Privacy policy

This policy explains what personal data UP collects, how and why we use it, who helps us run UP, where it is kept, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have. It covers the website uproject.ai, the UP apps on iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web, UP’s emails, and any other place that links to this policy. We have written it to match what UP actually does today, and we keep it up to date when that changes.

What you should know first

Made and kept in the UK

UP is made in the UK. Your account, your chats and the things UP keeps for you are stored in London. UK data protection law protects you, and the EU’s too if you live in the EU.

Our AI models run on checked hosts

The models that write UP’s answers run with named providers, mainly in the United States and also in the European Economic Area, that don’t keep or train on what you send, under UK and EU safeguards. See section 3.

Your messages stay private

What you ask goes to the models with no name, email or account, isn’t kept after the answer except briefly where safety or the law requires (section 3), and is never used to train anyone else’s AI.

Your data is yours

See, download or delete everything in Settings, at any time. Deleting your account removes your history, the things UP keeps for you and the words from your chats in our logs.

You choose what UP learns

UP learns from chats, with personal details removed first, unless you turn it off in Settings. Health chats only if you switch that on yourself. Incognito chats are never saved.

Never sold, never for ads

We don’t sell personal data or use it for advertising. Every answer shows the sources it used, and the named list of everyone who helps run UP is yours on request.

The short version

• We collect what you give us (your account details and what you ask UP), what we need to run UP safely (technical logs), and what payment and sign-in services tell us (whether you’re subscribed, who you are when you sign in).
• We use it to answer you, to run your account, to keep UP safe, and, if you leave “Help UP learn from my chats” on, to improve UP’s own models from your chats with personal details removed first.
• We never sell your personal data, never use it for advertising, and never let the companies that run UP’s AI models use your chats to train their own models.
• Incognito chats aren’t stored. Conversations where someone may be at risk, and health conversations unless you agree, are never used to improve UP.
• You can see, download, correct and delete your data, turn learning off, and complain to us or to a data protection regulator.

The sections below give the full detail. If anything is unclear, email [email protected].

1. Who we are

UP is a product of Otto Technologies Limited (trading as UProject), company number 17480128, registered office: Unit 9 Wilderbrook Way, Mullacott Cross Industrial Estate, Ilfracombe, England, EX34 8FN. Otto Technologies Limited is the controller of your personal data under UK data protection law (the UK General Data Protection Regulation, “UK GDPR”, and the Data Protection Act 2018) and, where it applies to you, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“EU GDPR”). In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Otto Technologies Limited, and “UP” means the website, apps and services described above.

• Data protection questions and requests: [email protected].
• Everything else: [email protected].
• By post: Otto Technologies Limited, Unit 9 Wilderbrook Way, Mullacott Cross Industrial Estate, Ilfracombe, England, EX34 8FN.
• Our representative in the European Union (EU GDPR Article 27): [to be appointed before UP is offered to people in the EU; their name and address will be given here].
• Data protection officer: we are not required to appoint one. The person responsible for data protection at Otto Technologies can be reached at the address above.

2. What we collect, and how

Information you give us

• Beta waitlist. If you join the waitlist on uproject.ai, we keep the email address you type and, if you give it, your first name. To stop automated abuse, we also keep a one-way scrambled (hashed) form of your internet (IP) address for one hour.
• Signing in. You can make a UP account (“take your seat”) in one of three ways:
  • An emailed code: we receive the email address you type, and the first name if you give it.
  • Google: see Google user data below for exactly what Google shares.
  • Apple: Apple shares your email address (or a private relay address, if you choose “Hide my email”) and, the first time only, your name.
  For any of them, we also record when the account was made and when you last signed in. Signing in also puts you on the beta waitlist.
• Your account in the app. Your email, your name if you give it, your country and language, your settings (including how you’d like UP to answer and anything you ask UP to remember), and your plan. If you use a password in the app, we keep only a scrambled (scrypt) form of it, never the password itself.
• What you ask UP and what you add to a chat. Your messages, and anything you choose to add: a file, a photo, a document, or your location for a nearby search. Don’t share more personal information, about yourself or anyone else, than you need for your question.
• Things UP keeps for you. Reminders, lists, notes, saved answers, bookings you prepare and other items you ask UP to make or remember.
• Ratings, corrections and feedback you give on answers, and messages you send us.
• Contributions. Anything you choose to share with the community, with the name you choose to show with it.

