Privacy Policy — withyou

Last updated: 24 July 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Observing Clouds ("we," "us," "our") handles your information when you use the withyou app ("the app"). We built withyou to support people living with Relationship OCD (ROCD), and we take the privacy of your information seriously, especially because much of what you share with the app is sensitive.

If you have any questions, contact us at jason@observingclouds.com.

Who we are

withyou is operated by Observing Clouds, a business based in the Netherlands. Observing Clouds is the data controller responsible for your information under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Dutch GDPR Implementation Act (UAVG). For users in the United Kingdom, Observing Clouds is also the data controller under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. For users in Switzerland, we handle personal data in accordance with the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP).

Contact: jason@observingclouds.com
Address: Laantje van Calis 6, 1261 WD, Blaricum, Netherlands

The short version

We collect the information you give us to run the app and to personalize your experience.
Much of what you share (your intake answers, journal entries, and conversations) reveals mental-health information. We treat it as sensitive, and we only process it with your explicit consent.
The app contains no advertising, analytics, or tracking SDKs. We do not track you, and there is nothing to opt out of.
We do not sell your data.
Voice input is transcribed on your device. Audio is never recorded, stored, or sent to anyone.
We do not use your data for automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
Optional features that send extra data (like theme recognition) are off by default and only run if you turn them on.
You can delete your account at any time (with some honest limits explained below).

What information we collect

Account and identity information

Your email address (email signup, or provided by Apple or Google sign-in).
Your password — only if you sign up with email. Passwords are stored securely hashed and never seen by us in readable text.
An optional display name.
If you use Apple or Google sign-in, a stable identifier from that provider and the provider's name.

Onboarding and intake information

The ROCD theme(s) you relate to (including anything you write in your own words), how long you have struggled, your relationship status, prior therapy/ERP experience, your main compulsion(s), what you would like to feel differently, and any additional note you choose to write.

Content you create in the app

Journal entries.
Values (the partner you want to be, and "willingness" actions).
Your North Star (a single values-direction statement).
Exposures (title, feared thought or situation, response-prevention intention).
Your conversations with The Spiral (the AI companion), with timestamps.
A flag if you register interest in future community features.

Information created automatically

Timestamps.
Some reflections calculated on the spot from your entries (not separately stored).

We do not collect advertising identifiers, analytics data, or tracking data of any kind.

Sensitive (health-related) information

Some of the information above — your intake answers, journal entries, conversations with The Spiral, exposures, values, and North Star — can reveal information about your mental health. Under the GDPR this is a special category of personal data. We only collect it because you choose to provide it in order to use the app, and we process it based on your explicit consent, which we ask for in a dedicated step when you start using the app, separate from accepting the Terms of Service.

We never use this sensitive content for advertising, and we never share it with advertising platforms.

You can withdraw this consent at any time. See "Withdrawing consent" below. Withdrawing consent does not require deleting your account.

The purposes we process your data for, and the legal basis for each

Creating and maintaining your account, signing you in

Data involved: email, hashed password, display name, sign-in identifiers
Legal basis: performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR)

Providing the app's core features (journaling, values, exposures, conversations with The Spiral)

Data involved: your intake answers and the content you create
Legal basis: your explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR, together with Art. 6(1)(a)), because this data can reveal health information

Personalizing The Spiral using your intake answers

Data involved: intake answers
Legal basis: your explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a), with Art. 6(1)(a))

Recognizing recurring themes in your journal (optional, off by default)

Data involved: Journal entries
Legal basis: Your explicit consent, given by turning on the theme-recognition setting (Art. 9(2)(a), with Art. 6(1)(a)). You can turn it off at any time.

Managing your subscription and free trial

Data involved: a random internal account identifier, purchase information from Apple
Legal basis: performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)); retaining purchase records where required: legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c))

Sending optional reminders (off by default)

Data involved: notification preference (stored on your device)
Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a))

Responding to support requests, keeping the app secure, preventing abuse

Data involved: account information, technical logs, support correspondence
Legal basis: our legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) in running a secure, working service. You can object; see "Your rights"

Withdrawing consent

Consent should be as easy to withdraw as it was to give, and withdrawing it is not punished.

You can withdraw your health-data consent at any time in the app's settings or by emailing jason@observingclouds.com. If you withdraw, we stop processing your intake answers and in-app content for the purposes above. Because the app's core features (journaling, The Spiral, exercises) cannot work without processing that content, those features will be paused while your consent is withdrawn. Your account is not deleted, your existing data is not deleted unless you ask, and you can still access, export, or delete your data, or give consent again later.

Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing that happened before you withdrew.

How The Spiral (AI) uses your information

The Spiral is powered by an AI model from Anthropic. When you send a message, our server sends Anthropic the recent messages in that conversation and background context drawn from your intake answers, so The Spiral can respond helpfully. We do not send Anthropic your email, name, password, or account identifiers. Voice input becomes a message only if you choose to send it.

Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, your conversations are not used to train Anthropic's AI models. Anthropic automatically deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days, unless content is flagged by its safety systems as violating its usage policy, in which case it may be kept longer.

Optional theme recognition. If you turn on theme recognition in the app's settings (it is off by default), then when you save a journal entry, our server sends the text of that entry and your recent entries to Anthropic, solely to check whether a new entry repeats the theme of earlier ones. The result is used only to show you an optional suggestion in the app. Nothing else is done with it, and the same Anthropic terms apply: no training on your content, and automatic deletion within 30 days. Turning the setting off stops this immediately; it is a separate consent from your main health-data consent, and withdrawing it does not affect any other feature.

