Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Welcome to Causative Coaching (“we,” “our,” or “us”). We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring the security of your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our AI-powered life coaching platform.

By using Causative Coaching, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our services.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide

We collect information that you voluntarily provide when using our services:

• Account Information: Name, email address, phone number (for SMS features)
• Profile Information: Role, industry, preferences, and settings
• Coaching Data: Goals, action items, journal entries, mood logs, sleep data, habits
• Conversation Data: Chat messages with our AI coach, voice recordings, and transcriptions
• Assessment Data: Results from psychological assessments, personality tests, and wellness evaluations
• Payment Information: Processed securely by Stripe (we do not store credit card details)

2.2 Automatically Collected Information

• Usage Data: Pages visited, features used, time spent, interaction patterns
• Device Information: Browser type, operating system, device identifiers
• Location Data: Approximate location based on IP address (for timezone settings)
• Cookies and Tracking: Session cookies, authentication tokens, analytics data

2.3 Third-Party Integrations

If you connect third-party services (Google Calendar), we collect:

• Integration tokens and credentials (stored encrypted)
• Calendar events and availability

3. How We Use Your Information

We use your information for the following purposes:

• Provide Services: Deliver AI coaching, track progress, send reminders
• Personalization: Customize coaching approach, recommend exercises, analyze patterns
• Communication: Send notifications, updates, and support responses
• Payment Processing: Process subscriptions and manage billing
• Improvement: Analyze usage to improve features and AI models
• Security: Detect fraud, prevent abuse, ensure platform security
• Legal Compliance: Comply with legal obligations and enforce our terms

4. AI and Data Processing

AI model training: Your conversations with the AI coach are processed by Groq to generate replies. We do not use your personal data to train AI models, and we do not sell it. It is processed to produce the coaching response you asked for and nothing else.

Data Retention for AI: Conversation history is retained to provide context in future coaching sessions. You can delete your conversations at any time from your account settings.

Anonymized Analytics: We may use anonymized, aggregated data for research and product improvement, but this data cannot identify individual users.

5. Data Sharing and Disclosure

5.1 Third-Party Service Providers

We share data with trusted service providers who help us operate our platform:

• Authentication: Clerk (identity verification)
• Payment Processing: Stripe (card processing)
• AI coaching: Groq (the model that generates coaching replies). Anything you type into the coach, and text from your journal entries, goals and check-ins where it informs a reply or an analysis, is sent to Groq to produce that response.
• Voice features, if you use them: Deepgram (turns your speech into text) and ElevenLabs (turns text into speech). Recordings and transcripts of what you say are sent to these services.
• SMS and phone calls: Twilio
• Email: Resend (all email we send you)
• Infrastructure: Vercel (hosting), Neon (PostgreSQL database)
• Product analytics: PostHog (which pages you visit and which features you use). Sentry is included for error reports when it is switched on.

All service providers are contractually bound to protect your data and use it only for the purposes we specify.

5.2 Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information if required by law or in response to:

• Legal processes (subpoenas, court orders)
• Government requests
• Protection of our rights and safety
• Emergency situations involving health or safety

5.3 We Do NOT Sell Your Data

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes. Your coaching data, journal entries, and personal information remain confidential.

6. Data Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your data:

• Encryption: All data transmitted using TLS/SSL encryption
• Database Security: Encrypted database storage, access controls
• Authentication: Secure session management, optional 2FA
• Monitoring: 24/7 security monitoring and threat detection
• Access Controls: Role-based access, minimum necessary principle
• Regular Audits: Security reviews and vulnerability assessments

While we use reasonable efforts to protect your information, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

7. Your Privacy Rights

7.1 Access and Portability

You have the right to:

• Access all your personal data stored in our system
• Export your data in machine-readable format (JSON, CSV)
• Request a copy of your data at any time from Settings → Data Export

7.2 Correction and Deletion

You can:

• Update your profile information in account settings
• Delete individual journal entries, goals, or mood logs
• Request complete account deletion (irreversible)

7.3 Right to Object

You can:

• Opt out of email notifications and SMS reminders
• Disable analytics tracking
• Withdraw consent for data processing (may limit service functionality)

7.4 GDPR Rights (EU Residents)

If you are in the European Economic Area, you have additional rights:

• Right to restriction of processing
• Right to object to automated decision-making
• Right to lodge a complaint with supervisory authorities

7.5 CCPA Rights (California Residents)

California residents have rights under the CCPA:

• Right to know what personal information is collected
• Right to delete personal information
• Right to opt-out of sale (we don't sell data)
• Right to non-discrimination for exercising privacy rights

8. Data Retention

We retain your information for as long as necessary to provide services:

• Active Accounts: Data retained while account is active
• Inactive Accounts: Data retained for 12 months after last login
• Deleted Accounts: Most data deleted within 30 days; some data retained for legal compliance (e.g., payment records for 7 years)
• Backups: Backup copies deleted within 90 days of account deletion

9. Children's Privacy

Causative Coaching is not intended for children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately at privacy@causativecoaching.com.

10. International Data Transfers

Your data may be processed and stored in the United States or other countries where our service providers operate. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place for international transfers, including:

• Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) for EU data transfers
• Adequacy decisions where applicable
• Compliance with Privacy Shield principles

11. Cookies and Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies for:

• Essential Cookies: Required for authentication and security
• Analytics Cookies: Understand usage patterns (can be disabled)
• Preference Cookies: Remember your settings and preferences

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may limit functionality.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by:

• Email notification to your registered email address
• Prominent notice on our platform
• Updating the “Last Updated” date at the top of this policy

Your continued use of Causative Coaching after changes indicates acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us: