Privacy Policy

Plushie Inc. ("Plushie," "we," "our," or "us") respects your privacy. Plushie Inc. is the controller of the personal information described in this Policy. You can reach us at plushiehelp@gmail.com.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, retain, and protect personal information when you use the Plushie mobile application, website, and related services (collectively, the "Services").

By using the Services, you acknowledge the practices described in this Privacy Policy. Where we rely on your consent — including for sensitive information and for research participation — we ask for it separately, and you can withdraw it at any time.

1. Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly, information generated through your use of the Services, and certain information automatically collected from your device.

2. Information You Provide to Us

Account Information

When you create an account, we may collect:

• email address;
• username or nickname;
• birthday or age range;
• authentication credentials;
• profile information.

Plushie & Personalization Information

To personalize your Plushie companion experience, you may provide:

• personality preferences;
• role selections;
• relationship preferences;
• communication preferences;
• custom prompts or backstories;
• uploaded plushie or character images;
• interaction feedback.

Conversations & Messages

We collect and process:

• conversations with your AI companion;
• prompts and responses;
• memories and relationship progression data;
• reactions, feedback, and interaction metadata.

These systems help provide continuity, memory, personalization, moderation, and product improvement. AI-generated memories, summaries, and personality inferences may be inaccurate or incomplete.

Journal & Mood Data

When you use check-in features, we collect the mood data and journal entries you provide to personalize your experience.

Uploaded Content

You may upload images, profile pictures, plushie reference images, text entries, and support attachments. You represent that you have the rights necessary to upload such content.

Communications

If you contact us, we may collect your name, email address, support communications, bug reports, survey responses, and feedback submissions.

3. Sensitive Information

Plushie is a companion product, and people sometimes tell their companion things that are deeply personal. Depending on what you choose to share, your conversations may contain information that data protection laws treat as sensitive or "special category" — for example information revealing physical or mental health, sexual orientation or sex life, religious or philosophical beliefs, racial or ethnic origin, or details of experiences of harm.

You are never required to share any of this to use Plushie. Because a companion product invites this kind of disclosure, we are explicit about how we handle it:

• We ask for your separate, explicit consent to process sensitive information at onboarding. It is not bundled with your acceptance of this Policy or of the Terms of Service.
• We process sensitive information and generated psychological or demographic profiles (such as inferred traits, stressors, coping mechanisms, and behavioral patterns) only to provide the Services to you — memory, continuity, personalization, moderation, and safety — except where you have separately opted in to research participation, and then for that purpose and no other.
• We do not use sensitive information for advertising, and we do not sell it or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• We do not include sensitive information or derived psychological profiles in any external research sharing unless you have separately opted in to research participation.
• Your journal entries, your mood check-ins, and the images you upload are never included in external research sharing in any form, whether or not you have opted in to research participation.
• You may withdraw your consent to sensitive-information processing at any time. Withdrawal does not affect processing already carried out, and some memory and personalization features may stop working.

Information about other people. Conversations naturally include other people — friends, family, partners, coworkers. We do not seek to identify or contact people who are not Plushie users, and we do not use conversations to build profiles of them for advertising or marketing. Information about others appears as part of your conversation history and the memory features derived from it, and is deleted when your account is deleted, subject to the retention periods and exceptions described in this Policy. If you are not a Plushie user and believe the Services hold information about you, contact plushiehelp@gmail.com.

4. Information We Collect Automatically

Device & Technical Information

We may automatically collect IP address, device identifiers, operating system, device type, app version, crash logs, language settings, time zone, and approximate location derived from IP address.

Usage Information

We collect information regarding how you interact with the Services, including features used, buttons clicked, pages viewed, session duration, interaction frequency, XP/quest/virtual economy activity, subscription status, and engagement metrics.

Session Replay, Analytics & Product Improvement

We use third-party analytics and product improvement tools, including services such as PostHog, Microsoft Clarity, and similar providers, to understand how users interact with the Services and improve functionality, stability, safety, and user experience.