Voice input

The microphone uses on-device speech recognition. Your audio is transcribed locally on your phone, is never recorded to a file, and is never uploaded or sent to us, Apple, or anyone else. Only the resulting text stays in the app, and only if you send it.

Automated decision-making

We do not use your personal data to make automated decisions that produce legal effects for you or similarly significantly affect you (Art. 22 GDPR). The Spiral generates conversational responses; it does not make decisions about you, score you, or determine your access to anything.

Optional theme recognition automatically compares your journal entries to suggest, in the app only, that a thought may be recurring. It does not score you, is not used for any decision about you, and produces nothing beyond that suggestion.

No advertising or tracking

The app contains no advertising SDKs, no analytics SDKs, and no tracking technologies. We do not use advertising identifiers. If we ever change this, we will update this policy first, ask for your separate consent before anything is collected, and the app will keep working fully if you decline.

Who we share information with

We share limited information with service providers who help us operate the app. Except where stated, they act on our behalf under data processing agreements.

Anthropic — provides the AI behind The Spiral. Receives conversation messages and intake-derived context, and, if you enable theme recognition, the text of your journal entries. Does not receive your email, name, or password.
Neon — the database where your account information and content are stored (Frankfurt, Germany).
Vercel — hosts our backend (production region Frankfurt, Germany); app traffic passes through Vercel's servers.
RevenueCat — manages your subscription. Receives a random internal account identifier (not your email) and purchase/device information from Apple. Does not receive your journal, chats, or intake.
Apple — processes Sign in with Apple, in-app purchases and billing, on-device notifications, and the review prompt. Apple acts as an independent controller for these services.
Google — if you use Google sign-in, your sign-in token is verified with Google. (May not be active in all versions.)

We do not sell your information, and we share nothing with advertising platforms.

Where your data is stored, and international transfers

Your account information and content are stored and hosted within the European Union (our database and servers are located in Frankfurt, Germany). Some information is stored only on your device (sign-in token, a "seen the welcome screen" flag, and your notification preference).

Some of our service providers process limited data outside the EU/EEA, in particular in the United States: Anthropic (the AI behind The Spiral), Apple (sign-in and payments), RevenueCat (subscription management), and Vercel (which processes operational data such as technical logs in the United States).

Where data is transferred to the United States, we rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework for providers that hold a current certification, and on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), together with a transfer impact assessment and supplementary measures, as a fallback and for providers that are not certified. You can request a copy of the relevant safeguards by contacting us.

How long we keep your data

Account information and content: for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account, your record and content are removed from our live database immediately.
Database backups: our database provider keeps a short rolling restore history. Deleted data disappears from it within 6 hours.
Support correspondence: kept for 12 months after your request is resolved, then deleted.
Consent records: while your account exists, we keep a record of when you gave or withdrew consent, with timestamps and the version of the consent text (this is included in your data export). When you delete your account, we retain a minimal consent-evidence log for 12 months: a pseudonymised identifier derived from your email address (it can only be matched to you by recomputing it from your email using a secret key we hold, which we do only if you contact us), the timestamps and versions of your consent grants and withdrawals, and the deletion date. It contains no name and no content, and it is deleted automatically after 12 months, based on our legitimate interest in being able to demonstrate that valid consent existed if a complaint or audit arises (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Third parties: when you delete your account, we also ask RevenueCat to delete your subscriber record. Content already sent to Anthropic, and billing records held by Apple, are retained according to those companies' own policies.

Your rights

If you are in the EU/EEA, you have the right to access, correct, delete, or export your personal data, to restrict or object to certain processing (including processing based on our legitimate interests), and to withdraw any consent at any time (see "Withdrawing consent" above). You may also lodge a complaint with your data protection authority (in the Netherlands, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl). If you are in the United Kingdom, you have equivalent rights under the UK GDPR and may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). If you are in Switzerland, you have equivalent rights under the FADP and may contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).

To exercise these rights, contact jason@observingclouds.com, or use the in-app options for export and deletion. We respond within one month.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app's settings. When you do, we remove your record and content from our live database — including your email, hashed password, name, sign-in identifiers, intake (including free text), and all journal entries, values, actions, exposures, conversations, and North Star — and you are signed out.

Honest limits:

When you delete your account, we also ask RevenueCat to delete your subscriber record. Content already sent to Anthropic, and billing records held by Apple, remain subject to those companies' retention.
Backups held by our database provider expire within the window stated in "How long we keep your data."
A few non-personal settings may remain on your device until you use "Reset app" or uninstall.
We retain a minimal consent-evidence log for 12 months after deletion, as described in "How long we keep your data."

Security

We protect your information using measures including hashing of passwords (PBKDF2 with a per-user salt), signed session tokens stored in your device's secure keychain, and encrypted connections. No method is completely secure, but we work to protect your information. If a breach occurs that risks your rights, we will notify the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens within 72 hours where required, and inform you where the law requires it.

Children

withyou is intended for adults (18 and older). We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has provided us information, contact us and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the app changes. If we make significant changes, we will notify you in the app (and, where appropriate, by email) before they take effect, and update this page. Earlier versions are available on request.

Contact

Observing Clouds
Email: jason@observingclouds.com
Laantje van Calis 6, 1261 WD, Blaricum, Netherlands