Privacy Policy

Started, an app for starting tasks, made for ADHD brains. Last updated [EFFECTIVE DATE].

1. Who we are

Started is published by Anomaly: [ANOMALY LEGAL NAME], company number [COMPANY NUMBER], registered office [REGISTERED ADDRESS]. In this policy, "we" and "us" mean Anomaly.

For the data protection laws of the UK and the EU, Anomaly is the controller of the personal data described here. Privacy questions go to [PRIVACY EMAIL]. Other questions go to [CONTACT EMAIL].

2. What stays on your phone

This is stored in the app's private storage on your phone. It is not uploaded to us.

• Your settings: appearance, session length, reminder time, body double, whether the step is hidden on the lock screen, reduce motion, and similar switches.
• Your tasks, the steps and plans you were given, your lists, notes you jotted during a block, the note you left for tomorrow, your history of starts, your saved starters, and (Started Plus) the last 50 Tool replies in Results.
• A photo you chose for a first step is not stored. Only the step and a short name for the task are. A "photo of what changed" that you take on the Done screen is kept on your phone next to that start. It is never sent anywhere.
• Whether you finished the intro, and whether Started Plus is active on this phone.
• The data behind the home screen widget, if you add one. It is kept in storage shared only between the app and its widget on your phone.

Your control. You → Data → Export everything writes your tasks, starts and settings to a JSON file and opens your phone's share sheet. The file goes only where you send it. You → Data → Wipe erases everything the app stores on the phone. Uninstalling the app removes it too. Text, a picture or an export file that you share to Started from another app is handled like something you typed or chose yourself.

3. What is sent to the AI, and where it goes

This is the one thing that leaves your phone as personal data. It happens only when you tap, and only when online steps are on. You can switch them off in You. The first time, the app asks you.

What is sent

• When you ask for a first step, a smaller or different step, a plan, a breakdown or an estimate: the text of your task, and the step it relates to.
• When you use a Tool (Write it, Read it, Explain it, Decide, Cook, Time): the text you paste or type, and the options you pick.
• If you wrote a line in Your way (Started Plus): that line, with each request.
• If you use the camera button or share a picture to Started: the photo. Before it goes, the app shrinks it on your phone and removes its metadata (location, time, camera details). Please avoid photos of people's faces or documents that show other people's details.

The app does not send your name, email, contacts, location, advertising ID, your other tasks, your history, or your calendar.

Who handles it

• Our relay. A small server program we run on Cloudflare's platform. It receives your request over an encrypted connection (HTTPS), adds our instructions, and passes it on. It does not store your text or photo. Its own log lines hold only the kind of request, the AI model used, the number of words processed (tokens), the result code and an error name. Never your words.
• A random install number. Every request to the relay also carries a random number that Started makes the first time it runs. It is not made from your phone, your name or any account, it is not joined to what you type, and it is deleted when you delete the app. The relay uses it only to count requests, so one copy of the app cannot send an unlimited number of them. Daily counts are kept for a day, then reset.
• Cloudflare, Inc. hosts the relay as our processor. Like any host, Cloudflare receives each request's technical details and keeps platform request logs: your IP address, the time and the type of request. Not your task text. Cloudflare keeps these for a limited period under its own retention rules [CONFIRM: Cloudflare log retention]. We use them to keep the service running and to find abuse and faults.
• Anthropic (the company behind the Claude AI model) processes the text or photo to write the reply, and sends it back. Anthropic processes it in the United States. We use Anthropic's API under its commercial terms, which set how long it may keep the content and what it may use it for [CONFIRM: Anthropic API retention]. Anthropic's own policy is at anthropic.com/legal/privacy. We do not send Anthropic your IP address or any identifier of you.

Please keep some things out

Please do not type or photograph passwords, card numbers, health records or other people's private details. Started is made for ADHD brains, but it does not need health information to work. If you include something sensitive anyway, you are choosing to send it to be processed for your reply.

Your choice

Do not tap the first-step button, the Tools or the camera button, or switch online steps off, and nothing is sent. The first step and the session work with the rules built into the app.

Computer-written answers

The replies are written by an AI model. They are suggestions. They do not decide anything about you and have no legal or similar effect on you.

4. Phone permissions

Each of these is optional and asked only when you use the feature. You can turn any of them off in your phone's settings.

• Microphone and speech recognition (dictate button). Your phone's own speech recognition turns your voice into text. On iPhone that is Apple's service, which may process audio on the device or send it to Apple. On Android it is Google's. Started receives only the text. It does not receive or keep the audio. Apple's and Google's privacy policies cover that step.
• Camera and photos. Used only when you tap a camera button or choose a picture. See section 3.
• Calendar (Android and iPhone), read only. Used only after you turn Calendar on in You. Started reads your next event so Today can show how long is left and so a block can end before it. Event titles are shortened and used on your phone only. They are not sent to us or to the AI. Nothing is written to your calendar.
• Notifications, exact alarms and start-up (Android). To ring at the end of a block, send your daily reminder and put reminders back after the phone restarts. Reminders are scheduled on your phone. We run no push notification server and hold no push token.
• Do Not Disturb access (Android). Only if you switch Quiet on and start a block. Nothing is granted by default.
• Sam's voice. Optional and off by default. Your phone's own on-device voice reads the step aloud. Nothing is recorded or sent.

The app has no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting tools of its own. If you share diagnostics with developers in your phone's settings, Apple or Google may pass us anonymous crash and performance reports.