These tools may collect app navigation, screen flows, interaction patterns, device metadata, session duration, and crash diagnostics. Some providers use session replay technology. We do not intentionally use session replay tools to capture:

• payment card information;
• passwords or authentication credentials;
• private AI conversations or diary contents;
• sensitive journal entries or uploaded personal content.

To be clear about what this does and does not mean: this describes our analytics and session replay tooling only. Your conversations with your AI companion are separately collected and stored by the Services, as described in "Information You Provide to Us", in order to provide memory and personalization.

5. AI Processing & Personalization

Plushie uses artificial intelligence systems and third-party AI infrastructure providers to generate responses and personalize experiences.

Your conversations and interaction data may be processed to generate AI responses, maintain memory and continuity, improve safety systems, improve model performance and product quality, and detect abuse.

We may generate inferred information about interests, communication style, engagement patterns, personality traits, and relationship progression.

These inferences are probabilistic and may not accurately reflect reality. They are personal information about you, and the access, correction, and deletion rights in this Policy apply to them — including generated personas and structured profiles — as they do to anything else we hold.

We do not make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects about you based solely on automated processing.

6. How We Use Information

We use personal information to:

• provide and maintain the Services;
• personalize AI interactions and store memory systems;
• improve product functionality and analyze engagement;
• process subscriptions and purchases;
• provide customer support;
• maintain safety and moderation systems, and detect fraud or abuse;
• comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.

We may also use aggregated information, and conversation data and derived analytical artifacts we have processed to remove or transform direct identifiers and reduce re-identification risk ("research derivatives"), for internal analytics, research, and product development. Where a research derivative is derived from sensitive information, we use it only as described in "Sensitive Information" above. We do not attempt to re-identify research derivatives except to test whether our own processing is working, and we contractually require any recipient of them to do the same. We treat research derivatives as personal information about you: the rights described in this Policy continue to apply to them, and we retain them as described in "Data Retention". External research sharing is addressed separately below and requires your opt-in.

7. Legal Bases for Processing (EEA, UK & Switzerland)

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

• Performance of a contract — to create and operate your account, deliver AI companion features, maintain memory and continuity, and process subscriptions.
• Legitimate interests — to secure the Services, prevent fraud and abuse, maintain safety and moderation systems, diagnose crashes, and understand aggregate product usage, where those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. You may object at any time.
• Consent — for processing sensitive information (see "Sensitive Information"), for research participation (see "Research Recipients" under "How We Share Information"), and where else required by law. You may withdraw consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.
• Compliance with legal obligations — where we are required by law to process your data.

Where we process special category data, we rely on your explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) of the GDPR.

8. Virtual Currency & Economy Data

The Services may include virtual items (coins, gems, XP, unlockables, cosmetic items). We collect activity related to virtual systems to operate game mechanics, prevent fraud, balance the economy, and improve progression systems. Virtual items have no monetary value and are licensed, not owned.

9. Subscription & Payment Information

Subscriptions and purchases are processed through third-party payment providers (Apple App Store, Google Play, Stripe, RevenueCat). We do not directly store full payment card information. We receive limited transactional metadata (subscription status, renewal dates, purchase confirmations, plan tier).

10. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may disclose information to:

Service Providers

Vendors supporting cloud hosting, AI infrastructure, analytics, session replay, authentication, customer support, crash reporting, moderation, and payment processing.

Research Recipients

Only where you have separately opted in to research participation, and only to named academic or research institutions under a written Data Use Agreement (DUA) that requires them to use the research derivatives we provide solely for the stated research purpose, prohibits re-identification and onward redistribution, carries the transfer safeguards described in "International Data Transfers", and requires deletion as described below. We do not release conversation data or derived artifacts for open public download.

What a research release contains. Research derivatives we may share are limited to:

• conversation text that has been rewritten by an AI model, in which names, places, employers, schools, dates and other identifying details have been replaced with invented substitutes;
• question-and-answer items derived from that rewritten text;
• the structured behavioral profile and the generated persona records derived from that rewritten text.

