Privacy, in plain language.

Information used by Beans

• Account and access information. Beans uses Clerk, through the shared Mae sign-in service, to authenticate you. Sign-in information such as your email address and credentials is handled by that service. Beans uses account and session identifiers to check access to family and pet records. The Clerk sign-in software also sends your iPhone’s vendor device identifier and device information to its authentication service. Signing in does not import Mae’s records into Beans.
• Your Human profile. If you choose to complete your profile, Beans stores your preferred name, optional city or ZIP/postal code, and chosen portrait identifier with your signed-in Beans account. Your sign-in email is displayed from Clerk. Human profiles are private to that account and remain separate from family and pet permissions. The six animated portraits are bundled with the app; selecting one does not upload a personal photograph or send your profile to an image-generation service. A protected, device-only Keychain draft supports unfinished edits and save retries.
• Pet records and content you provide. This includes pet names and species, notes, everyday care logs, confirmed vaccine and preventive-care records, saved care schedules, evidence references, conversation cards, policy details, and documents you choose to import. Documents and free text may contain personal information, so share only what you intend to use with Beans.
• AI conversation content. Before your first AI conversation, Beans asks for permission to send your typed messages, microphone audio, photos you explicitly send, camera images you enable, your saved Human name and city or ZIP/postal code, and relevant pet records and conversation history to Google’s Gemini service. These are sent when you choose to use the conversation after allowing that sharing. The app does not save a raw audio or video recording. Photos explicitly shared in conversation are sent as temporary image frames; that action does not save the original as a pet record. The shared image derivative removes photo metadata such as GPS. When conversation memory is on, finalized conversation text is retained separately, including owner speech transcriptions and assistant replies. Beans can recall your own saved statements across pets you can still access to remember details about their Human. This recall excludes other caregivers’ statements and Beans’ replies. Editing your Human profile supplies its current name and locality; deleting conversation history removes those statements from future recall. No separate inferred Human fact database is created.
• Location and maps. When you ask for nearby veterinarians or pet services such as daycare, boarding, or grooming, the app can request your iPhone’s location permission and use location with Apple’s map services. Map views also request tiles from OpenFreeMap. Map providers receive the network requests needed to display their content. You can also search a town or postal code without granting location access. Saved places retain Apple place identifiers and owner-entered labels, notes, and usual-provider choices within authorized pet records; current listing details are fetched from Apple Maps. When you ask Beans about services, the search request and bounded results can be used in that AI conversation. The current beta does not receive a live pet tracker feed.
• AirTag companion. Beans stores an owner-entered AirTag name with the selected pet. An optional Find My recovery link stays in the device-only Keychain for your account and pet, is cleared on sign-out or Beans account deletion, and is not sent to Beans AI or stored in shared pet records. Opening it hands off to Apple. Removing the local copy does not revoke Apple’s sharing link; stop sharing in Find My to revoke it. Beans cannot read AirTag location, battery, routes, or last-seen information.
• Care reminders. If you opt into care alerts, Beans stores your device’s APNs token, installation identifier, signed-in account/session binding, notification preference, confirmed schedule, and delivery-attempt status. The server uses Apple Push Notification service for remote alerts, which show generic care-reminder wording. Accepted requests do not prove an alert was displayed. Turning off alerts stops future sends for that installation; an alert already accepted or shown may remain.
• Device preferences and support information. Beans stores preferences such as appearance and conversation memory settings. If you send feedback, we receive the email, screenshots, and other information you choose to include. Hosting and service providers process technical request information needed to operate their services.

Where information goes

Beans’ hosted service uses Vercel and Supabase to provide authorized access and store Human profiles and pet records. Information for a pet can be shared with other people who have authorized access to that family and pet. It is not a public profile.

On your iPhone, Beans keeps a persistent pet-history database protected by iOS Data Protection. Locally pending record writes are encrypted before upload. Pet portraits currently stay on the device. The history database can be rebuilt from authorized cloud records and is excluded from device backups. This is not a claim that all Beans information stays on the device or that cloud records are end-to-end encrypted.

Relevant history may be included in an AI conversation to answer your question. Turning conversation memory off stops new text retention by Beans; it does not stop the processing required for a live conversation you choose to use.

Service providers also have their own privacy information: Clerk, Google, Supabase, Vercel, and Apple. Their processing of information for Beans also depends on the applicable service arrangements. This page does not promise a particular provider training, regional-processing, or retention setting.