5. Subscriptions and payments

Started Plus is sold through the Apple App Store or Google Play. Apple or Google takes your payment and runs renewal and cancellation. We never see your card or your Apple or Google account details. The app asks the store whether a subscription is active, so it can unlock Plus on your phone. The store tells us nothing that identifies you in the process. Restore on the Plus screen brings a purchase back on a new phone. Apple and Google handle that data under their own privacy policies.

6. All of it in one table

7. Why we are allowed to use your data (UK and EU)

The UK GDPR and the EU GDPR need a legal basis for each use of personal data. Ours:

• To write your steps, plans and Tool replies (section 3): it is needed to give you the feature you asked for when you tapped (performing our contract with you), and you agree to it when you choose "Use online" (consent). You can take that consent back at any time by switching online steps off.
• Camera, microphone, speech, calendar and notification permissions: your consent, given in your phone's permission prompt. You can withdraw it in your phone's settings.
• Platform request logs at Cloudflare: our legitimate interests in keeping the service secure and working, and in stopping abuse. You can object (section 10).
• Subscriptions: the store processes the payment under your contract with the store. We act on its confirmation to give you Plus.
• Legal duties: where the law requires us to keep or give out information.

If what you type or photograph happens to include special category data (for example about health), our basis is your explicit consent given when you tap to send it.

8. Sending data to other countries

Anthropic processes content in the United States. Cloudflare runs its network worldwide, and may handle a request in a location close to you. When personal data goes from the UK or the EU to a country without an adequacy decision, we rely on the safeguards in the providers' data processing terms, such as the standard contractual clauses and the UK addendum, or an approved data privacy framework [CONFIRM: transfer safeguards with Anthropic and Cloudflare]. Ask [PRIVACY EMAIL] for details.

9. How long things are kept

• On your phone: until you wipe it, change it or uninstall the app.
• Our relay: your text and photo are not kept. They exist only while one reply is written.
• Cloudflare platform logs: for the limited period set by Cloudflare's retention rules [CONFIRM: Cloudflare log retention].
• Anthropic: as set by its commercial terms [CONFIRM: Anthropic API retention].
• Emails you send us: as long as needed to deal with them, then deleted, unless the law needs us to keep them.

10. Your rights (UK and EU)

You can ask us to:

• tell you what personal data we hold about you and give you a copy;
• correct it, or erase it;
• limit how we use it;
• give it to you in a portable format;
• stop using it where we rely on legitimate interests, or take back a consent.

Because there are no accounts and our relay does not store your words, we usually cannot find data about one person. The data on your phone is yours to export or wipe in the app. The logs at Cloudflare are tied to an IP address, so we may ask you for the IP address and the time of your request. Write to [PRIVACY EMAIL]. We answer within one month. It is free unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.

You can also complain to your data protection authority. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). In the EU it is the authority in the country where you live or work. We would like the chance to help first.

11. California residents

This section applies where the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the CPRA, applies to us.

• What we collect: in the last 12 months, the categories that pass through our relay are: the content you send (task text, pasted text, your Your way line, photos) and, in the platform logs, your IP address, the time and request type. We use them only to run the service. Section 3 says who receives them.
• We do not sell or share your personal information. "Share" has the California meaning of passing data for cross-context behavioural advertising. We have no advertising and no tracking, and we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information to infer anything about you.
• Your rights: to know, to delete, to correct, to limit use of sensitive personal information, and not to be treated worse for using these rights. Write to [PRIVACY EMAIL]. An authorised agent can write for you. We may need to check it is you.
• We do not respond to "Do Not Track" signals because we do not track.

12. This website

This website has no analytics, no advertising and no cookies. Its fonts are served from the site itself, so loading a page does not contact Google or any other font service. The only thing the site saves in your browser is the language you picked, so the next page opens in it, plus a short-lived note (a few seconds, in this tab only) that lets the language switch finish its animation on the next page. You can clear both like any other site data.

The "first step" box. If you type into the box, that sentence is sent through our relay (a Cloudflare Worker) to Anthropic, the company that runs the AI model, so Sam can write one step back. We do not store what you type or the step you get. We do not ask for your name or email there. To keep the box fair and the cost bounded, the relay counts requests from each IP address (10 a day; the counts reset every day). Cloudflare keeps its ordinary request records, such as your IP address and the time, as described in section 3. Please do not type anything you would not want an AI service to read.

The waitlist. The form is switched off until Started launches. When it opens, it will ask for your email address only to tell you when Started is available. It will be handled by [WAITLIST PROVIDER], every email will have an unsubscribe link, and we will delete the list once launch news has gone out or when you ask.

The website host keeps ordinary server logs [CONFIRM: website host]. If you write to us, we use your email address only to reply.

13. Age

Started is for people aged 16 and over. It is not meant for children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16. Since we hold no accounts, a child's data would sit only on the child's phone. If you think a child has used the AI features, write to [PRIVACY EMAIL] and we will delete what we can.

14. Security

Requests to our relay travel over HTTPS. Our keys are kept as secrets on the host and never inside the app. Data on your phone is protected by your phone's own security. No system is perfectly secure, so keep sensitive details out of your tasks.

15. Not medical advice

Started is a productivity tool. It does not diagnose, treat or give medical advice, and its steps are suggestions, not instructions from a professional. See our Terms of Use.

16. Changes to this policy

If what the app does with data changes, we will update this page and its date. If a change matters to you, we will also tell you in the app before it starts.

17. Contact and complaints

Privacy: [PRIVACY EMAIL]
Everything else: [CONTACT EMAIL]
Post: [ANOMALY LEGAL NAME], [REGISTERED ADDRESS]

© [ANOMALY LEGAL NAME], company number [COMPANY NUMBER]. Terms of Use