What a research release never contains. We do not include, in any research sharing:

• your original messages, or your companion's original replies;
• your account identifier, or any internal or production identifier that could be matched back to your account — recipients receive study codes we do not give them the means to resolve;
• your email address, username, profile photograph, or any image you uploaded;
• your journal entries or mood check-ins;
• payment information, device identifiers, or precise location.

Research Publications

Research recipients, and Plushie, may publish research findings based on those derivatives — including aggregate results, statistical analyses, model performance, and conclusions — provided the publication does not identify you and does not reasonably permit you to be identified. Publishing verbatim or near-verbatim conversation text, individual-level synthetic transcripts, personas, benchmark items, or other record-level material — in a paper, presentation, appendix, supplementary materials, figure, or worked example — is not permitted under this section. For the avoidance of doubt, "near-verbatim" includes any passage whose string similarity to the corresponding rewritten turn, or to your original message, exceeds a ratio of 0.90 for turns of 40 or more characters; shorter turns, and all other record-level material, remain prohibited regardless of any similarity measurement. If we ever want to publish material of that kind openly, we will ask you for separate consent describing specifically what would be published.

Research consent:

• is requested on its own, not bundled into this Policy or the Terms of Service;
• is not required to use Plushie, and declining does not reduce access to any feature;
• can be withdrawn at any time in app settings.

What happens when you withdraw, or delete your account:

• we stop including your data in any new research sharing immediately;
• we notify every research recipient that currently holds your data and require them to delete it under their agreement with us. We do this on either trigger — withdrawal of research consent, or deletion of your account — and you do not need to make a separate request;
• we stop using your research derivatives internally, and we delete them on the schedule set out in "Data Retention";
• research datasets already shared are retained and then deleted as described in "Data Retention". We cannot recall data a recipient has already used, and research findings already published cannot be withdrawn. Aggregate published findings are not removed, because they do not identify you.

Processing free-text conversation to remove identifiers is imperfect. Removing names and identifiers does not guarantee that a person could never be recognized from the events, relationships, writing style, or patterns of when and how often they used the Services. We do not represent that research derivatives can never be re-associated with you, and we do not treat them as anonymous. This is why external research sharing requires your separate opt-in rather than relying on the processing alone.

Legal & Safety Reasons

We may disclose information to comply with law, respond to lawful requests, protect users or the public, investigate fraud, or enforce our Terms.

Business Transfers

If Plushie is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, bankruptcy, or sale of assets, user information may be transferred as part of that transaction.

11. Data Retention

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Services and fulfill the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. Typical retention periods:

• Account Information — while your account remains active.
• Conversation & Memory Data — while your account remains active.
• Journal & Mood Data — while your account remains active.
• Derived Profiles, Personas & Inferences — while your account remains active.
• Uploaded Content (images, attachments) — while your account remains active.
• Research derivatives held internally — while your account remains active, and deleted with the rest of your personal information when you delete your account, except where they were included in a research dataset already shared under your opt-in.
• Research datasets shared under your opt-in — for the term of the applicable research agreement, after which they are deleted.
• Analytics & Usage Data — up to 24 months.
• Session Replay Data — up to 90 days.
• Support Communications — up to 24 months.
• Safety & Abuse Logs — as reasonably necessary for security and legal compliance.

When you delete your account:

• we will delete personal information within 30 days, except for research datasets you opted into and the research derivatives already shared under them, which are retained as described above;
• if you had opted in to research participation, we will require recipients to delete your data under their agreements with us. Research datasets you were included in before you deleted your account are retained by us for the term of the applicable research agreement and are then deleted; they are not used for any other purpose. We cannot recall data already shared, and if research output has been published we may not be able to remove it;
• backup systems may retain copies for a limited additional period;
• some information may be retained where legally required or necessary for fraud prevention, dispute resolution, or enforcement.

