Privacy, security & your data
Written plainly, for the person using the app and the family they invite. Last updated August 2026.
Guardian Sarah is a companionship and entertainment app — not a medical device and not a safety service. It lives on your own phone and hears you only when you are on a call with Sarah. The formal version of everything below is in our Privacy Policy.
What we collect
- What you tell us at signup: your name, phone, email, the times you want Sarah to call, the things you like to talk about and listen to, and the reminders you ask her to give you.
- What you and Sarah say during a call, turned into text so she can understand you and reply, and so your recap can be written.
- An audio recording — only if you turned recording on yourself.
- Basic technical facts: device type, app version, whether calls connected, and crash reports scrubbed of what you talked about.
No cameras. No location tracking. No always-on listening — Sarah's microphone is open during a call you scheduled and never between calls. We do not read your contacts or your other apps.
Recording, and how consent works
- Recording is off until you turn it on. Everything else works the same either way.
- If you turn it on, Sarah says out loud at the start of every call that it is being recorded, and that announcement cannot be switched off — by you, by your family, or by us.
- Sarah cannot stop a recording once a call has begun, and she says so plainly if you ask her to. You can end the call whenever you like, and write to support@guardiansarah.com to have recording turned off so nothing further is saved — a call that ends early keeps the audio recorded up to that point.
- You can play recordings back. Everyday call recordings are deleted automatically after 30 days; Story Vault keepsakes are kept until deleted one at a time in the app, and all saved audio for a person can be deleted at once by asking us. Having recording turned off loses nothing else.
Some states require everyone on a call to agree to being recorded, not just the person who owns the app. Announcing it out loud on every recorded call is how we make that true everywhere, without asking you to know your own state's rule.
Your voice is not a fingerprint
We do not create a voiceprint, do not perform speaker recognition or voice authentication, and do not build a template of your voice. We do not sell, license, or trade voice data. Your voice is used to have the conversation, and for nothing else.
Who sees it
- You, and only the family members you personally invited. They see your written recaps and Story Vault entries — and recordings, if you turned recording on. They cannot listen to a live call.
- You can have anyone removed from your family circle at any time. Removing someone is not yet a button in the app — email support@guardiansarah.com and we cut their access.
- Service providers who make the app work — the AI model that produces Sarah's replies, the services that carry the call and turn speech into text, and our database and email providers. They may use your information only to provide their service to us. None of them may train models on your conversations.
- We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for advertising.
How data is protected
- Encrypted in transit and at rest, on managed cloud infrastructure.
- Family access is enforced in the database, not just in the app — so a bug in the app cannot open your calls to someone you did not invite.
- Access is logged. Recording access and deletion are written to an audit trail.
- Least-privilege service access; secrets managed centrally, not hard-coded.
No system is perfect and we will not claim otherwise. If your information is ever exposed, we notify you by email and in the app within 60 days, and we notify the Federal Trade Commission, under the FTC Health Breach Notification Rule (16 C.F.R. Part 318) — a rule we choose to hold ourselves to because a conversation with Sarah can touch on your health.
What Guardian Sarah is not
- Not a medical device, not a diagnosis tool, not a clinical record. Sarah gives no medical advice and can be wrong.
- Not a safety service — she cannot detect a fall and cannot summon help. In an emergency, hang up and call 911.
- Not a crisis line. If you are in distress, Sarah will stop and give you 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. She cannot call them for you.
- Not a HIPAA service. We are not a health-care provider or a health plan, and we do not take on that role.
How long we keep things
- Call transcripts and recaps: kept while your account is open, then deleted.
- Audio recordings, if you turned recording on: deleted on a rolling schedule unless you save one to the Story Vault.
- Story Vault entries: until you delete them, or shortly after you close your account.
- Billing records: as long as tax and accounting law requires.
Exact retention periods are published in the
Privacy Policy and are set to match what the app actually does. We will not print a promise here that the database does not keep.
Your rights, wherever you live
See it, correct it, delete it, export it, turn recording off, remove a family member, and stop marketing email — all of it, from inside the app or by asking us, and none of it depends on which state you live in. We will not degrade your service or charge you more for using any of these.
Questions
Email support@guardiansarah.com. A person answers, usually within one business day.