When Beans retrieves approved reading material, it keeps pet/account-bound provenance hashes so a reference you later save can be matched to the retrieved passages. Saving a reference retains its query, limited excerpts, source links and access dates. These are historical readings, not verified new medical facts. Opening an original article uses the publisher’s website and its privacy practices.

Opening an insurer’s website takes you to that insurer’s service. Beans does not ask for your insurer password and does not automatically synchronize an insurer account.

Your controls

• Human profile. You can skip this step, edit it later from My profile or Settings, or continue onboarding when a save cannot be confirmed. Completing or skipping a Human profile does not allow AI conversation sharing. Deleting your Beans account removes the Human profile, its saved mutation receipts, and the local profile draft.
• AI sharing permission. The first-use screen explains sharing with an external AI service and the content it receives. The service is Google’s Gemini, identified in this policy. Choose “Not now” to keep using pet records without enabling AI conversations. Permission is saved for your signed-in account on this iPhone. In Settings, “Turn off AI conversations” ends active conversation sharing and blocks new AI conversations until you explicitly allow sharing again. This does not delete previously saved records or data already processed by the service.
• Microphone, camera, and location. Use the native conversation controls and iPhone Settings to manage permissions. Camera sharing starts only when you enable it; still photos are shared only when you explicitly send them. Ending a conversation stops the app’s active capture.
• Remember conversations. Conversation memory is on by default for a pet until you change that preference. In a Beans conversation, tap the conversation memory status to open the notebook controls. Turning this off stops new conversation capture. It does not delete previously retained history or separately saved notes.
• Export. “Prepare history export” prepares conversation text that your account is authorized to access for the selected pet, including locally pending turns where available. An internet connection is required. You choose whether and where to share the export; a shared copy is outside Beans’ deletion controls.
• Delete your conversation history. “Delete my conversation history for this pet” removes the text from your own sessions for the selected pet and turns capture off. Other family members’ sessions and separately saved notes remain. Connected devices apply the deletion when they next synchronize. A new conversation is required before saving new memories after deletion.
• Delete your Beans account. In Settings, open the Account section and choose “Delete Beans account,” then confirm. For a solely owned Beans family, this permanently removes the Beans pet profiles, conversation history, notes, care records, and saved insurance information and documents. The app clears this account’s saved copies on the current iPhone after the service confirms deletion. If confirmation or local cleanup is interrupted, account access stays paused and you can retry the same request. If your account involves another family or shared records, the beta stops the deletion without removing data and directs you to support to resolve ownership.
• Shared sign-in and other devices. Deleting Beans does not delete your shared Clerk/Mae sign-in or Mae account. Other iPhones apply Beans cleanup when they next verify account access online; an offline device may still hold protected local copies until then. Beans does not automatically recreate deleted records. “Start fresh in Beans” requires an explicit choice; an older device may offer “Continue in Beans” to access the current account. Neither restores deleted content.
• Other privacy requests. Email chadwick.jones@gmail.com for help with shared-family ownership, account access, correction, export, or a broader deletion request. Describe the request without sending passwords or identity documents. We may need to verify account ownership. Removing the shared sign-in account is a separate request from deleting Beans data.

Retention and deletion limits

Saved information remains available for ongoing pet history unless it is removed through the applicable feature or a data request. The beta does not currently publish a fixed automatic deletion schedule.

A conversation deletion removes source text from active Beans storage and retrieval. Minimal deletion and synchronization records can remain to prevent old devices from restoring deleted content. For account deletion, Beans retains hashed account/session identifiers, access-state markers, request identifiers, timestamps, and family/pet identifiers needed for safe retries and device cleanup. Existing security revocation records can also remain. These deletion receipts do not contain pet names or conversation content. Deletion is not a promise of immediate erasure from database free space, service-provider context, backups, or copies you or another authorized person exported. Provider and backup retention periods are not specified here; contact support for help understanding a particular request.

Signing out stops access for that account session but does not itself delete cloud records or every protected local cache. Deleting the app does not itself delete the account’s cloud records.

These pages and changes

These public pages contain no analytics scripts, advertising, third-party fonts, or embedded tracking content. Ordinary requests still reach the hosting provider. Links to outside websites follow those websites’ practices.

As the beta changes, this page may be updated to reflect new data flows and controls. The update date appears above.