Privacy Policy

1. Overview and Scope

This Privacy Policy explains how SocialGem ("SocialGem", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, stores, and protects your information when you use our mobile applications, web applications, publishing networks, and associated services ("Services").

This policy applies to all registered account holders, visitors reading open stories on the web, followers who receive updates via email, and individuals who communicate with us. By using SocialGem, you agree to the data handling practices outlined in this policy.

2. Information We Collect

We collect information in three ways: information you choose to provide, information collected automatically during platform use, and information received from your interactions with other users.

A. Information You Provide Directly

• Account Details: When you register, we collect your email address, username, display name, and password hash.
• Profile Information: Optional profile elements you choose to provide, such as your profile picture and biography.
• Story Content: The text, titles, thoughts, reflections, media uploads, voice recordings, mood chips, and musical pairings you create within your journals.
• Direct Communications: Any feedback, inquiries, or support requests you send to our team.

B. Information Collected Automatically

• Device and Network Data: Your device type, location, operating system version, browser type, preferred language settings, and IP address.
• Engagement Telemetry: To improve story discovery in our For You feed, we monitor reading signals, such as how much time a user spent reading a story
• Error and Diagnostic Logs: Diagnostic information generated when an error occurs, helping our team resolve crashes and performance issues.

C. Information from Followers

If you follow an Open Journal on SocialGem, we collect your email address so that we can deliver new stories published in that journal directly to your inbox.

3. Processing of Stories and Journals

The way your information is handled depends on the journal type you choose for your stories:

A. Private Journals

Stories created inside a Private Journal (such as your personal timeline or custom private journals) are accessible only through your authenticated account credentials. They are never indexed by public search engines, never displayed in the open discovery feed, and never shared with other users unless you intentionally move them or send a direct copy to a friend.

Private journal stories are encrypted in transit and remain secure in your account.

B. Open Journals

Open Journals are public publications designed to be discovered and read. Stories published in an Open Journal are accessible to anyone on the internet, indexed by search engines, viewable in the global discovery feed, and syndicated via web links and direct email delivery to followers.

4. Secrets: End-to-End Encryption Architecture

The Secrets journal provides end-to-end encryption for your most personal writing:

• DEVICE-LEVEL ENCRYPTION: Every story title and body saved to Secrets is encrypted directly on your device using END-TO-END ENCRYPTION (E2EE) before transmission.
• CIPHERTEXT STORAGE ONLY: Our cloud servers receive and store only scrambled ciphertext. We do not possess the cryptographic keys needed to unlock your text.
• ZERO SERVER PASSCODE KNOWLEDGE: Your 6-digit passcode resides strictly on your device. It is never logged, transmitted across our network, or saved on our servers.
• NO RECOVERY CAPABILITY: Because we do not store your passcode or encryption keys, our team has zero technical ability to decrypt or restore your secret stories if you forget your passcode.
• PASSCODE RESET ERASURE: If you trigger a passcode reset, the system permanently and irreversibly deletes your encrypted secret stories from both your device and our servers to ensure unreadable data is never left exposed.

5. Open Journals, Followers and Email Delivery

Open Journals include native email distribution:

• Follower Subscriptions: Any person can follow an Open Journal by providing an email address. They do not need to install the SocialGem app or create a writing account to read.
• Automated Dispatch: When an author publishes a new story to an open journal, our infrastructure formats and delivers that story to the email addresses of followers.
• Privacy of Followers: We do not sell or rent follower email lists. Follower email addresses are used strictly to deliver stories and platform notifications from the specific journals they follow.
• Unsubscribing: Every email sent to followers includes an immediate, one-click unsubscribe link to stop receiving future stories from that journal.

6. Quest and Personal Intelligence

Quest is built as your personal companion, reflective guide, and thinking partner. Quest features Personal Intelligence, a private memory and contextual learning architecture designed to understand your life across time. Here is how your data, stories, and privacy are managed:

A. What Personal Intelligence Means

Standard artificial intelligence tools suffer from memory loss, treating every interaction as if you are a stranger. When Personal Intelligence is enabled, Quest features an adaptive long-term memory system and life graph. Quest privately indexes your personal writing over time to understand you: your emotional rhythms, your habits, your relationships, your recurring struggles, your personal goals, and the unique tone of your voice.

This continuous memory transforms Quest from a generic assistant into a companion that truly knows you, able to reference where you were months ago and celebrate how much you have grown today.

B. How Personal Intelligence Powers Search

Traditional keyword search requires you to remember the exact words you typed. Quest Personal Intelligence powers semantic discovery across your entire library of stories:

• Conceptual Search: You can search using natural, human questions such as "When did I last feel truly peaceful?" or "What was worrying me about my career last winter?" Quest understands the meaning behind your question and finds the relevant stories even if those exact words never appear in your text.
• Connecting the Dots: Quest synthesizes answers across years of your writing, highlighting common threads and providing direct citations so you can tap straight into the original stories where those moments occurred.
• Pattern Recognition: Quest helps you uncover gentle correlations between your moods and your day-to-day well-being.