12. Your Choices & Controls

You may:

• update account information;
• manage permissions;
• delete individual conversations;
• delete all conversation history;
• withdraw consent to sensitive-information processing;
• opt out of research participation;
• delete your account directly in app settings;
• opt out of certain notifications.

Some personalization and memory features may not function properly if certain data is deleted or restricted. You may also limit certain analytics or tracking permissions through your device settings where supported by your platform.

13. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you have rights to:

• access the personal information we hold about you and obtain a copy of it — including your conversation history, memory records, summaries, generated personas, and inferred traits;
• correct inaccurate or incomplete information, including inferred traits and profile fields;
• delete personal information;
• restrict processing;
• object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time;
• receive a portable copy of your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, and have it transmitted to another controller where technically feasible;
• withdraw consent where processing is based on consent, at any time;
• not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

To exercise these rights, contact plushiehelp@gmail.com. We will respond within timeframes required by applicable law, typically within one month.

If you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. A list of EU supervisory authorities is available at: edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/about-edpb/members_en

14. California Privacy Rights

If you are a California resident, you have rights under the CCPA/CPRA to know what personal information we collect, request deletion, correct inaccurate information, and limit certain uses of sensitive personal information.

Your conversations and generated profiles may contain sensitive personal information as defined by the CCPA, as described in the "Sensitive Information" section. We use and disclose it to provide the Services and for the purposes permitted under CCPA section 1798.121. If you have opted in to research participation, we also use it for that purpose; if you later direct us to limit our use of sensitive personal information, that direction also ends its use for research, and you would need to opt in again for research use to resume. To limit our use of sensitive personal information, contact plushiehelp@gmail.com.

Plushie does not sell personal information or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. You will not be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights.

15. International Data Transfers

Where personal data is transferred out of the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, we rely on appropriate safeguards, including the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, or an applicable adequacy decision.

Where a research recipient is located outside the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, the Data Use Agreement described in "How We Share Information" carries the same safeguards. We do not share research derivatives with a recipient that is not covered by one.

16. Children's & Teens' Privacy

Plushie is not directed toward children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If we learn we have collected such information, we will take reasonable steps to delete it.

Minimum age. The minimum age to use Plushie is:

• 13 in the United States, Canada, and Mexico;
• 16 in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland;
• 18 elsewhere.

If you are under 18. Additional protections apply to users under 18:

• we do not include your data or derived profiles in any external research sharing, and you cannot opt in to research participation;
• we do not sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising;
• we apply default privacy settings and data minimization measures required by applicable children's codes.

If you believe a child has provided information to us, contact plushiehelp@gmail.com.

17. Security & Third-Party Services

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information. However, no system can be guaranteed completely secure. The Services may contain links to or integrations with third-party services whose privacy practices we do not control.

18. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. If material changes are made, we will notify users through the Services or by other reasonable means.

Where a change materially expands how we use information we have already collected, we will apply the change to that information only with your affirmative consent; continued use alone will not constitute acceptance of such a change.

19. Contact Us

If you have questions or privacy requests, contact: plushiehelp@gmail.com

Safety Guidelines & AI Disclosure

Plushie is designed to be a comforting, creative, and supportive AI companion experience. These Safety Guidelines explain how Plushie should be used, what behavior is not allowed, and important limitations of AI-generated interactions.

By using Plushie, you agree to follow these Guidelines in addition to our Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy above.

1. Important AI Disclosure

Plushie is an AI companion system.

You acknowledge and understand that:

• Plushie is not human;
• responses are generated by artificial intelligence;
• conversations may be fictional, inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, or unexpected;
• Plushie may misunderstand context, emotions, tone, or intent;
• Plushie can make mistakes.

Plushie is not:

• a therapist,
• doctor,
• lawyer,
• crisis counselor,
• financial advisor,
• emergency service,
• or substitute for professional advice or human relationships.

Do not rely on Plushie for:

• medical advice,
• mental health treatment,
• legal advice,
• financial decisions,
• crisis intervention,
• or emergency assistance.

