Privacy Policy

Account information. Your name, mobile number, and the city you tell us (or that we infer coarsely from your IP address so time zone and weather work without asking). If you connect with a partner, we store the link between your two accounts.

Your messages. The content of the messages you exchange with Bantr over iMessage, SMS, or WhatsApp — including photos and voice notes you send it — and what Bantr replies. This is the core of the service: the assistant cannot answer "what did we spend on groceries" without reading what you told it.

Data from accounts you connect. Only if you choose to connect them, and only for as long as they stay connected: Google (calendar and email — see below), Microsoft or Apple mail and calendar, and bank, card, and brokerage accounts you link through Plaid.

Usage and device data. Basic product analytics and error reports — which features are used and what broke — so we can keep the service working. When you use the website we also receive standard technical information: device type, operating system, browser, and IP address (which is also what we use to infer your city coarsely).

Things you send us directly. Support requests, feedback, and anything you submit through a form, survey, or waitlist signup on our sites.

If you connect a Google account, Bantr requests only the permissions it needs, and uses each one for a single, stated purpose:

• See the list of your calendars (calendar.calendarlist.readonly) — so you can choose which calendars Bantr may use. Bantr does not add or remove calendars, and it reads no calendar settings or sharing rules.
• See, add, and remove events (calendar.events) — to read the events on the calendars you turned on, for the shared schedule, questions about your day, and your daily brief, and to create or delete an event when you ask. That can be your main calendar or a calendar someone else shared with you, like a family calendar, if you're allowed to make changes to it. Bantr reads nothing from a calendar you leave off, and it never edits an event in place.
• Read your email (gmail.readonly) — to read new mail and text you about bills, appointments, confirmations, tickets, and mail waiting on a reply, and to answer when you ask about a message. Bantr never changes or deletes your mail — it does not archive, label, move, or trash anything.
• Save drafts and send email (gmail.compose) — to put a draft you asked for into your Gmail Drafts so you can edit it and send it yourself, and to send a message only after showing you the full message and receiving your yes. Saving a draft never sends it.
• Your email address, name, and profile photo (openid, userinfo.email, userinfo.profile) — to identify which Google account is connected and to show that account's name and photo beside it, so two connected accounts can be told apart. Bantr stores the name and the photo address Google returns. It does not use them for anything else.

Bantr's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Specifically: we do not sell Google user data, we do not use it for advertising, and we do not use it to develop, improve, or train generalized artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models. Where Google data is processed by a service provider (see below), it is processed solely to deliver a feature you asked for, under contractual terms that prohibit using it to train their models. Humans do not read your Google data except with your explicit permission, or where required for security or to comply with the law.

You can disconnect Google inside Bantr at any time, or revoke access directly at myaccount.google.com/permissions. When you disconnect, we delete the stored tokens and stop syncing.

To run the assistant: answer you, keep your calendar and reminders straight, categorize spending against the budget you set, keep the shared grocery list, and send the nudges and briefs you have turned on. We also use it to keep the service secure and working, and to comply with the law.

We do not sell your personal information, we do not share it with advertisers, and we do not use your content to train generalized AI models.

Bantr is delivered entirely by text message. When you give us your mobile number and sign up, you agree to receive messages from The Social Company of the United States, Inc. at that number, over iMessage, SMS, or WhatsApp.

What we send. Bantr's replies to what you text it; the reminders, briefs, and nudges you have turned on; verification codes and security alerts; and occasional notices about the service. We do not send marketing texts unless you opt in to them separately.

How often. Message frequency varies with how much you use it — Bantr answers when you write to it, plus any scheduled briefs you enable.

How to stop. Reply STOP to any message to stop all messages, or HELP for help. You can also turn individual nudges off in your settings, or email privacy@socialcompanyofus.com. After STOP you may receive one final confirmation message and nothing further.

Message and data rates may apply; charges from your mobile carrier are your responsibility, and carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. We do not sell or share your mobile number, or your consent to receive messages, with third parties for their own marketing.

The Bantr website sets only the cookies it needs to work: the ones that keep you signed in and keep the site secure. We do not set advertising cookies, we do not run ad trackers, and we do not sell or share anything for cross-site advertising.

Our product analytics (PostHog) runs on our servers, not in your browser, and it is keyed to an opaque account identifier rather than your name or number — so it sets no cookie and receives no message content. Most browsers let you refuse or delete cookies, though turning off the necessary ones will keep you from signing in.

