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Privacy Policy

Effective Date: September 10, 2026  |  Last Updated: September 10, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how WellAlert, operated from British Columbia, Canada ("WellAlert," "we," "us," or "our"), collects, uses, stores, and shares information when you use the WellAlert mobile application, website, and related services (the "Service"). It also describes your rights and choices regarding your data. This Policy is a notice about our practices, not blanket consent to every use of your information. Optional sharing is controlled by your feature choices and any additional consent required by applicable law. You can contact us at support@wellalert.app about those choices.

1. Information We Collect

1.1 Information You Provide Directly

1.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Device identifiers: iOS device token used for push notification delivery via Apple Push Notification Service (APNs).
• App usage data: Feature interactions, alarm firing events, and check-in response times used solely to operate the escalation workflow.
• Crash and error logs: Technical error and diagnostic information used to identify faults. Operational logs may contain account or request identifiers and are treated as personal information when they can be linked to you; we do not characterize all diagnostics as anonymous.
• IP address: Collected when your device communicates with our backend (Supabase). Used for security monitoring and fraud prevention; not used for advertising.
• Website requests: Visiting our website sends network and browser information to its hosting infrastructure. Pages also request fonts from Google Fonts, which receives the network information needed to serve those requests. These requests are separate from care-circle sharing and do not send wellness entries.
• Waitlist security metadata: A hashed version of your IP address and limited browser user-agent information may be stored when you submit the website waitlist form to prevent abuse.

1.3 Information We Do NOT Collect

• Your location shared with emergency contacts, unless you turn on care-circle location sharing (see Section 1.1). Note that we do request location separately, on by default, to show local weather on your Home screen — see the Location Data (Home Weather) row above and turn it off in Settings if you'd rather not share your location for that purpose.
• Contacts from your device's native address book (you enter emergency contact details manually or via in-app search/QR code).
• Browsing history or data from other apps.
• Biometric identifiers.
• Payment card numbers (Apple processes payments; WellAlert and RevenueCat process subscription status and transaction metadata).

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• Providing the Service: Authenticating your account, scheduling alarms and reminders, recording check-in responses, maintaining optional cloud safety backup, and triggering configured alerts to your emergency contacts.
• Notifications: Sending push notifications and in-app alerts for wellness prompts, missed protected check-ins, Care Circle alerts, and contact request updates. We also send authentication, account, invitation, and support emails. Alert emails or SMS text messages are processed only where those channels are explicitly enabled.
• Location Sharing: If you enable it, sharing your location with the care-circle contacts you select and displaying it on their in-app map, and including your location in safety alerts to those contacts.
• Weather: Home Weather uses your device's location to fetch conditions and weather alerts; this lookup does not itself share your location with contacts. Contact Weather uses a location a contact has already shared with you. Each has a separate setting. Your selected contacts may therefore use a location you share to view weather for that location.
• Contact Features & Search: Helping signed-in users find profiles by name or username, and sharing wellness status with the audience you choose. Public wellness visibility includes signed-in users outside your care circle; contact-only visibility limits sharing to eligible contacts.
• Messages you send yourself: You may review and send a prefilled SOS text from your own phone number. It can include your name and a location map link. The message is sent through your device's messaging service rather than WellAlert's server-side SMS service, and carrier charges may apply.
• Account Management: Processing account registration, password recovery, and subscription status.
• Safety & Security: Detecting, preventing, and investigating fraud, abuse, and violations of our Terms & Conditions.
• Service Improvement: Using technical reliability information and optional feedback to improve the Service. We do not use wellness content for advertising or sell it to analytics providers.
• Legal Compliance: Complying with applicable laws, regulations, legal process, or enforceable governmental requests.
• Communications: Sending important service notices, security alerts, and (if you opt in) product updates. You may opt out of marketing communications at any time.

We do not use your data for targeted advertising and do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to any third party.

