Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

Account information

• Your name or display name, and email address
• Your age (we require 18 or older) and time zone
• Profile details you choose to add: avatar, location, ethnicity, communication style, and reasons for joining
• Optional phone number, if you turn on SMS reminders or use SMS sign-in features
• Your consent records (terms acceptance, AI transcription consent, SMS opt-in) and the date, time and wording you agreed to
• If you apply to become a Fren: your application answers, identification documents you upload, and training results

Conversation content

• Typed messages you send during a session, and the messages your Fren sends you
• Voice notes you record, and their transcripts
• Session details: who you spoke with, the date and time, how long it lasted, the type of session, and connection events such as a dropped call
• Things you create around a session: emotional check-ins, reflections, closing moments, saved moments, journal entries, goals, and session ratings

Device and technical data

• Device type, IP address, and app usage data (pages used, features used, errors)
• Notification and microphone permissions, and whether you have granted them
• Basic analytics events, such as when a booking flow is started or completed

2. Transcriptions and automated safety screening

This is important, and we want it to be unambiguous:

• Voice notes are transcribed automatically. Audio is processed by OpenAI (Whisper), a third-party service, to produce text. The transcript is stored with the session.
• Typed messages and transcripts are screened automatically by our safety detection systems. That screening looks for things like contact-detail sharing, requests to move off the platform, abusive or sexual content, and signals of self-harm or crisis.
• Flagged content is reviewed by our admins. A person on our trust and safety team can read the specific message or transcript excerpt that was flagged, together with the session context, and decide what happens next. Flags and review decisions are stored as safety records.
• Crisis signals are handled as support, not as a rule break. When our systems detect possible self-harm, we show crisis resources, and a crisis case is created which pages a real person on our on-call team. A crisis is never treated as a violation of our rules.
• A few sessions are additionally reviewed by AI for quality and safety, and that review is visible to our admin team.
• You can decline transcription. If you do not consent to AI transcription of voice notes, do not send voice notes; you can always use typed messages, which are screened the same way.

3. Payments

Payments are handled entirely by our payment provider (Base44 Payments, powered by Wix) and, where you buy inside an iOS app, by Apple In-App Purchase. Your card number and full payment details are entered on the provider's checkout page and are never seen or stored by VentaFren. We receive and keep only what we need to run your account: that a payment succeeded or failed, the amount, the currency, the plan or session it paid for, and a provider reference number. Fren earnings and payout records are handled through our payments provider as well.

4. How we use your information

• Provide and operate the platform, including matching you with Frens and running sessions
• Keep sessions safe: screening content, reviewing flags, and responding to crisis signals
• Process payments, credits, and subscriptions
• Send the messages you expect: booking confirmations, reminders, and safety follow-ups
• Support you when you contact us, and investigate reports
• Improve the platform and fix problems, using aggregated and technical data
• Meet legal and tax obligations

We do not use the content of your conversations for advertising, and we do not build advertising profiles from it.

5. We never sell your data

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not rent or trade it. We do not share it with data brokers or advertisers. We share it only with the service providers who run the platform on our behalf, and only as needed:

• Hosting and database providers that store the app's data
• OpenAI (Whisper) for voice note transcription
• Base44 Payments (Wix) and Apple for payments and subscriptions
• Twilio for SMS you have opted into
• Our email delivery provider for the emails described above
• Our trust and safety team members, who review flagged content
• Legal authorities, only where we are legally required to disclose, or where disclosure is needed to protect someone from serious harm

6. How long we keep it

• While your account is open: your account details, conversations, transcripts and session history are kept so the service works and so safety decisions have context.
• When you delete your account: your profile, messages, voice note transcripts, session-side personal data, journal entries, check-ins, reflections, consent records, ratings, applications, credits and the account record itself are deleted. This happens immediately when you confirm deletion.
• What survives deletion, and why: a session record is shared between two people, so a past session stays in the other person's history and in a Fren's earnings records. It keeps the date, duration, amount and participant identifiers, but your messages, notes and transcript content are deleted with your account.
• Safety and moderation records that contain a short excerpt of a flagged message may be kept after deletion where there is an open safety investigation, a ban, or a legal obligation. We keep these only as long as that need exists, and they are not used for any other purpose. You can ask us to review and delete them, and we will unless we are legally required to keep them.
• Payment and tax records are kept by the payment provider, and summaries by us, for as long as tax and accounting law requires.

7. Deleting your account and your data

You can delete your account yourself, inside the app: open Me and choose Delete my account. Deletion is immediate and does not require contacting us; it cancels upcoming sessions, refunds anything already paid for them, erases the data described in section 6, and removes your account so you cannot sign back in. You can also email us at the address below and we will action it for you.

If you only want a copy of your data, or want a specific piece corrected, email us and we will help.

8. Your rights

• Ask what personal data we hold about you, and get a copy
• Correct inaccurate account details, in your profile or by asking us
• Delete your account and its data (section 7)
• Withdraw consent, such as opting out of SMS or declining voice-note transcription
• Object to a specific use, or ask us to restrict it
• Complain to your local data protection authority

Contact: support@ventafren.com

9. Security

Access to conversations and transcripts is restricted to the two people in the session and the trust and safety team members who need it to review a flag or a crisis. Data is encrypted in transit, and access to admin tools is limited to admins. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to keep this data tightly held.

10. Adults only (18+)

VentaFren is for adults aged 18 and over. Age is captured when you complete your profile, and it is enforced, not just asked: an account without a confirmed age of 18 or older cannot book or pay for a session. If we learn that someone under 18 has created an account, we close it and delete the data.

11. Not a crisis service

VentaFren is peer support, not therapy and not an emergency service. Our safety systems are there to help, but they are not a monitored emergency line. If you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency number. In the US you can call or text 988.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle data, we update this page and its effective date, and tell you in the app when the change is significant. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated policy.