Privacy Policy

When you use Carlene directly, we handle your information to provide the consumer service described here. Consumer health information may be protected by federal and state privacy laws even when HIPAA does not apply.

When Carlene provides a service on behalf of a healthcare provider, information processed for that service is governed by the provider arrangement, applicable law, and any required business associate agreement. The provider's privacy notice also applies to its handling of your information. This policy is not a provider's HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices.

A provider relationship does not give that provider automatic access to your separate consumer conversations. Consumer data is not automatically transferred into a provider service. Any transfer must have an appropriate legal basis and permissions.

Messages. The texts you send to Carlene and the replies she sends you, so the conversation has continuity.

Your phone number (or other channel identity), so we can reply to you and recognize you next time.

Things you choose to share that Carlene remembers: where you are in the process, dates, what helps, your name, your timezone, and reminders you ask for. You control this — see “Your controls” below.

Consent records (that you confirmed you are 18+, understand Carlene is an AI, and agreed to memory), and minimal delivery metadata (message ids, timestamps, delivery status).

Portal sign-in. If you link the web portal, we receive your Google account email and identifier from Firebase Authentication.

Secure forms and uploads. Information you submit through the portal, including insurance details and uploaded files. Please use secure forms for sensitive identifiers and documents rather than messaging them to Carlene.

We do not collect payment information. We do not run ads or sell data.

To reply to you, remember what you asked us to remember, send reminders and check-ins you requested, keep you safe (honoring STOP, pause, and urgent-keyword handling), and keep the service running (deduplication, rate limits, abuse prevention).

Carlene provides education and organization only. She does not diagnose, prescribe, choose treatments, or monitor emergencies. What you tell her is treated as your own statement, not a verified medical record.

Carlene runs on a small set of service providers acting on our instructions:

• Meta / WhatsApp — message transport when you use WhatsApp. Subject to WhatsApp’s own terms and retention.
• Twilio — text-message transport when you use SMS.
• Vercel — application hosting and AI Gateway (request routing).
• Google Firebase — database (Firestore), authentication, and file storage.
• AI model providers — reached through Vercel AI Gateway to generate replies. We configure providers so your conversations are not used to train their models where the provider offers that setting.

We do not sell your information or share it with advertisers. Separate consumer information is not automatically shared with clinics, insurers, or employers. For a service provided on behalf of a healthcare provider, permitted sharing is limited by the relevant agreement and applicable law. Optional integrations require separate permission.

We keep information for the service purposes described here and applicable legal obligations. Account closure stops new Carlene activity and starts a deletion request. Eligible consumer records are removed; provider records and records subject to legal holds require review before deletion.

Limited consent evidence, security audit metadata, and deletion receipts are kept separately under the applicable retention policy. They are not used to continue the companion conversation. Required HIPAA compliance documentation has a six-year retention rule; this does not mean every conversation or upload must be kept for six years.

Provider record retention depends on applicable law and the provider agreement. You may contact us or your provider about access, corrections, and deletion requests. Provider-held records may need to remain after your Carlene account closes.

Backup, hosting, agent runtime, and messaging copies have separate retention and deletion procedures. Account deletion does not erase your own WhatsApp or SMS history. Contact us for information about records retained in connection with your request.

• Text “what do you remember” to see what Carlene has saved.
• Ask her to forget something, or text “forget” with the item.
• Text STOP to end proactive messages, or pause to pause them.
• Export a summary or request account closure and deletion from the portal privacy page, or follow the data deletion instructions.

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by our providers, access is limited to what the service needs, and message bodies are not written to application logs. WhatsApp encrypts messages between your phone and WhatsApp; once a message reaches Carlene it is processed by the services above. We do not claim HIPAA compliance, anonymity, or end-to-end encryption across the full processing chain.

Carlene is for adults 18 and over. We ask you to confirm this before she remembers anything. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 18, we stop the consumer service and review the information for deletion, subject to applicable record-retention requirements.

If this policy changes materially, we will tell you in the conversation before the change takes effect. Questions or requests: support@carlene.ai.