Zeno the Stoic About the app

Privacy policy

What happens to your information when you use Zeno the Stoic and this website.

Draft: some details are still being filled in before launch.

Zeno the Stoic ("the app", "we") helps you read and reflect on the original Stoic texts. We built it to collect as little about you as possible. This policy explains what happens to your information.

Who is responsible: [CONTROLLER NAME], [POSTAL ADDRESS], [CONTACT EMAIL].

What stays on your phone

These are stored only on your device (and in your own iCloud backup if you have it switched on). The only exceptions are the ones you choose: what you send to Zeno in a chat, and your reflections if you turn on the weekly review (below).

  • Your reflections (morning and evening entries)
  • Weekly reviews you choose to save
  • Saved quotes and image designs
  • Your conversations with Zeno (the history you see in the app)
  • Your settings, streak and, if you add it, your birth date for the memento mori view
  • "What Zeno remembers": the short note Premium uses to remember your situation. It is stored on your phone and sent with your messages so Zeno can use it. You can edit or delete it at any time.

What is sent when you chat with Zeno

To answer you, the app sends your messages to our server, which passes them on to Anthropic's Claude AI model:

  • What is sent: the conversation you are having, your phone's time zone (to count your week and to show the right crisis resources), the "What Zeno remembers" note if you use Premium, and the quote you asked about, if any.
  • What our server keeps: nothing of the conversation. It keeps only technical records:
    • Message counter: your anonymous install ID, the week (Monday to Sunday, in your time zone) and how many messages you have sent that week. Free use includes 3 messages a week; Premium gets up to 100. Counters are deleted after about 10 days, which is after the week they count has ended.
    • Memory counter (Premium): a similar counter for how often the "What Zeno remembers" note is updated, per install and per day. Deleted with the other counters after about 10 days.
    • Server logs: a random conversation ID, how long the reply took, error codes and how many AI tokens it used. Logs contain no message text and no install ID. They are deleted after [RETENTION, e.g. 30 days].
  • Anthropic processes the messages only to generate the reply, under its commercial terms. We pass it a scrambled code made from your install ID (it can't be turned back into the ID) as the user ID its service asks for. Under those terms Anthropic does not use this data to train its models, and it keeps it only for a limited time. See [LINK: Anthropic privacy policy / commercial terms].
  • Before your first chat, the app asks for your permission to send messages to Anthropic. Without it, you can still use everything except the chat.

Please don't share information in chats that you would not want processed this way, such as health details or other people's private information.

The weekly review (Premium, only if you turn it on)

Once a week, Zeno can read your reflections and name one pattern and one practice. It is off until you turn it on, after the app explains what is sent.

  • What is sent: when you ask for a review, the morning and evening reflections you wrote in the last seven days (at most about 6,000 characters, newest first), with their dates, go to our server, which passes them to Anthropic's Claude AI model to write the review.
  • What our server keeps: nothing of your reflections or the review. It keeps a counter of reviews per week (one review and one retry a week, Monday to Sunday in your time zone), keyed to a scrambled code made from your subscription's transaction ID, so it can't be reset by reinstalling. The counter holds no content and is deleted after about 10 days. Server logs record only how many reflections were sent, token counts, timing and error codes.
  • Anthropic processes the reflections only to write the review, as for chats (no training, limited retention).
  • The review is shown on your phone. It is kept only if you save it, and then only on your phone. "Continue in chat" starts a normal conversation that contains the review.
  • Safety: if your reflections suggest you may be at risk, the app shows crisis resources and Zeno answers with care instead of a review.
  • Turning it off: You › Privacy › Weekly review. Turning off AI chat there turns the review off too.

Purchases

Subscriptions are sold and billed by Apple. We never see your payment details. To check whether you have Premium, the app sends a signed proof of your purchase, issued by Apple, to our server. Our server checks it and keeps only the subscription's transaction ID, the product, whether the proof is valid and revoked, its expiry date, and a one-way fingerprint (hash) of the proof. It also keeps which anonymous install IDs have used that subscription, so one subscription can't be shared without limit; an install that has been idle for 180 days is removed from that list.

To check that requests come from a genuine copy of the app, the app uses Apple's App Attest. Our server keeps your anonymous install ID with the public key and Apple's attestation receipt for that app copy, and deletes them after 180 days without use.

All of these records are removed by "Delete my data", except cached subscription proofs that another install of the same subscription still uses.

Sharing Zeno with a friend (referrals)

If you open "Give a friend a free week" or share a quote image, our server gives this install a random referral code and link. It stores the code with your anonymous install ID and counts how many times the link's web page is opened. That page uses no cookies and no trackers and records nothing about who opens it.

If you claim a friend's code, the server records the claim and gives you a one-time App Store offer code for a free week, which you redeem with Apple. When a subscription starts on your phone, the app sends Apple's signed proof of it once, so your friend's free week counts; the server keeps only a one-way fingerprint (hash) of that transaction ID. The person who shared the link sees only how many friends joined, never who.

"Delete my data" removes your referral code. Claims are kept for up to 400 days as one-way hashes of the install IDs, not the IDs themselves, so the same phone can't claim a free week twice; they are then deleted. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in running the referral offer fairly.

Paywalls (Superwall)

The screens that offer Premium are shown with Superwall, a paywall service. Superwall acts as our processor. It does not make the purchase: Apple does, through the app.