If you are in danger or experiencing a crisis, contact local emergency services or a qualified professional immediately.

2. Healthy Use & Emotional Safety

Plushie is intended for entertainment, companionship, creativity, reflection, and light emotional support.

We encourage users to:

• maintain healthy offline relationships;
• take breaks from screens and conversations;
• avoid excessive emotional dependence on AI systems;
• seek qualified human support when needed.

Plushie may:

• forget information;
• remember information incorrectly;
• behave inconsistently;
• generate emotionally inappropriate responses.

AI-generated emotional interactions should not be interpreted as human consciousness, genuine affection, professional guidance, or factual truth.

3. Age Requirements

You must be at least 13 years old to use Plushie.

If you are under the age of digital consent in your jurisdiction, you may only use Plushie with parental or guardian permission.

Plushie is not intended for young children.

4. Prohibited Conduct

You may not use Plushie to:

• harass, threaten, or abuse others;
• generate hateful or discriminatory content;
• sexualize minors or exploit vulnerable individuals;
• promote violence, self-harm, terrorism, or illegal activity;
• create or distribute non-consensual intimate content;
• impersonate others deceptively;
• spread malware, scams, or phishing attempts;
• manipulate, jailbreak, or attack AI systems;
• exploit bugs, moderation gaps, or virtual economies.

Attempts to bypass safety systems or moderation may result in suspension or permanent account termination.

5. Self-Harm & Crisis Situations

Plushie is not designed to manage crisis situations.

If a conversation suggests:

• suicidal thoughts,
• self-harm,
• eating disorder behaviors,
• violent intent,
• abuse,
• or immediate danger,

Plushie may:

• provide supportive redirection;
• encourage seeking professional help;
• limit or interrupt certain interactions;
• escalate safety moderation systems.

Do not rely on Plushie during emergencies.

If you or someone else may be in immediate danger, contact emergency services or a crisis hotline immediately.

6. AI Memory & Personalization

Plushie may remember information you share to personalize interactions.

This can include:

• preferences,
• routines,
• personality traits,
• relationship progression,
• conversation history,
• inferred interests.

AI memories and inferences:

• may be inaccurate;
• may combine information incorrectly;
• should not be treated as factual records.

You should avoid sharing:

• highly sensitive personal information;
• passwords;
• financial information;
• government identification numbers;
• medical records;
• or confidential third-party information.

7. User Content & Uploaded Images

You are responsible for content you upload or share through Plushie.

Do not upload:

• illegal content;
• copyrighted material you do not own;
• explicit or exploitative imagery;
• harmful or abusive content;
• images of others without permission.

Uploaded images may be processed by AI systems to:

• generate plushie companions;
• personalize experiences;
• moderate unsafe content;
• improve service quality.

8. Moderation & Enforcement

To maintain safety, Plushie may:

• monitor interactions for abuse and safety risks;
• use automated moderation systems;
• review flagged content;
• restrict certain prompts or features;
• suspend or terminate accounts.

We reserve the right to remove content or restrict access at our discretion.

9. Virtual Currency & Rewards

Plushie may include:

• coins,
• gems,
• XP,
• progression systems,
• unlockables,
• cosmetic items,
• or other virtual rewards.

These systems are for entertainment purposes only.

Virtual items:

• are not real currency;
• have no cash value;
• cannot be redeemed for money;
• may change or be removed at any time.

10. Third-Party AI & Infrastructure Providers

Some Plushie features rely on third-party providers for:

• AI generation,
• hosting,
• analytics,
• moderation,
• payments,
• or infrastructure.

Interactions may be processed through these providers in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

11. Reporting Safety Concerns

If you encounter:

• unsafe behavior,
• abusive content,
• security issues,
• or policy violations,

please contact: plushiehelp@gmail.com

12. Changes to These Guidelines

We may update these Safety Guidelines periodically to reflect:

• new features,
• evolving safety practices,
• legal requirements,
• or improvements to our systems.

Continued use of Plushie after updates become effective constitutes acceptance of the revised Guidelines.