3. Sensitive Data – Wellness, Health & Location Information

Wellness scores, mood data, health-related notes, and precise location data are treated as sensitive personal data. We apply the following additional protections:

• Connections to our backend use TLS encryption, and our cloud database uses encryption at rest. This is not end-to-end encryption: the service must process shared information to provide the features you request.
• Backend authorization controls limit access to personal information. Authorized personnel may need access for support, security, and service delivery.
• Sensitive data is never shared with advertisers, data brokers, or analytics providers.
• Care-circle location sharing is opt-in, off by default, and limited to the contacts you explicitly select. Revoke access inside WellAlert. Turning off iOS location permission stops new collection but does not revoke access to an already stored pin. The separate Home Weather lookup is on by default, requires iOS permission, and does not itself share your location with contacts.
• Wellness visibility is controlled by the check-in's audience setting. Public visibility is broader than your emergency contacts, as explained below. Do not put information about someone else in a shared note without their permission.
• We do not use sensitive data to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects on you.

4. How We Share Your Information

We share your information only in the following circumstances:

4.1 With Contacts and Other Users

When you designate emergency contacts and they accept your request, they may see your wellness check-in status, protected alarm or reminder information, safety alerts, and — if you enable location sharing — your location and any special responder instructions you enter, as configured by you. You control sharing through the app's audience and location settings.

Profile discovery and Public wellness: Other signed-in users can search by name or username and see matching profile identifiers, names, username, and avatar. If you select Public wellness visibility, search results can also show your current wellness score and its expiry, including to people outside your care circle. Public is not the same as Contacts Only. Private check-ins remain on your device.

Notification previews and recipient copies: Wellness pushes can include your name, account identifier, score, wellness state, and alert message. Apple processes the push payload, and a recipient's notification settings may display its message on a lock screen or connected device. Recipients may keep messages, screenshots, or other copies; changing visibility or deleting your account cannot recall those copies.

4.2 With Service Providers

We use providers to deliver the Service and remain responsible for our obligations under applicable privacy law. Some services, including Apple account and payment services and the website font service, also process information under their own terms and privacy policies. Provider locations and subprocessors may differ by service; contact us for information about processing relevant to your request.

The website also uses Google Fonts for typography. Your browser connects directly to that service when loading those fonts, as described in Section 1.2.

4.3 For Legal Reasons

We may disclose your information if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to: (a) comply with applicable law or legal process; (b) protect the rights, property, or safety of WellAlert, our users, or the public; or (c) detect, prevent, or address fraud or security issues.

4.4 Business Transfers

If WellAlert is involved in a merger, acquisition, asset sale, incorporation of a successor entity, or bankruptcy proceeding, your data may be transferred as part of that transaction. Any transfer must comply with applicable law and protect your existing privacy rights. We will give notice of a material change in the operator or privacy practices and obtain additional consent where required; a transaction does not itself authorize unrelated new uses of sensitive information.

4.5 With Your Consent

We may share your data for any other purpose with your explicit consent.

5. Information About Your Emergency Contacts (Non-Users)

When you add an emergency contact who is not a WellAlert user, you provide us with that person's name, email address, and/or phone number. We process this information solely to send the invitation you request and, only where an additional alert channel is explicitly enabled, the alerts you configure — never for marketing. Currently, a contact must install WellAlert and accept your request to receive push and in-app alerts. Before adding someone, you must have their consent (see our Terms). If you are an emergency contact and do not wish to receive alerts:

• You may decline the request, remove the relationship in the app, or use any opt-out mechanism provided with an enabled message channel, or
• Contact us at support@wellalert.app so we can verify the request and address removal and future unwanted communications. We cannot recall messages already delivered or control texts another person sends from their own phone.

6. Data Retention

Retention depends on the purpose, your deletion requests, and applicable legal obligations. Live account records, delivery history, provider copies, and backups may have different deletion timelines:

• Account & profile data: Retained until you delete your account.
• Legal acknowledgment history: Retained with your account to document the Terms revisions you accepted. Deleting your account removes the live history; backups may expire on a different schedule. We do not create historical server receipt records from older account data.
• Wellness entries & activity logs: Private entries are kept locally; shared entries are retained for history and synchronization until deleted. Deleting a check-in does not recall a notification already delivered or a copy retained by a recipient.
• Planned media attachments (photos, videos, voice memos): Not available or collected in the current release. If enabled under this storage model in a future version, they will remain local and will be deleted when you delete the entry or app.
• Profile photos: Stored in cloud storage and included in account-deletion processing. Cached copies on other devices may persist until refreshed or removed.
• Location shares: The live-location store holds your latest pin, not a continuous route history. Standing access continues until revoked. After a time-limited live, check-in, alarm, or SOS location session expires normally, its recipients retain access to the dated final pin for 24 more hours. Explicitly stopping that session revokes its grant, but another active session or standing grant can still allow access. Use Who Can See Me Now to review or revoke all access. An hourly cleanup removes pins after the last grant ends, subject to processing delays. Discrete locations may also remain in alert records; revoking live access does not erase already delivered alerts or recipient copies.
• Escalation & notification logs: Retained with your account for safety history and dispute handling unless deleted earlier or retained under a legal obligation. Contact us to request deletion of history; deleting a wellness entry alone does not delete all related delivery records.
• Optional account-deletion feedback: Stored without your account identifier for product improvement for up to 12 months, then deleted. Free-text feedback may contain information you choose to provide, so please do not include personal details.
• Waitlist emails: Used for the launch notification you requested. You may ask us to remove your address at any time. Limited records may be retained to document consent or honour an opt-out.
• Support, security, and request records: Kept as needed to resolve the request, prevent abuse, document our response, or meet a legal obligation. Identifiers and free-text feedback are not automatically anonymous.
• Local caches: The app may keep profile, contact, wellness, widget, and Home Weather information on your device for display and offline use. Contact Weather coordinates and results are not added to the persistent weather cache. Device copies and backups are distinct from live server records.
• Legal hold: We may retain data longer if required by law or in connection with an active legal proceeding.
• Administrative restrictions: If an account is suspended or banned for abuse or safety reasons, we retain keyed one-way hashes of its verified email, phone, and Sign in with Apple identifier so deleting the account cannot bypass the restriction. These hashes remain protected personal information because they can be matched against later registrations. Permanent-ban hashes are retained while the restriction remains in effect, subject to periodic review and appeal; this may be indefinite.

Account deletion removes live account data as part of a successful deletion request and queues applicable provider deletion work. We aim to complete provider deletion within 30 days, but backup expiry, legally required records, restriction records, and copies held independently by recipients or payment providers can follow different rules. Contact us for the status or scope of a deletion request. These descriptions do not override a shorter retention obligation that already applies to your data.

7. Data Security

We use technical measures to protect your data, including:

• TLS 1.2+ encryption for all data in transit between the app and our servers.
• Encryption at rest for data stored in Supabase.
• Row-level security (RLS) policies on the database to authorize access to account information and information shared with the relevant audience, including Public wellness visibility.
• Authentication via hashed passwords and short-lived session tokens with automatic refresh.
• Authenticated service access and authorization checks for sensitive operations.

No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure. We assess security incidents and unauthorized disclosures under the laws that apply, including applicable Canadian, U.S. state, and consumer health breach-notification requirements. We will notify affected people, regulators, and others when required and within the applicable deadlines; a significant-harm threshold is not the only possible notification trigger.

8. Your Rights & Choices

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

8.1 Rights Available to All Users

• Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Deletion: Request deletion of your account and associated personal data. You can also delete your account directly through the app settings.
• Data Portability: Request a machine-readable export of the data you have provided to us.
• Withdraw Consent: Revoke location access inside WellAlert; iOS permission controls new collection only. Change wellness visibility and disable Home Weather or Contact Weather independently. Contact us about other consent withdrawals or deletion of information already collected.
• Opt-Out of Marketing: Unsubscribe using the method in a marketing message or contact us. Joining the launch waitlist requests a launch notification, not unrelated marketing. Necessary account and security messages are separate from optional marketing.
• Push Notifications: You can revoke notification permissions at any time in your device's iOS Settings. This affects notifications displayed on that device; it does not itself cancel server-side protection or disable notifications on your contacts' devices. Each recipient controls their own device permissions. Use the app's safety controls to cancel an active alarm, reminder, or SOS as appropriate.

