Privacy policy

Last updated: 5 August 2026

1. Who we are

This app, Imbue, is provided by Imbue ("we", "us"). This policy explains how we handle personal information, and we handle it in line with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 and its Information Privacy Principles.

Imbue supports people living with chronic illness through a calm, nervous-system approach to recovery. It is for general well-being and education. It is not a medical device, and it does not provide medical diagnosis or treatment.

2. Our approach to your privacy

Imbue is built to keep your information with you. By default, the things you write and save are stored only on your device, not on our servers. You do not create an account to use Imbue, and you are not asked to identify yourself. The one exception is an email address, asked for once, only if you use the two features that keep things on our server for you - see section 5a.

3. Information stored on your device

The following is kept locally on your phone, under your control, and is not sent to us:

• A first name or nickname, only if you choose to enter one.
• Your chosen recovery pathway and the answers you give during the short intake, which tailor the content you see.
• Anything you write or save in Imbue: notes, favorites, highlights, reading progress, and your reminder and appearance settings.
• What Genevieve remembers about you, which is a small set of notes she keeps to make her replies more helpful.

Some of this may include health information, which is sensitive. It stays on your device unless you choose to share it with Genevieve (see below), post to the Wall of Support (see section 5), or turn on the optional cloud backup to your own Google account (see section 8). You can view, change, or delete this information at any time within Imbue, and clearing the app data or uninstalling removes it from your device.

4. Information processed when you use Genevieve

Genevieve is an AI assistant. When you choose to send her a message, that message, the small set of memory notes she keeps, and your first name if you have entered one, are sent securely over the internet to our server and then to a third-party AI provider so that a response can be generated and returned to you. Your first name is also used when Genevieve writes a custom audio session for you. If you prefer to keep all of your information on your device, leave the name blank and do not use Genevieve.

Because of this, please do not share anything with Genevieve that you would not want processed by a third party. We ask our AI provider not to use your content to train their models. The provider may hold the content briefly for security and abuse-prevention purposes before deleting it. Genevieve is an AI assistant and can give incorrect answers; she is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

The only content we keep a server copy of is a custom audio session. When Genevieve writes and records a session for you, the recording and its script are stored under a random, anonymous identifier (never your name) solely so your sessions can be restored on a new phone and your monthly minutes counted fairly. Neither we nor any third party uses this content for anything else, and deleting a session in Imbue also deletes the server copy.

5. The Wall of Support

The Wall of Support is an optional community space where people on the same pathway send each other short, pre-written messages of encouragement. It is the one place where something you post is stored on our server so that others can see it. You never type a message: you choose from set options, and the only free text is a first name, which is checked automatically before it can appear.

When you post or respond, we store the options you chose, your first name, an optional country (never a town or region), and a random, anonymous identifier. We do not store your exact location. Your email address (section 5a) is never shown on the wall and never stored with a post. Posting is part of a subscription or a free trial.

Please treat the wall as a public space. Reading it is open to everyone, and we cannot promise that only people using Imbue ever see it, so a post could in principle be read by someone outside Imbue. That is why there is no typing beyond a first name, why a country is optional and never narrower than a country, and why nothing you post is ever tied to your symptoms or your health record. Choose a first name you are comfortable being seen, and share only what you would be happy for anyone to read.

You can report anything that seems wrong, and you can hide another person so you never see them on the wall again. Reporting someone does not take their post down: the only thing we ever remove is a first name.

Wall posts and replies are kept for up to six months and then deleted automatically. You can remove everything you have posted at any time, sooner than that, using "Erase all your data" in Settings, which deletes your wall posts from our server as well as clearing this device.

5a. Your email address

The first time you create a custom audio session, or post to the Wall of Support, we ask for an email address and send it a six-digit code to confirm it is yours. This is the one piece of identifying information Imbue ever asks for, and it exists for one reason: those two features keep things on our server for you - your recordings, your minutes, your wall identity - and an address you can verify is what lets them find you again on a new phone. If you only read, listen and use the tools, you are never asked for it.

The address is used only to send you sign-in codes: never for marketing, never shown to anyone, and never joined to your reading, your notes, or your conversations with Genevieve. You can change it or sign a device out at any time in Settings, under About you, and you can delete it entirely with "Delete your account" under Your data and privacy. Deleting removes the address from our records. While you hold a purchase, what you have paid for is untouched and restoring the purchase recovers it; if your subscription has ended, any unused audio minutes are lost when the account is deleted.

