Privacy

What we store

• Your phone number, your first name, and when you agreed to the terms. If you use iMessage from an Apple ID email with no phone number, we store that email address the same way we store a phone number, so Alex can hear and answer you. Signing up on this site still needs a phone number.
• Which Alex number is yours. Alex runs on several phone numbers, and each person is given one: when you text (650) 456-2738, when you sign up here, or when you first talk to a Alex number that has room. We keep which one is yours so Alex always answers you from it, plus when our main number sent you a contact card, so it doesn't send you the same card over and over.
• Messages in groups Alex is in: the text, who sent it, and when. When Alex reads a photo, it looks at it once to understand it and keeps only a short description, like “[photo: receipt from Pai, $83.13 total]”. The photo itself is never stored. Voice notes: Alex turns them into text on its own computer and keeps only the text, with the message. The audio is never stored. Other attachments: we only note that one was sent.
• Messages you send Alex directly, and the short notes Alex keeps so it remembers what you told it.
• Decisions: the question, the options, each person's vote, and the result.
• Short notes about each group, like a preference or a plan, so Alex can be useful without rereading everything.
• Habits Alex picks up about a group, like the usual spot, the usual night to meet, a running joke, or who usually gets plans going, so its suggestions fit. They come only from that group's messages, plans and polls, never from direct messages, never use a member's name in a joke, and anyone in the group can see them (“Alex, what do you know about this group?”), drop one (“Alex, forget 3”) or turn this off (“Alex, stop learning about us”).
• What you say about yourself in a group, like being vegetarian, so Alex remembers it in your other groups with Alex too. Nothing you text Alex directly is ever used this way.
• Things you or your group set up with Alex: reminders, lists, pins, the tab of who owes whom, birthdays (month and day only), plans, games and challenges, saved contacts (like a sitter's name and number), and family features such as chores, allowance, pickup and custody schedules, check-ins and medication reminders. Medication reminders keep only the schedule and who they are for.
• Links Alex makes for you: a tap-to-send link holds the message you're about to send, and a shareable card is an image of something like a game win or a birthday. Anyone with one of these links can open it, so share it only with who you mean to.

When you ask Alex directly to tell a group something, it posts only those words, with your name. A Secret Santa wishlist goes only to your match.

People in a group who haven't signed up still have their phone number (or Apple ID email) stored, plus their first name if their iPhone shares it with Alex (iMessage's “Share Name and Photo”), so their messages and votes count. Alex keeps only the first name, never the photo, and texting “forget me” to Alex clears it.

Google Calendar

If you connect Google Calendar, Alex can check busy times on your primary calendar and add an event to it when you explicitly ask. If you ask to invite guests, Alex confirms the event and recipients before sending invitations. Alex never reads your existing event titles, details or guests. Alex does not ask for or use your Google contacts.

Alex stores your Google account email and id, the permissions you granted, and an encrypted refresh token, and keeps the ids of events it adds for 30 days. Busy times are checked when needed and are never stored.

Who we share Google data with

Alex shares, transfers or discloses data from your Google account only in these cases, and only so the features above work:

• Anthropic, Alex's AI provider, processes availability to write Alex's reply. When you ask Alex in your 1:1 chat when you're free, it sees the start and end of your busy times for that day, never event titles or details. In a group, it sees only the suggested times that are open, never anyone's busy times. Anthropic does not train its models on it.
• Your group sees whose calendar was checked when Alex suggests times, never your events, busy times or which times were skipped.
• When you confirm an event with guests whose iMessage address is an email, Google sends them the invitation.
• Our database host (Supabase) stores what Alex keeps from Google, listed above, with the refresh token encrypted so the host cannot read it. Our website host (Vercel) handles the Google sign-in step and passes the token on sealed, without keeping it.
• We disclose Google data to anyone else only if the law requires it.

That is the full list. Google data is never sold, never shared with advertisers, analytics tools (PostHog) or Meta, never used for ads, and never used to train AI models. No one at Alex reads your Google data, except with your permission, to investigate security or abuse, or to comply with the law.