Information created when you use UP

• Your chat history. Chats that aren’t incognito are saved in your own history so you can see them again: what you ask, UP’s answers, and what you added. They stay there until you delete them or your account. This is your history, kept for you; it is separate from what UP keeps in its logs (below).
• Incognito chats. The words of an incognito chat are stored nowhere: not in your history, not in our logs, and never used to improve UP. We keep only a record without the words: which tool ran, whether its checks passed and how long it took. If you ask UP for something of your own while incognito, such as a reminder or an item on a list, that item is made and kept like any other, because it’s yours.
• Logs of answers. For each answer outside incognito: which tools UP used, whether its checks passed, which sources it read, timings and your rating if you give one, plus the words of the question and answer with personal details removed first (see section 4 for what is removed and section 9 for how long it is kept). These help us find and fix faults.
• Device and usage logs. When your browser or app talks to UP, our servers and Cloudflare record technical details such as your IP address, the time, the page or service asked for, the app or browser version, your device type and operating system, and any error. We use these only to run UP, keep it secure and fix faults.
• Usage counts. How many questions you’ve asked today, so we can apply the daily allowance of your plan. If you use UP without an account, your IP address and a random device number your browser or app keeps are used to limit what can be asked before signing in; free accounts on the same device or connection share a count in the same way. These counts hold only a number and a date, and are used for nothing else.
• Safety records. If UP’s safety checks stop or change an answer, a record that this happened and why, without the words of an incognito chat.

Information from other people and services

• Sign-in services (Google and Apple): the details listed above.
• Payment services (Stripe and Apple): whether your subscription is active, its plan and when it renews or ends, and a reference for the payment. Never your full card number.
• Security services: Cloudflare tells us whether a form was filled in, or a question asked without an account, by a person or a bot (its Turnstile check).
• Public sources UP reads to answer you (for example official websites, reference works and search results) may mention people. UP shows these as part of an answer; it doesn’t build profiles of anyone from them.

We don’t collect your contacts, your precise location in the background, your browsing on other sites, or any advertising identifier.

3. How UP makes an answer, and who sees your question

Most answers are made on our own servers by UP’s own tools (maths, units, dates, currency, tax, nutrition and others), which don’t send your question anywhere. When an answer needs more, these are the parts involved:

• AI language models. To write an answer, UP sends your message, the earlier messages of that chat that are needed to understand it, any instructions you’ve given UP, and the information UP has looked up, to an AI language model. These models are run for us by AI infrastructure providers: companies that host AI models on their computers, and services that connect UP to them. They act only on our instructions, as our processors. We choose providers that commit not to use what we send them to train their own models and not to keep it beyond the time needed to produce the answer, except where a provider has to keep a request briefly to detect abuse of its service or to meet a legal duty. We send them no account details (no name, email or account number) with your messages. We use named providers in the United States and the European Economic Area that don’t keep or train on what you send (see section 8).
• Searching and looking things up. For questions about the news, prices, places, events, travel and similar, UP sends the words of the search (not your name or account) to information services: web search engines, maps and places, events and tickets, travel and rail times, prices and shopping, music, images and ship positions. For a nearby search we send an approximate location (the place you named, or your location rounded to the area). UP keeps its own copy of public pages it has read, so it can reuse them instead of searching again; these are public web pages, not your data.
• Checking answers. UP checks some statements against the sources it read, using its own checking model on its own or rented computers.
• Running code. If UP runs code to work something out, it runs in a locked-down space on our server, with no internet access and no access to anyone’s data.

The AI models UP uses are openly published models run on our behalf, and UP’s own models built from them. We decide which model answers which kind of question, and we may change models or providers to keep UP fast, accurate and affordable. When we do, the commitments in this section still apply.

4. Using chats to improve UP (you can turn it off)

“Help UP learn from my chats” is on unless you turn it off, with or without an account. UP tells you this the first time you use it, and nothing from your chats is used before you’ve seen that. With it on, UP keeps your questions, UP’s answers, your ratings and your corrections to train and check UP’s own models. You can turn it off at any time in Settings. Without an account the choice is kept on your device.

• Before anything is kept, UP removes names, email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses and postcodes, card and account numbers, National Insurance and NHS numbers, and health details you share about yourself.
• Health conversations are only used if you turn the setting on yourself in Settings; being on by default never covers them.
• Incognito chats and conversations where someone may be at risk (for example thoughts of suicide, abuse or a medical emergency) are never used. For those, only the fact that UP’s safety screen ran is recorded.
• You can turn it off at any time; it stops for new chats straight away. You can also download what has been kept, or delete it, in Settings.
• With it off, the words in our logs (with personal details already removed) are kept for up to 30 days, only to find and fix faults, and are never used for training. With it on, they are kept for up to 12 months.
• What UP learns is used only to improve UP. We don’t give or sell your chats to anyone to train their models.

5. Things UP remembers about you

You can ask UP to remember things (for example that you’re vegetarian, or how you like answers written). UP may also suggest something to remember from a chat; it is only kept if you say yes, and you can see, change or delete each item in Settings. UP never suggests remembering details about health, religion, politics, sexuality or other sensitive subjects. With memory suggestions switched off, UP doesn’t suggest new items.

6. Google user data

If you choose “Continue with Google”, Google shares with UP your name, email address and profile picture, and a Google account ID. UP asks only for these basic profile details (the openid, email and profile permissions). UP never asks for access to your Gmail, Google Drive, Contacts, Calendar or any other Google data.

• How we use it: only to sign you in, to identify your UP account, to show your name in UP, and to email you about your account and the beta.
• Where it is kept: with your account in our database at Supabase, in London.
• Sharing: we never sell it, never use it for advertising, and never share it with anyone except the service providers listed below that run UP for us, or where the law requires it.
• No AI training: we never use data received from Google to develop, improve or train generalised artificial intelligence or machine learning models, including UP’s own.
• Limited Use: UP’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.
• Your control: you can delete your UP account (see Your rights), and you can remove UP’s access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

7. Why we use it (our legal bases)

Data protection law requires a legal basis for each use of personal data. Ours are:

• To provide UP and your account (answering you, looking things up, signing you in, saving your chats, your settings, the things UP keeps for you, and your plan): performance of our contract with you, or the steps you ask for before one.
• Payments and your subscription: performance of our contract with you.
• The beta waitlist and emails about the beta: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Emails about your account and service (sign-in codes, receipts, important changes): performance of our contract, and our legitimate interest in telling you what you need to know.
• Improving UP from your chats: our legitimate interest in making UP better for the people who use it, balanced by the notice, the removal of personal details, the exclusions above and a one-tap way to turn it off. For health conversations, only your explicit consent, given by turning the setting on yourself.
• Health and other sensitive information you choose to share in a question: used only to answer that question, on the basis of your explicit consent, given by choosing to share it for that purpose, which you can withdraw by deleting the chat [legal review: confirm the Article 9 condition for each launch country].
• Keeping UP safe and secure, preventing abuse and fraud, and fixing faults (logs, the hashed IP address, answer records, safety records): our legitimate interests in running a safe, working service, and in protecting the people who use it.
• Responding to someone at risk: where someone’s life may be in danger, UP points to emergency help; this is in the vital interests of the person concerned.
• Legal duties, such as tax and accounting records, and responding to lawful requests from authorities: legal obligation.
• Defending or making legal claims: our legitimate interests.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can ask us for more detail of how we balanced them against your rights, and you can object (see section 10).

Automated decisions. UP produces answers automatically, and its safety checks may decline or change an answer, and daily allowances limit how much you can ask. None of these makes decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you, such as decisions about credit, employment or insurance. If you think an automated step has treated you unfairly, tell us and a person will look at it.

8. Who helps us run UP, where your data is kept, and transfers

We use service providers to run UP. Each acts only on our instructions, under a written contract that requires them to keep your data secure and confidential, to use it only for the service they provide us, and to help us respect your rights. We don’t sell personal data, and we don’t share it for advertising.

