# Privacy policy **Last updated: 28 October 2026** This policy explains what Understudy collects, why, who it is shared with, and the choices you have. It covers the Understudy website at [understudy.me](https://understudy.me), the Understudy app for Android, and the Understudy Note Taker device. Understudy is an assistant that works in the apps you connect to it, and a scheduler that runs that work for you on a timetable. To do that it has to read and act on information you give it access to. We have tried to say plainly what that means. If you have a question about this policy or your data, write to [privacy@understudy.me](mailto:privacy@understudy.me). ## Who we are Understudy ("we", "us") runs the Understudy service and is responsible for the personal information described here. You can reach us at [privacy@understudy.me](mailto:privacy@understudy.me). ## What we collect ### Your account - **Email address and name.** You give us these when you sign up. Your email address is how you sign in: we send a one-time code to it. There is no password. - **Sign-in codes.** We keep a scrambled (hashed) record of each code we send, when it was sent and how many attempts were made, to stop people guessing their way into accounts. We never store the code itself. - **Your agreement to this policy**, and which version you agreed to. ### What you put into Understudy - **Conversations** with the assistant: your messages, its replies, and the results of anything it did on your behalf. - **Jobs** you schedule: their instructions, their schedule, and the reports and logs of each run. - **Files** you upload or that the assistant saves for you. - **Skills, memory and facts about you** that you ask it to remember, or that it records to do its work better — for example, how you like a report laid out, or your shoe size. You can see and delete these in the app. - **Notifications** the assistant or your jobs send you. ### Apps and services you connect When you connect an app — for example a messaging, email, notes, code or task app, or a server you add yourself — we store what is needed to reach it on your behalf: API tokens, sign-in tokens, addresses and similar settings. The assistant then reads and acts on data in that app when you or your jobs ask it to, and what it finds becomes part of your conversations and job reports. If you add one of your own servers, we create a key for the assistant to sign in with. The private half of that key stays with us; you choose whether to install the public half. ### When the assistant browses the web or shops If you ask the assistant to look something up, search a shop or use a web page, it sends your query to a search provider or to the shop, and may keep screenshots of the pages it visited so you can see what it saw. ### Devices you pair If you pair an Understudy Note Taker, we store its device ID, the name it is shown with and when it was last online. ### Technical information - **A sign-in cookie**, so you stay signed in. It is the only cookie we set, and it is not used for tracking or advertising. - **Push notification details** if you turn on notifications in a browser: the address your browser's push service gave us and a description of the browser. - **Usage records**: how many units of AI processing ("tokens") each conversation and job used, and what it cost. We show these to you. - **Error reports** when something goes wrong, which may include details of the request that failed. - **Your phone's advertising ID**, if you use the Android app — see below. We do not show ads, we do not use third-party advertising or analytics trackers, and we do not build profiles of you for advertising. ## The Android app The app talks to the same service as the website and is covered by everything above. On your phone it: - asks for permission to **use the internet**, **check whether you are online**, and **show notifications**; - stores your **sign-in cookie** and a note of which notifications it has already shown you, in the app's private storage, which is excluded from device backups; - checks for new notifications in the background, about every fifteen minutes, while you are signed in; - keeps files you open in a temporary cache on the device; - reads your phone's **advertising ID** — the resettable identifier Android provides — and sends it to us at most once a day. We use the advertising ID only for analytics: to count how many phones use the app and how many keep using it. We store it on its own, without your name, email address or account, and we do not share it with anyone. If you have opted out of personalised ads or deleted your advertising ID in your phone's settings, the app sends nothing. Apart from Google's component for reading the advertising ID, the app contains no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting software, and it does not access your contacts, location, camera, microphone or photos. ## How we use your information We use it to: - provide Understudy: sign you in, run your conversations and jobs, act in the apps you connect, and show you the results; - send you sign-in codes and the notifications you asked for; - keep the service secure and working: prevent abuse, investigate problems and fix faults; - answer you when you contact us; - meet legal obligations. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use the content of your conversations, files or connected apps to advertise to you. ## Who we share it with We share information only as needed to run Understudy: - **AI model providers.** To write a reply or carry out a job, the assistant sends the conversation so far — including results from your connected apps, the facts and skills it keeps for you, and your instructions — to the AI model provider that runs the model (currently OpenAI). They process it to produce the response under their terms for business customers. - **Apps you connect.** When the assistant acts in a connected app, that app receives what is needed to do what you asked — a message to post, a search to run. - **Search, shopping and web services.** When the assistant searches the web or a shop, the query goes to that search provider or shop, sometimes through a network of intermediary servers we use to reach shops reliably. - **Email delivery.** Sign-in codes are sent through an email delivery service. - **Push notification services.** Notifications to a browser go through that browser's push service (for example Google, Apple or Mozilla). The message content is encrypted on the way. - **Error tracking.** Reports of errors go to an error-monitoring service so we can fix them. - **Hosting.** Our servers are run by hosting providers who store the data on our behalf. - **Fonts.** Our web pages load their typeface from Google Fonts, which means your browser contacts Google when it loads a page. - **Partner services.** If you use Understudy through another company's app, that company created your Understudy account and may send and receive your conversations with it. Its own privacy policy also applies. - **Legal reasons.** We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the rights, safety or property of our users, the public or Understudy. - **If Understudy changes hands.** If the service is sold or merged, your information may transfer to the new owner, who will remain bound by this policy until it is changed in the way described below. Our administrators can access account data, including conversations, when it is needed to run, support or secure the service. They do not access it for any other reason. ## How long we keep it - **Your account and content** are kept until you delete them or ask us to delete your account. - **Job run logs** and **screenshots** of pages the assistant visited are deleted automatically after a short period, normally seven days. - **Notifications** are limited to your most recent 200. - **Sign-in records** are kept for security. - **Error reports** are kept by our error-monitoring service for a limited period. - **Advertising IDs** are deleted once we have not seen them for 13 months. When you delete your account we delete your personal information within 30 days, except where we must keep something to meet a legal obligation. Copies in backups are removed as the backups expire. ## Your choices and rights - **See and delete your content.** You can delete conversations, jobs, files, skills, facts the assistant remembers, notifications, connected apps, servers and paired devices in the app at any time. - **Disconnect an app.** Disconnecting removes the tokens we hold for it. For full peace of mind, also revoke Understudy's access in that app's own settings. - **Turn off notifications** in the app, in your browser or in your phone's settings. - **Stop the advertising ID being sent** by opting out of personalised ads, or deleting your advertising ID, in your phone's settings (on most phones: Settings → Privacy → Ads). - **Delete your account.** Email [privacy@understudy.me](mailto:privacy@understudy.me) from the address you sign in with, and we will delete your account and its data. - **Access, correct or receive a copy of your data,** or object to how we use it: write to us at the same address. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to complain to a data protection authority. ## Security Every connection to Understudy is encrypted (HTTPS). Sign-in is by single-use codes, so there are no passwords to leak, and each account's data is kept separate from every other's. The tokens you give us for connected apps are stored on our servers, protected by access controls, so that the assistant can use them when you are not there; they are not separately encrypted inside our database. Give each connection only the access you need, and revoke it in the app if you stop using it. No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a breach that affects your information, we will tell you as the law requires. ## Where your data is processed We and the providers above may process your information in countries other than the one you live in. Where the law requires it, we rely on appropriate safeguards for those transfers. ## Children Understudy is not meant for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it. ## Changes to this policy When we change this policy we update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. ## Contact Understudy — [privacy@understudy.me](mailto:privacy@understudy.me) — [understudy.me](https://understudy.me)