6. What we do not collect

To be clear, Imbue does not:

• Use analytics, advertising identifiers, or tracking tools.
• Detect or track your location, or access your contacts, photos, or microphone. (On the Wall of Support you may choose to show a country, but only a country, and only if you pick one.)
• Track your symptoms, or build any profile of you for marketing.
• Sell or rent your personal information to anyone.

6a. Crash reports

If Imbue hits an error it cannot handle, it writes a technical report to your phone and sends nothing. The next time you open Imbue we ask whether you would like to send it, and you can read the whole report before deciding. Nothing is sent unless you tap Send, and declining deletes it.

A report contains the error, its technical trace, your app version, your phone's model and Android version, and a short trail of which screens were open and what Imbue was doing just before, as screen and action names only. It contains nothing you have written or read: no name, no notes, no messages to Genevieve, no reading history. File paths and anything shaped like an email address are removed before the report is saved. Reports are emailed to us, kept only while we work out what went wrong, and used for nothing else. You can switch the offer off entirely in Settings, under Your data and privacy.

6b. Diagnostic log

To help us fix problems - especially with payments, subscriptions, backups or your recordings - Imbue keeps a small diagnostic log on your phone. It records technical events only: things like “a restore found no subscription” or “a reminder could not be scheduled”, each with the time it happened and your app version and Android version. It contains no name, no notes, no messages to Genevieve, and nothing else you have written or read; file paths and anything shaped like an email address are removed. It holds the last ten days, and older entries are dropped automatically.

This log never leaves your phone on its own. It is sent only if you turn on “Send my diagnostic log” when you write to us from Contact us. If you erase your data, the log is erased with it.

6c. Telling us when something is broken

This is not analytics. Imbue does not measure what you tap, read, listen to, or how long you spend anywhere, and it never will. There is no tracking of any kind in this app.

What this is: Imbue has a handful of safeguards that catch a serious fault on our side and quietly work around it, so that you are not left stuck. The clearest example is a payment one - if the payment service cannot see a subscription you have genuinely paid for, Imbue checks with Google Play directly and lets you in anyway, rather than telling you that you have not paid.

The catch is that those safeguards work so well that you would have no reason to tell us anything was ever wrong - so the fault could carry on affecting other people, unseen, for weeks. When one of them steps in, Imbue therefore sends us a single word naming the fault, from a short fixed list, and nothing else at all.

It carries no name, no account, no device or user identifier, no app version, and nothing you have written, read, bought or done. On our side it becomes a daily count of how many times that particular fault happened: there is no record of individual messages, so there is nothing that could be traced back to you or joined to anything else. It is sent only when something is genuinely broken, never when you simply use Imbue, and at most once a day.

7. How we use information

We use the information only to provide Imbue and the features you ask for: to show you your own content, to generate Genevieve's responses when you message her, and to deliver the reminders you set up. Reminders are scheduled on your device.

8. Storage, security, and backups

Information on your device is protected by your phone's own security. Information sent to Genevieve travels over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection. If you create a manual backup, it is a single file that you save and control, and we never receive it. Keep it somewhere private: it holds everything in your app, including your conversations with Genevieve.

Imbue also offers an optional cloud backup, which is off unless you turn it on (in Settings, under Backup). It uses Android's own backup service: your app data, including notes, favorites, progress, settings, and what Genevieve remembers, is backed up automatically to the Google account already on your phone, so it can be restored on a new device. This backup goes to your own Google account, not to us; we cannot see it. It is encrypted in transit and at rest, and on Android 9 and later it is additionally protected with your device's screen lock, so that not even Google can read it while your phone has a lock screen set. Custom audio recordings are not included in this backup (they are restored from our server as described above). While cloud backup is off, none of your app data is sent to Android's backup service. You can turn it off at any time, after which the next automatic backup pass replaces the stored backup with an empty one, and Android also expires old backups on its own. Google's handling of your backup is covered by Google's own privacy policy.

9. Other organizations involved

A small number of trusted providers help us run the parts of Imbue that need the internet. They process information only to provide their service to us:

• Cloudflare, which hosts the server that relays your Genevieve messages, stores your custom audio sessions for restore, and holds the email address you verify (if you add one).
• Resend, which delivers the sign-in code emails. It receives the address the code is sent to, and nothing else.
• OpenAI, which processes Genevieve messages to generate replies and writes the scripts for custom audio sessions.
• ElevenLabs, which turns a custom session's script into the voice recording.
• Google Play and the Apple App Store, which deliver Imbue to your device.
• Google's Android backup service, which stores your optional cloud backup in your own Google account, only if you turn cloud backup on.