• Supabase: our database and sign-in service. Your account, the waitlist and sign-in details are stored in London, UK.
• Fly.io: runs UP’s app server and stores your chat history, settings and the things UP keeps for you, in London, UK.
• Cloudflare: hosts the uproject.ai website, protects it from attacks, delivers email sent to @uproject.app addresses, and runs Turnstile, a check that stops bots using our forms and asking UP questions without an account. Cloudflare runs a global network, so requests may pass through its servers in other countries.
• Resend: sends our emails, such as sign-in codes, from its servers in Ireland (EU).
• AI infrastructure providers: run the AI language models that write UP’s answers, and connect UP to them (see section 3). In the European Economic Area and the United States.
• Computing providers: rented computers, in the United States and the EEA, that run UP’s own models, its answer checks and its tests.
• Information services: receive the words of searches and look-ups, without your account details (see section 3). Based in the UK, the EEA and the United States.
• Stripe and Apple: take payments for UP Pro, as independent controllers of the payment details you give them, under their own privacy policies.
• Google and Apple: provide “Continue with Google” and “Continue with Apple” sign-in, under their own privacy policies.
• Professional advisers (lawyers, accountants, insurers and auditors), under duties of confidentiality, when we need their advice.

We also share personal data where the law requires it (for example a court order, or a lawful request from the police or a regulator, which we check before answering), to protect the safety of any person, to prevent fraud or abuse, or to defend legal claims. If Otto Technologies or UP is sold, merged or restructured, personal data may pass to the new owner, who must keep to this policy or tell you about any change.

The full list of providers, with what each does and where, is available on request from [email protected]. We review our providers before we use them and when their terms change.

Transfers outside the UK and the EEA

We keep your account, chats and saved things in the UK, and choose providers in the UK and the EEA where we can; the AI models that write answers run mainly in the United States. Some providers are based in, or may access data from, other countries, mainly the United States. Where personal data leaves the UK or the EEA, it is protected by one of these:

• the country has been found to protect personal data adequately (UK adequacy regulations, or an EU adequacy decision, which cover the EEA, and the United States for organisations certified under the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework);
• the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses, or for EU data the EU standard contractual clauses, with additional safeguards where needed.

You can ask for a copy of the safeguards that apply to a transfer by emailing [email protected].

9. How long we keep it

• Your account and your chat history: until you delete them or the account.
• Things UP keeps for you and what it remembers: until you delete them or the account.
• Beta waitlist: until the beta opens and we have told you, then deleted; sooner if you ask.
• Words in our logs (personal details removed): up to 12 months while “Help UP learn from my chats” is on, otherwise up to 30 days. Never from incognito chats.
• Training data built from chats (personal details removed): until the models trained on it are replaced, and no longer than 3 years [legal review]. Deleting your account removes your chats from future training.
• Hashed IP address for the waitlist: one hour.
• Device and usage logs: up to 90 days.
• What AI infrastructure providers receive: not kept beyond producing the answer, except as described in section 3.
• Payment records: as long as tax law requires (usually 6 years).
• Messages you send us: up to 2 years after we last reply, unless needed longer for a legal claim.

Backups are overwritten on a rolling basis within 30 days, so deleted data can remain in a backup until then, where it is kept secure and not used.

10. Your rights

Under UK and EU data protection law you have the right to:

• be told how your data is used (this policy);
• see the personal data we hold about you and get a copy (access);
• correct data that is wrong or incomplete;
• delete your data (erasure), unless we must keep it for a legal reason;
• restrict how we use it, for example while a question about it is settled;
• receive data you gave us in a common, machine-readable format and have it sent to another service (portability);
• object to uses based on our legitimate interests, including improving UP from your chats, and to direct marketing at any time;
• withdraw consent at any time, without affecting what we did before;
• not be subject to decisions based only on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects (UP makes none).