Each partner has a private thread with Bantr plus a shared thread. What you say in your private thread is not shown to your partner, and a connected calendar or financial account stays private to you until you choose to share it. This is enforced in the system, not just by policy — the details are here.

Bantr can be part of a group text with other people, including people who don't use Bantr. That happens when someone adds Bantr's number to a group, or starts a group from their Bantr account. When a group is started from an account, Bantr's first text says who started it and how to make it stop.

What Bantr sees and keeps. The messages sent in the group and the phone numbers (or Apple ID addresses) of the people in it, so it has context when someone asks it something. It also keeps what the group asks it to: the group's lists, reminders, watchlist and price alerts. It answers only when someone says "Bantr" or replies to one of its messages, and only in a group where at least one person has a Bantr account.

What a group never sees. A group is kept apart from everyone's own Bantr account. In a group, Bantr has no access to anyone's private or shared threads, calendars, email, bank or investment accounts, or anything it remembers about them, and it never says who in the group uses Bantr. This is built into the system: the assistant that answers in groups is not given any of that information or any way to look it up. What you say in a group stays in that group and does not appear in your own threads.

How to stop. Anyone in a group can reply STOP. Bantr sends one confirmation, then stays out of that chat, and it won't add your number to any new group it starts. Reply START to bring it back. To have a group's messages and lists deleted, email privacy@socialcompanyofus.com from anyone in the group; we delete them within 30 days.

We share only what a given provider needs to do its job, and only for these purposes:

• Anthropic — the AI model that powers the assistant. Your messages, and the connected-account context needed to answer them, are sent to it to generate a reply. Your data is not used to train its models.
• OpenAI — image generation, when you ask for a picture.
• AssemblyAI — transcription of voice notes you send.
• Supabase — the database where your account and history are stored.
• Pinecone — the search index that lets Bantr recall things you told it.
• Vercel and Render — hosting.
• Linq and Meta (WhatsApp) — delivering the actual text messages.
• Plaid — connecting bank, card, and brokerage accounts.
• PostHog — product analytics and error reporting.
• Google Maps, Brave Search, and similar data APIs — looking up a place, a route, or a fact you asked about.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it — a court order, a subpoena, or a valid government or law-enforcement request — or where we need to in order to protect the rights, property, and safety of our users, the public, or us. If the business is ever sold, merged, or acquired, your information may transfer with it, still under this policy; if the policy would change, we will tell you before it does.

We keep your information while your account is active. You can ask us to delete it at any time: text Bantr DELETE MY DATA, or email privacy@socialcompanyofus.com. We will delete your account, message history, and connected-account tokens within 30 days, except where we must keep something to comply with the law. Disconnecting a linked account deletes the data we pulled from it.

Whatever your location, you can ask us to:

• Access — get a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Correct — fix anything inaccurate or incomplete.
• Delete — erase your account and its data, subject only to what the law requires us to keep.
• Port — receive your data in a portable format.
• Opt out — stop marketing messages, or stop texts entirely (reply STOP).
• Withdraw consent — disconnect a linked account, or withdraw a permission you previously gave.

Text Bantr or email privacy@socialcompanyofus.com. We will respond within 30 days, and we will not charge you or degrade your service for asking. Depending on where you live you may also have the right to complain to your local data-protection authority.

Connections to Bantr and to the services it uses are encrypted in transit with TLS. Each couple's data is isolated at the database level, and the tokens that link your bank and calendar accounts are kept in an isolated store that the web app cannot read. Bantr is not end-to-end encrypted — the assistant has to read your messages to help with them.

We are based in the United States and your information is processed here, including by the service providers listed above. If you use Bantr from outside the US, you are asking us to transfer your information to a country whose data-protection laws may differ from your own. Where the law requires a transfer safeguard, we rely on the standard contractual clauses in our agreements with those providers.

Bantr is for adults. It is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their information. If you believe we have, contact us and we will delete it.

If we change this policy we will update the date above, and we will tell you in your thread before a material change takes effect. If you keep using Bantr after a change takes effect, that is your acceptance of the updated policy; if you would rather not, you can delete your account as described above.

The Social Company of the United States, Inc.
privacy@socialcompanyofus.com
(844) 670-7482