How we protect Google data

• Google data travels only over encrypted (HTTPS/TLS) connections.
• When you connect, the website seals your refresh token right away with a public key. Only Alex's own server holds the private key that opens it, so the website and the database host cannot read it.
• Alex's server stores the refresh token encrypted with AES-256-GCM, using a key kept only on that server. Access tokens stay in memory and are never written down.
• The tables that hold Google data have row-level security with no public access. Only Alex's own services can reach them.
• Busy times are never stored. Logs and analytics never contain tokens, your Google email or busy times.
• Access to Alex's server and encryption keys is limited to Alex's operator.
• Disconnecting or texting “forget me” revokes Alex's access at Google and deletes what Alex stored from Google.

Your choices

Busy times shape group suggestions only when you leave “Use my busy times in my groups” on. Say “stop checking my calendar” to turn it off. Say “disconnect my calendar” or “forget me” in your 1:1 chat, or use Disconnect at textalex.com/connect, to remove access and delete what Alex stored from Google. You can also remove Alex at Google's permissions page. Events Alex already added stay on your calendar.

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

How long we keep it

Your direct messages stay private

What you text Alex one on one is never shared with any group and never used in a group reply. If you ask Alex privately about a group, it only answers for groups you are in, and only from that group's own messages. It never passes along anything another person told it privately.

Who processes your data

• Messages are processed by Anthropic's API to generate Alex's replies, under Anthropic's standard API data retention.
• Texts travel through Apple's iMessage or your carrier's SMS, like any other text.
• Texts to our main number, (650) 456-2738, and its reply go through Twilio.
• Our database host (Supabase) and website host (Vercel) store and serve data for us.
• Our analytics and support tool (PostHog) records website visits, the ad or referral that brought you, and a random browser id. When you text Alex, it also receives your customer profile (name, phone number or messaging email, language and time zone), chat messages, and tool requests and results so we can investigate problems and improve Alex. Website attribution is linked to your profile when your first text includes the visit code. Unknown sources stay unknown. Google Calendar data, account credentials, and image or audio bytes are excluded. Conversation records follow our message retention period; “forget me” or “forget this group” also starts deletion of the corresponding PostHog data. PostHog processes deletions asynchronously. Only our authorized team can access these records.
• Meta (Facebook and Instagram) measures our ads. Our public pages load the Meta Pixel. When you text Alex from a button on this website, textalex.com and Alex share hashed identifiers with Meta to measure ads: a hashed phone number, a hashed account id, the ad click id, the browser cookie id, your IP address and browser type. Never message content. Details below.
• Weather and sports scores come from public services (Open-Meteo and ESPN). They see a place or a team name, never who asked.

We don't sell your data and we don't show ads.

Ads measurement with Meta

We advertise Alex on Facebook and Instagram. To learn which ads lead to real conversations, the public pages of this website (not the sign-in, account or admin pages) load the Meta Pixel. It tells Meta when a page is viewed and when the Text Alex button is tapped, along with the page address and your browser's Meta cookie.

When you visit on an iPhone, this website creates a short-lived visit code, kept for 7 days, with the ad tags in the link, Meta's ad click id if you came from an ad, the browser cookie id, your IP address and browser type. The code rides along invisibly in the text Messages opens with, so Alex can tell which ad brought you. Alex removes it before reading your message, and never stores it with your messages.

When you tap the Text Alex button, Meta gets an anonymous tap: the browser cookie id, the ad click id, your IP address and browser type, with no phone number or name.

Only if you texted Alex from a button on this website, Alex also tells Meta when you send your first text, keep chatting, or add Alex to a group. With those events Alex shares hashed identifiers: a hashed phone number, a hashed account id and a hashed country, plus the ad click id, browser cookie id, IP address and browser type from your visit. Hashing scrambles a value one way before it leaves us. We never share message content, your name or anything you tell Alex, and never anything about people who got Alex's number another way or are only in a group chat with Alex. We don't turn on Meta's automatic advanced matching. Meta uses this to measure and improve our ads under its own privacy policy, and you can manage ad settings in your Meta Accounts Center.

Analytics

We count things like how many messages Alex handled and how many decisions groups made, tied to an internal user id. On this website we count page visits and taps on the Text Alex button, along with the ad or link that brought you there, using a random id stored in your browser. Analytics never include message text or phone numbers. Meta ads measurement works as described above.

Your controls

Anyone in a group can also just remove Alex's number from it.

Age and location

Alex is for people 18 and older, in the US and Canada during the beta.

Contact

Questions about your data? Email shail@paragraphai.com.