• In the app: Settings lets you download your data, turn learning off, manage what UP remembers, and delete your account.
• By email: write to [email protected] from the address on your account (for example to delete an account made on uproject.ai, or to leave the waitlist). We may ask you to confirm who you are before acting. We reply within one month, or tell you within that month if we need up to two more months for a complex request. There is no fee, unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.
• Deleting your account removes your profile, your chat history, the things UP keeps for you, your waitlist entry, and the words from your chats in our logs too.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK (ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113), or, if you live in the EU or EEA, to the data protection authority where you live or work.

If you live in the United States

Residents of California and other US states with privacy laws have the right to know what personal information we collect, use and disclose; to see, correct and delete it; and to opt out of its sale or sharing for cross-context behavioural advertising. We do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and have not done so in the last 12 months. In the last 12 months we collected identifiers (such as email address and IP address), account and commercial information (such as your plan), internet activity (how you use UP), approximate location when you search nearby, and the content of your messages, from the sources and for the purposes in sections 2 to 7, and disclosed them only to the service providers in section 8. We use sensitive personal information only to provide UP. You can use your rights by emailing [email protected], or through an authorised agent; we won’t treat you differently for doing so.

11. How we keep your data secure

• Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and by our providers at rest.
• UP’s app server has no access to the internet except through narrow, separately run connections for each outside service, each holding only its own keys; the chat server itself holds none.
• Access to personal data is limited to the people who need it to run UP, with strong sign-in.
• Code UP runs is isolated, with no network and no access to anyone’s files.
• Passwords are stored only in scrambled form, and sign-in codes expire quickly.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach of personal data is likely to put your rights at risk, we will tell the regulator within 72 hours where the law requires, and tell you without undue delay if the risk to you is high.

12. Cookies and browser storage

UP uses no advertising or tracking cookies, and no analytics that follow you across sites.

• The app uses one essential cookie, “up_session”, to keep you signed in.
• The website and UP in your browser keep, in your browser’s own storage on your device: your sign-in token until you sign out, a random device number (so the free allowance and your other devices work), your settings, and your recent chats so they open quickly. None of it is used to follow you across other sites, and signing out clears your chats from that browser.
• Cloudflare may set strictly necessary security cookies to protect the website from attacks and bots, including when its Turnstile check runs before a question asked without an account.

Because these are all strictly necessary, they don’t need your consent; you can block them in your browser, but signing in will then not work.

13. Children

UP is for people aged 13 and over (16 where a country requires it, unless a parent or guardian agrees). We don’t knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you think a child has given us data, email [email protected] and we will delete it.

14. Other people’s information and other sites

If you tell UP about someone else (for example in a message you want help writing), make sure you’re allowed to share it, and share only what UP needs. UP removes such details before anything is used to improve it. UP’s answers link to other websites and services; their own privacy policies apply when you visit them.

15. Bookings, tickets, listings and lifts between people

UP lets people deal with each other: tables at restaurants (UPTable), tickets (UP Events), courts and matches (UP Courts), lessons and expert or service time (UP Pros), lifts (UP Lifts), homes to rent or stay in (UP Homes) and things to buy and sell (UP market). When you use these, the other side sees what they need for that booking and nothing else:

• a restaurant, club, organiser, teacher, host or landlord sees the name you give, the booking (day, time, how many), your notes for them, and a way to reach you if you give one; a restaurant can keep a note on you for next time (such as an allergy), which you can ask them or us to remove;
• a driver and riders see each other’s first name and rating; the pick-up point and a home’s address are shown only once the booking is agreed;
• ratings and reviews you leave are shown to others with your first name;
• to sell, host, let, teach, give lifts or meet people through UP you may be asked to check your ID. The check is done by Stripe (Stripe Identity), which handles your document and selfie under its own privacy policy; we keep only the result and the date.

We keep these records for as long as your account is open, and bookings for six years for tax and disputes. No payments pass through UP yet; when they do, this policy will say how.

16. Changes to this policy

The date at the top shows when this policy last changed. If we make a significant change, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect, and where the law requires your consent, we will ask for it. Earlier versions are available on request.

17. Contact

Otto Technologies Limited (trading as UProject), company number 17480128, registered office: Unit 9 Wilderbrook Way, Mullacott Cross Industrial Estate, Ilfracombe, England, EX34 8FN. Registered in England and Wales. Email [email protected] for anything about your data, or [email protected] for anything else.