  • What Superwall receives: an anonymous Superwall ID made by its software on your phone (we have no accounts, so it is not linked to a name or email); which paywall was shown and where in the app it was triggered (for example after onboarding, when the free chat messages are used up, or from You › Subscription); whether you closed it, started a purchase or restored one; and whether you have Premium. Its software also collects the technical details of your phone and app that it needs to show paywalls, as described in its policy. [LEGAL REVIEW: confirm the full list of fields against Superwall's current documentation.]
  • What we tell it about you: a few coarse facts, so we can choose and word the right paywall: the goals you picked in onboarding (such as calm, anger or worry) and your main goal; whether you finished onboarding; whether the daily quote is on and at what hour; whether you added a birth date (yes or no, never the date); whether you agreed to AI chat; and whether you claimed a friend's free week.
  • What it never receives: your chat messages, reflections, the "What Zeno remembers" note, your birth date, your name, email or location, or anything else you type.
  • Not tracking: Superwall data isn't combined with data from other companies' apps or websites, isn't used for advertising and isn't sold.
  • Resetting: "Delete my data" gives you a new Superwall ID and clears the paywall choices stored for the old one.
  • Its policy: [LINK: Superwall privacy policy, expected at https://superwall.com/privacy; confirm before publishing]. How long Superwall keeps data: [RETENTION, per Superwall's terms]. Where it stores data: [LOCATION, per Superwall's terms].

Paywall events (which paywall was shown and what happened) are also sent to our own analytics, described next.

Usage analytics (Mixpanel)

To understand which parts of the app help people and where they get stuck, the app sends anonymous usage events to Mixpanel, an analytics service, which stores them on its servers in the European Union.

  • What is sent: which screens and features you use and when (for example "finished onboarding step 4", "opened the daily quote", "sent a message to Zeno", "completed an evening reflection", "started a 7-day path", "opened the paywall", "started a purchase"), counts and rough sizes (such as "short" or "long", never the words), how many free chat messages you have used that week, which quote you looked at, your plan (free or Premium), the goals you picked in onboarding, your reminder settings, your streak length, which widgets you use, and basic device facts (iPhone model, iOS version, app version, language).
  • What is never sent: your chat messages, reflections, the "What Zeno remembers" note, your birth date, anything else you type, your name, email or location. Mixpanel is set not to use your IP address for location.
  • The identifier: a random ID made by the app, used only for analytics. It is not your install ID, Apple ID or advertising ID, and it can't be connected to our server records. "Delete my data" replaces it with a new one.
  • Not tracking: the data isn't combined with data from other companies' apps or websites, isn't used for advertising and isn't sold.
  • How long: [RETENTION, e.g. Mixpanel's default for our plan / 24 months].
  • Objecting: analytics is part of the app and has no switch in Settings. You can object at any time by emailing [CONTACT EMAIL] with the date you installed the app; we then delete the analytics data we hold for your device.

This website (asketes.app)

  • Hosting: the site is hosted by Cloudflare.
  • Analytics: it uses Cloudflare Web Analytics, which is cookieless and does not track individuals across sites. We see only totals: page views, referring sites, country and device type.
  • Cookies: the site sets no cookies.
  • The "life in weeks" tool on the page runs entirely in your browser. What you type into it is not sent anywhere.

What we don't do

  • No ads and no advertising identifiers
  • No tracking across other companies' apps or websites, and no advertising SDKs (the two services that see app activity, Superwall and Mixpanel, are described above)
  • No selling or sharing of your data for marketing
  • No account or sign-in required

Notifications

Daily quote and reflection reminders are scheduled on your phone. They do not go through any server.

Service providers

Provider Purpose Location
Anthropic, PBC Generates Zeno's replies (AI model) United States
Cloudflare, Inc. Runs our server and its search index; hosts this website and its cookieless analytics Global network
Mixpanel, Inc. Anonymous usage analytics European Union (EU data residency)
Superwall, Inc. Shows and tests paywalls (anonymous events) [LOCATION]
Apple Inc. App distribution, purchases, iCloud backup Global

Where data is transferred outside the EU/EEA, we rely on [SAFEGUARD, e.g. the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and/or Standard Contractual Clauses].

Legal basis (EU/EEA and UK users)

  • Sending your chat messages to Anthropic: your consent, which you can withdraw in You › Privacy at any time.
  • Sending your reflections for the weekly review: your consent (the opt-in), which you can withdraw in You › Privacy at any time. Reflections can touch on health or other sensitive topics; they are sent only when you ask for a review and are not stored on our server.
  • The weekly review counter: our legitimate interest in keeping the service affordable and preventing abuse.
  • Technical records and weekly message limits: our legitimate interest in running a reliable, fair service and preventing abuse.
  • Paywalls (Superwall): our legitimate interest in showing and improving the Premium offer. You can object as for usage analytics, by email.
  • This website's analytics: our legitimate interest in knowing how many people visit; it uses no cookies and no personal profiles.
  • Usage analytics: our legitimate interest in understanding and improving the app. You can object as described under "Usage analytics". [LEGAL REVIEW: confirm whether storing the analytics ID on the device needs consent under ePrivacy Art. 5(3) / local law (e.g. Germany TDDDG §25) in the launch countries.]
  • Purchase checks: performing our contract with you.

Your rights

You can ask us for access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability, or object to processing, and you can complain to your data protection authority. Because our server does not keep your conversations or link records to your identity, there is usually nothing on it we can match to you. "Delete my data" in the app removes everything stored on your phone. Contact: [CONTACT EMAIL].

Children

The app is not directed at children under [13 / 16, depending on market]. [AGE RATING NOTE.]

Changes

We will update this page and the "last updated" date when anything changes. Significant changes will also be shown in the app.