8.2 Canada (PIPEDA & Provincial Privacy Laws)

WellAlert is operated from British Columbia, Canada, and is subject to applicable Canadian privacy requirements, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and provincial laws such as British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), depending on the activity. You have the right to access and correct your personal information, to withdraw consent (subject to legal or contractual restrictions), and to be informed of how your information is used and disclosed — including that it is stored with service providers in the United States (see Section 10). You may challenge our compliance by contacting us, and you have the right to complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca) or the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia.

8.3 EU / EEA / UK Residents (GDPR)

If the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or UK GDPR applies to our processing of your information, additional rights may include:

• Right to Restrict Processing: Request that we restrict processing of your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to Object: Object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing.
• Right Not to Be Subject to Automated Decision-Making: Not be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing that produce significant legal effects. WellAlert does not engage in such processing.
• Right to Lodge a Complaint: Lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Our intended launch markets are Canada and the United States. A reference to rights in another jurisdiction does not itself establish that all its laws apply. Contact us about the legal basis and safeguards relevant to your circumstances; acknowledging this Policy is not a substitute for any legally required consent to process health information.

8.4 California & Other U.S. State Residents

Where the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as amended by the CPRA, applies to our processing, California residents have additional rights. Other state laws may provide similar or additional rights, subject to their scope and exceptions:

• The right to know what personal information we collect, use, disclose, and sell.
• The right to delete your personal information.
• The right to correct inaccurate personal information.
• The right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell or share personal information as defined by the CCPA.
• The right to limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal information (including precise geolocation). We use sensitive personal information only to provide the Service at your direction.
• The right not to be discriminated against for exercising your applicable privacy rights.
• Where applicable, the right to appeal a denied request and use an authorized agent. Contact us with the subject "Privacy Appeal" or "Authorized Privacy Request" so we can explain the process and any verification needed.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@wellalert.app with the subject line "Privacy Request." We aim to respond within 30 days and will meet the deadline applicable to your request, including any lawful extension of which we notify you. We may ask for proportionate verification; please do not send identity documents unless we explain why they are needed. If we cannot fulfil a request, we will explain applicable reasons and available complaint or appeal options.

9. Children's Privacy

The Service is available to users who are at least 13 years old. A user under the age of majority in their jurisdiction may use the Service only with the involvement of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to the Terms & Conditions on their behalf. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from someone under 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible and terminate the associated account. If you are a parent or guardian and believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at support@wellalert.app.

10. International Data Transfers

WellAlert is operated from Canada, and your data is stored with service providers (including Supabase, Twilio, Resend, and RevenueCat) on infrastructure located in the United States. Personal information stored or processed in the United States may be subject to access by U.S. courts, law enforcement, and national security authorities under U.S. law. This notice explains the cross-border processing involved in the Service; it is not a waiver of your privacy rights. We remain responsible for applicable obligations when using processors.

Contact support@wellalert.app for information about the providers and cross-border safeguards relevant to your data, or to raise a concern about international processing.

11. Third-Party Links & Services

The Service may contain links to third-party websites or services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any third-party service you visit. This Policy applies only to information collected by WellAlert through the Service.

12. Apple-Specific Disclosures

In compliance with Apple App Store requirements:

• Data Used to Track You: None. We do not track you across apps or websites owned by other companies.
• Data Linked to You: Contact info, identifiers, health & fitness data (wellness scores), user content (notes, profile photo), precise location (when you enable care-circle location sharing, or by default to show local weather), usage data.
• Diagnostics: Operational records may include identifiers and should not be assumed to be anonymous.
• We do not use any Apple frameworks or APIs to share data with third parties for advertising or tracking purposes.

13. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Policy when our practices or legal requirements change. We will update the effective date and prominently notify you in the app or by email before a material change takes effect, unless an urgent legal or security need requires a shorter period. We will obtain fresh consent where required before using information for a materially different purpose. Continued use alone does not authorize a new sensitive-data use.

We encourage you to review this Policy periodically. Previous versions will be made available upon request.

14. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please contact us:

WellAlert – Privacy
British Columbia, Canada
Primary support and privacy contact: support@wellalert.app
Subject line: "Privacy Request"
Website: wellalert.app

We aim to respond to all privacy-related inquiries within 30 days (or within the legally required timeframe for your jurisdiction).