C. Learning You Without Training Models

Quest learns you, but it never shares your mind with the world:

• No Foundation Training: SocialGem does not use your private stories, thoughts, audio recordings, or personal data to train foundation artificial intelligence models.
• Account-Level Isolation: The memory profile Quest builds about your life is mathematically isolated to your personal account. No other user on the network can ever access, query, or benefit from your own Quest.
• Ephemeral Writing Support: When you tap the Quest button in the story canvas for writing assistance, your draft context is processed securely in real time to suggest continuations matching your authentic writing style.

D. Complete User Control: The Settings Toggle

You hold total sovereignty over your mind and memory. You may turn off personal intelligence at any time:

• Toggle On or Off: You can turn Personal Intelligence ON or OFF at any time directly in your Account Settings.
• What Happens When Turned Off: If you turn Personal Intelligence off, Quest immediately ceases indexing your private stories for memory synthesis. Quest will operate in a strictly ephemeral mode, answering isolated prompts without fully undrstanding you from your stories

E. Exclusion of Secrets (End-to-End Encrypted Content)

Stories stored within the Secrets private journal are protected by end-to-end encryption. Because our cloud servers hold zero decryption keys and see only scrambled ciphertext, stories inside Secrets are completely inaccessible to Quest. Your secret stories remain in your hands.

F. Conversational History and Deletion

Direct conversations you hold with Quest inside the dedicated assistant workspace are stored securely in your account so you can search, rename, star, or reference past discussions. You can permanently delete individual messages or entire conversation threads at any time, which completely removes them from active database storage.

7. Media, Voice Notes, Location and Music

SocialGem enables sensory storytelling with distinct media tools:

• Photographs and Videos: Media files you attach to stories are stored in secure cloud object storage. They are accessible only via authenticated links for private journals, or publicly accessible if published inside an open journal.
• Voice Recordings: Audio voice notes recorded inside the app are stored as compressed audio files and streamed to authorized readers with waveform visualization data.
• Location Stamps: Attaching your geographic location to a story is entirely optional and requires your explicit device permission. When enabled, we record the coordinates you choose to stamp on that specific story.
• Music Soundtracks: Song clips paired with stories are streamed as short promotional previews via licensed music partners. We do not transmit your personal journal content to external music services when you attach a soundtrack.

8. How We Use Information

We use the information we collect strictly to operate, maintain, and enhance the Services, including to:

• Provide, synchronize, and back up your stories across your personal devices.
• Publish open journals to the web and deliver stories to followers' email inboxes.
• Deliver Quest personal intelligence prompts, daily brief, and creative writing continuations.
• Detect, prevent, and investigate technical bugs, security incidents, abuse, and prohibited conduct.
• Manage account authentication, password resets, and customer support inquiries.
• Manage subscription quotas and cloud storage limits for Gem+ members.

9. Third Parties and Disclosures

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We share data only under the following limited circumstances:

• Infrastructure Service Providers: Trusted third-party vendors who provide cloud hosting, database redundancy, object storage, transactional email dispatch, and error monitoring under strict confidentiality and security agreements.
• Your Public Directives: Content you publish inside Open Journals is publicly accessible across the internet according to your instructions.
• Direct Sharing: When you choose to send a story privately to another user, that story is copied to their account inbox.
• Legal Requirements: We may disclose information if required to do so by a lawful court order, warrant, or subpoena. For stories stored in Secrets, we can only provide encrypted ciphertext, as we do not possess the decryption keys.

10. Storage Quotas and App Stores

Free accounts receive up to 5 GB of media storage. Optional Gem+ memberships expand cloud storage limits (50 GB, 200 GB, and 1 TB tiers).

In-app purchases on mobile are processed through official application stores (Apple App Store and Google Play). We do not collect or store your payment card numbers. Your billing relationship is managed directly through your store account.

11. Data Retention and Deletion

You maintain control over your data lifecycle:

• Deleting a Story: When you delete an individual story, it is immediately removed from your active library and open journals.
• Account Deletion: You can permanently delete your SocialGem account in your settings. Deleting your account queues all private journals, secret stories, and open journals for permanent removal from our active production databases.
• Archival Backups: Residual copies of data may remain in encrypted rolling backups for up to 90 days before being automatically overwritten.

12. Security Architecture

We protect your information using layered defensive measures:

• Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.3) for all web and mobile API communications.
• zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption for the Secrets private journal.
• Continuous vulnerability assessments and least-privilege administrative access policies.

13. Global Privacy Rights (GDPR & CCPA)

Depending on your location, you may have specific privacy rights under laws like the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA):

• Right to Access: You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification: You can update or correct your profile and account information at any time.
• Right to Erasure: You can request that we delete your personal data and account records.
• Right to Data Portability: You can export your stories and journals in standard digital formats.
• No Sale of Personal Information: We do not sell your personal data.

To exercise any of these rights, contact our privacy team at privacy@socialgem.net.

14. Children's Privacy

SocialGem is not intended for individuals under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13 (or under 16 in certain European jurisdictions). If we discover that a child has provided us with personal data, we will promptly delete that account and all associated stories.

15. Policy Updates

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you through the app, by email, or through an announcement banner before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the platform indicates acceptance of the updated policy.

16. Contact Information

If you have questions, feedback, or data requests regarding this Privacy Policy, reach out to our team: