeps you signed in, and short-lived ones protect signing in with Google, Microsoft or Apple, and signing in for the Chrome extension or the app. Ticking “No tips, thanks” sets one for half an hour, so the account you make doesn’t get them. Your browser also remembers the name you typed, so you don’t have to type it twice.

On our website pages, Google Analytics sets two cookies (_ga and _ga_2V0TXB75XS) to tell a returning visitor from a new one. They last up to two years and aren’t used on messages. There’s no advertising cookie. In the UK they’re set unless you turn them off, as the law allows for analytics that improves a website. In the EU, the EEA, Switzerland, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar (going by your browser’s time zone), they’re only set if you turn analytics on.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask to see, correct, export or delete what we hold about you, or object to how we use it. Email privacy@inaword.ai and we’ll reply within a month. If you’re unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) or, in the EU, to the data protection authority where you live.

Children

In a Word is for people 18 and over. It isn’t for children, and we don’t knowingly keep their data. If you think a child has used it, tell us at privacy@inaword.ai and we’ll delete it.

Why we’re allowed to use it

To provide the service you asked for (making and delivering your message), our legitimate interest in keeping it safe from abuse (including the checks above) and fixing what breaks, and our legitimate interest in understanding how people use our website (the analytics above, which you can turn off; in the EU and the other places above, only with your consent). We email you about your messages and your account. With an account, you also get a welcome and a few tips over your first weeks (two of them about Pro), and once, if a message reaches the free limit, what Pro adds. You can say no as you make your account (“No tips, thanks”), every one has “Stop the tips” at the bottom, and they stop for good if you go Pro.