People share highly personal information here. Please share only what is necessary, and read this notice before you do.
1. Scope and who we are
SafeEar is a listening and self-reflection service operated by Harshit Pathak, carrying on business as “SafeEar” from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. For the purposes of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, SafeEar is the Data Fiduciary for the personal data described here. This notice covers personal data processed when you create an account, verify your phone number, talk with a human listener by text or voice, use an AI companion, Comb AI, journal reflections or tarot, write in your journal or Mind Comb, listen to meditations, book a support circle, send or receive a gift, make a payment, use the help guide or contact support. It does not cover third-party sites we merely link to.
SafeEar is not a healthcare, financial, or legal provider. Nothing in this notice is a waiver of rights you hold under applicable law, including the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and its rules as applicable in India.
2. What we collect
Account and identity
Your name, email address, phone number, a password stored only as a one-way hash, the alias you choose for conversations, your gender and date of birth (asked at sign-up so that only adults aged 18 and over can join), what you do (student, working professional, homemaker, self-employed or other), the country and city you live in, and optionally your preferred language. A listener you talk to sees your private alias with your age, city and what you do; never your name, phone number or email. If you sign in with Google or Apple we store the provider, the provider's user identifier, and the email the provider returns.
Verification and security
One-time passcodes are stored only as a hash together with the phone number, expiry, attempt count, and verification time. Password-reset tokens are stored as a hash. We also record sign-in events and security-relevant records such as blocks and safety reports.
Conversations, journal, and reflections
The messages you send and receive in a text conversation, the AI companion you choose, the text and voice conversations you have with an AI companion, tarot questions you ask and the readings returned, your journal entries with any mood and intensity you record, call summaries written by you or a listener, ratings and comments you leave, reports you file, and your support-circle bookings.
Voice calls
For a voice call we generate a short-lived access token with our voice provider and pass it to your device. We record call metadata — who was connected, when, duration, and status — and any moderation flag. SafeEar does not record call audio, and listeners may not record calls.
Journal follow-ups and pattern readings
When you open a journal, the question that follows on from your last entry is written from that entry (by our AI provider where available) and stored with it. After 30 days of journaling, if you ask for it, your recent entries are sent to our AI provider to find patterns; the patterns and your answers to them are stored, and with the Comb Pass your answers are also saved in Mind Comb. This happens only when you tap to allow it.
Couple listening sessions
When you book or join a couple listening session we keep its time, who booked it, the partner who joined with the invitation, the listener, what each of you paid (including any extra minutes), and the session’s group chat, which all three of you can read. None of the voice parts are ever recorded. After the session the listener writes a short summary and outcome, which only the listener and SafeEar can see; your partner cannot. If you answer that you do not feel safe, the session is cancelled and refunded and your partner is not told why.
Support circles and gifts
When you book a support circle, your email address is added as a private guest to that circle’s Google Calendar event so Google can send you the Meet link; other guests cannot see it. SafeEar’s circle listeners (listeners who have done the circle orientation) see who is in each upcoming circle so they can choose one to host: your anonymous name, age, gender, city and what brings you to the circle. Your circle’s host also sees the first name you give for the circle. They never see your real name, phone number or email; SafeEar’s team sees your real name to run the circles. When you send a gift, you give us the recipient’s name and email address and confirm you have their permission; we use them only to send and protect the gift.
Meditation
Which meditations you play and for how long, so we can charge pay-as-you-listen time accurately and remember your progress.
Payments and wallet
Order and payment identifiers returned by our payment provider, amounts and currency, plan type, per-minute rates, session timing, wallet balance and its transactions, listener payouts, gift codes, refunds, and dispute records. When you pay, your full card or bank details are entered on the payment provider's hosted checkout; SafeEar never receives or stores them.
Listener payout details
If you listen on SafeEar, the UPI ID or bank account number and IFSC, the account holder's name and the PAN you give us so we can pay you and deduct tax where the law requires. The UPI ID, account number and PAN are stored encrypted, shown to you only partly, and shown in full only to SafeEar staff with access to payments when they make a transfer; each time they are shown in full is recorded. They are deleted when your account is closed.
Technical and usage data
IP address, device and browser type, app version, request timestamps, pages or features used, error and crash logs, and security events such as failed sign-ins or rate-limit triggers. Server and proxy logs are retained on a short rolling window.
Communications
What you send through the support form (your name, email, optional phone number, topic and message) and any emails you send us; questions you type into the “Can I help you?” guide, which are sent to our AI provider to answer and are not kept in your account; and the email address we use for service messages such as confirmations, receipts, password resets, and security notices. We send marketing email or SMS only if you opt in, and every message includes a way to stop it.
3. Why we use it
To operate the service you asked for: creating your account, verifying it, routing a conversation to a listener or AI companion, timing and charging for a session, delivering a purchased session, keeping your journal private, and taking payment. We also use data to keep the platform safe and lawful: enforcing our Terms, blocking and reporting abuse, responding to legal process, investigating safety complaints, and detecting fraud or payment abuse. We use de-identified or aggregated usage data to understand reliability and improve the experience. We also study what people write about in tools like Mind Comb only as counts across many people (for example, how many entries mention work or sleep each week). No one at SafeEar reads your private writing, these counts never show a figure based on fewer than three people, and we do not share them with anyone outside SafeEar. Where a use is not necessary to deliver the service, we rely on your consent and you may withdraw it. We do not build advertising profiles and we do not sell personal data.