These providers operate internationally, so information sent to Genevieve may be processed on servers outside New Zealand. Where that happens we take reasonable steps, as required by the Privacy Act, to ensure your information is handled with comparable protections. This list may change as Imbue grows, and we will update this policy when it does.

10. Links to recommended books

Some lessons include an optional "Further reading" link to a recommended book on Amazon. These are referral (affiliate) links: if you buy something through one, we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. You never have to use them, and they do not affect what Imbue costs you.

Tapping one of these links opens Amazon in your browser or the Amazon app. We do not share any of your information with Amazon. Once you are on their site, Amazon's own privacy policy and terms apply, not ours.

11. Your rights

Under the Privacy Act 2020 you have the right to ask for access to, and correction of, the personal information we hold about you. Because nearly all of your information lives on your own device, you can already see and change it directly in Imbue, including viewing and removing what Genevieve remembers from her chat menu. If you need help with information processed through Genevieve that you cannot access in Imbue, contact us using the details below and we will help.

11a. If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area

Imbue is run from New Zealand, but if you use it from the UK or the EEA the UK GDPR and EU GDPR apply to you as well as the New Zealand Privacy Act. This section says how, in the same plain language as the rest.

Who is responsible. Imbue is the data controller for the small amount of information described above. There is no company structure behind it and no EU or UK establishment, so we have not appointed a representative; you can reach us directly at the address at the foot of this page.

Why we are allowed to process it. Almost nothing reaches us at all. Where it does:

• Genevieve and custom audio - your consent, given by choosing to use them. Because what you tell Genevieve may say something about your health, this is special-category data under Article 9, and we rely on your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a)). You can withdraw it at any time simply by not using her, and by clearing her memory and history from her own settings.
• The Wall of Support - your consent, given each time you post. You choose from set wording; the only free text is a first name, and a country is entirely optional. A post also carries which pathway you are following, which says something about your health, so this is special-category data under Article 9 and we rely on your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a)). That is why posting asks you each time, why nothing is posted unless you choose to, and why you can delete everything you have posted from Settings.
• The contact form - our legitimate interest in answering you, and yours in being answered.
• Keeping the service standing up - our legitimate interest in preventing abuse. This is why we keep a one-way fingerprint of the network address a wall post came from, rather than the address itself.

Your rights. You can ask us for a copy of anything we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, object to or restrict what we do with it, withdraw a consent, and ask for it in a portable form. In practice most of this is already in your hands: your data is on your own phone, Genevieve's memory is viewable and deletable from her settings, and "Erase all your data" in Settings deletes your wall posts from our server as well as clearing the device. Ask us and we will do the rest, free, and normally within a month.

Where your information goes. Our server runs on Cloudflare, and Genevieve's replies and the AI voice are generated by providers in the United States. New Zealand holds an EU adequacy decision; transfers on to those providers are made under the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, which those providers offer as part of their terms.

How long we keep it. Wall posts and replies are deleted automatically after six months. Custom audio recordings are kept until you delete them. Messages to Genevieve are not stored by us at all; our AI provider holds them briefly for abuse prevention and then deletes them. Contact emails are kept only as long as needed to deal with what you wrote about.

No automated decisions. Nothing here makes a decision about you with legal or similarly significant effects, and there is no profiling.

Complaints. If we have not put something right, you can complain to your own supervisory authority - the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK, or your national data protection authority in the EEA - as well as to the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner.

12. Keeping and deleting information

Information stored on your device is kept until you delete it or uninstall Imbue. Imbue gives you ways to clear your reading history and to reset or erase your data. If you keep a chat history with Genevieve, it is stored on your device; from her menu you can choose how long to keep it, turn it off, or clear it at any time (there is no separate export of chat history). Messages processed by Genevieve are held only briefly by our AI provider, as described above, and are then deleted.

13. Children

Imbue is intended for adults managing their own health and well-being. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 16.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The date at the top shows when it last changed. Significant changes will be made clear within Imbue.

15. Contact and complaints

If you use the contact form inside Imbue, your message is sent to us through our server so we can read it and reply. You may include your email address if you would like a response; leaving it blank keeps your message anonymous. We use an email address you provide only to reply to you. So we can help you properly, the message also tells us your subscription status (for example, free trial or paid), and nothing else that identifies you.

If you have any questions about this policy or about your information, you can also reach Imbue at the email address below. It is shown as an image to keep it away from spam bots; type it into your email app to contact us.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in New Zealand, at privacy.org.nz.