4. AI and voice processing
When you choose “Talk it through” in Mind Comb and agree on screen, the AI companion reads the entries in that one comb (and the combs inside it) each time it answers, to talk them through with you; it reads nothing else in your Mind Comb, and nothing from the chat is added to Mind Comb unless you save it yourself. AI companions, mood check-in replies, journal follow-ups, Comb AI and tarot reflections are automated systems, and the voices that read meditations aloud are generated by AI. Your messages and questions are sent to our AI provider to generate a response, and real-time AI voice uses our AI provider's speech service. If you choose to speak instead of typing in Mind Comb, the recording is sent to our AI provider once to be turned into text and is not stored by SafeEar; the text appears for you to check before anything is saved. Photos you add to Mind Comb are shrunk and saved without their hidden details (such as the location they were taken and the phone used). They are stored privately, can be opened only from your account, are never shown to SafeEar staff or sent to any AI, and are deleted when you remove them, the entry or note they are on, or your account. To understand what people need, Mind Comb entries are also sent to our AI provider once to be given up to three topic labels from a fixed list (for example “exams” or “sleep”); only the labels are kept with the entry, and SafeEar staff see them only as counts across at least 10 people, never by person or with your words. You can switch this off in Settings (“Anonymous community trends”), which also removes the labels already made. AI providers process data on our instructions and are not permitted to use it to train their general models. Private conversation content is not used to train any general-purpose model unless we present you with a separate, optional consent. Where you enable AI memory, the remembered context is shown to you and can be corrected or deleted. Companion memory is off until you say yes: when you end a chat with an AI companion, a few short notes in your own words (what helped, what did not, how you like to talk, steps you chose) are kept so your companions can pick up from there, along with the small steps in your Mind Comb. Chats with crisis words are never used. You can read, correct or delete every note at Dashboard › AI companions › “What your companions remember”, and switching memory off deletes all of it. SafeEar staff do not see these notes. Some features check what you write for words that suggest you may be in danger, automatically and without anyone reading it: the AI companion, the mood check-in, journaling, Mind Comb and Comb AI, the help guide and tarot reflections. When they find such words, they show Tele-MANAS (14416) and 112 instead of an AI reply, and nobody is alerted. Your conversations with human listeners are never screened. SafeEar staff do not read your text chats, AI conversations, journal, notes or Mind Comb. When someone files a report, our team looks at what the report says, the call or chat details (who, when, how long and how it ended) and the short summary the listener writes after a call, and acts on those.
6. Retention
Account data is kept while your account is active. When you ask us to close your account, we delete or irreversibly de-identify your profile, conversations, journal, Mind Comb and other content within 30 days, except what we must keep longer: payment, wallet, invoice and tax records are kept for as long as Indian tax and accounting law requires (generally up to 8 years), and records needed for a live dispute, a safety report or a legal request are kept until it is resolved. Support requests are kept for up to 2 years. Data about an account that has been inactive for 3 years may be deleted after we warn you by email. Verification codes and password-reset tokens are deleted shortly after they are used or expire. Security and access logs are kept on a short rolling window. Retention periods are reviewed periodically and shortened when a purpose ends.
7. Security
If a personal data breach happens, we will inform affected people and the Data Protection Board of India as the law requires. Data is transmitted over TLS and stored with encryption at rest. Passwords and one-time codes are hashed rather than stored. Access to production data and the database is limited to staff and administrators who need it, is logged, and is protected by multi-factor authentication. No system is perfectly secure, and you should choose a unique password and keep your device protected.
Found a security problem? Please report it to us privately. Here is how.
8. Your rights
Subject to applicable law, you may ask us to confirm whether we process your personal data, give you access to it, correct it, complete or update it, delete or anonymise it, restrict or stop processing, withdraw consent, nominate someone to exercise your rights, and provide a portable copy. You can edit most profile details, journal entries, and AI memory yourself in the app, and you can close your account yourself in Settings (Close my account) or by writing to us.
Send a request to support@safeear.life from the address on your account. We may ask you to verify your identity before acting. We aim to acknowledge a request promptly and to resolve it within the period required by applicable law, generally within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India. We never retaliate against you for exercising a right, and a service conversation you are already paying for is not cancelled by making a request.
10. Transfers and location
SafeEar is operated from India. Some providers process data on servers outside India, including payment processing, voice, and AI services. Where data leaves India we use contractual and other safeguards appropriate to the risk, and we limit transfers to what the service requires.
11a. Information about other people
If you write about other people in a journal, in Mind Comb or in a conversation, or give us someone’s details for a gift, please share only what is needed. You are responsible for having the right to share it. We use it only to provide the feature you are using.
11. Children
SafeEar is for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18 and we do not offer accounts that need a parent’s consent. If you believe a minor has created an account or sent us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.
12. Changes
We may update this notice as the service or the law changes. The version number and effective date at the top identify the current notice. A material change will be announced in the app or by email before it takes effect for existing accounts, and continued use after that date means you accept it. This notice should be read together with the Terms & Safety Notice.
13. Contact and grievances
Grievance Officer: Harshit Pathak, SafeEar, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Email: support@safeear.life · or use our support page.
Please describe the issue and the account it concerns. We acknowledge grievances within 24 hours and aim to resolve them within 15 days, investigate them, and tell you the outcome. You may also raise a complaint with the Data Protection Board of India. If a conversation with a listener upsets you, tell us and we will review it under our safety process.
We do not sell your data, we do not use your private conversations to train general AI models without a separate consent from you, and we do not treat what you say as a diagnosis.