BuoyAI

BuoyAI Privacy Policy

Effective Date: September 9, 2025
Last Updated: July 17, 2026

1. INTRODUCTION

BuoyAI ("we," "our," or "us") respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our personal finance management application and services.

2. INFORMATION WE COLLECT

2.1 Personal Information

  • Account Information: Name, email address, username, and profile picture
  • Authentication Data: Encrypted passwords, Google OAuth tokens
  • Profile Data: Currency preferences, user settings

2.1a Website Visitor Information (No Account Required)

If you give us your email address on our website — for example to claim an extended free trial or to have a calculator result sent to you — we store that address, the page or prompt you gave it on, and any figures you asked us to save. You do not need an account for this, and we collect nothing else about you.

  • Lawful basis: your consent, given when you submit the form.
  • What we send: confirmation of what you asked for, then occasional tips and product news.
  • Opting out: every one of those emails carries a one-click unsubscribe link, which stops all marketing email to that address. If you later create an account, essential messages about your account and security are separate and are managed in Settings.
  • Retention: we keep the address until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it, whichever comes first. See Section 6.
  • We never sell it, and we never share it with advertisers.

2.2 Financial Information (via Plaid)

  • Account Data: Bank account names, types, balances, and account numbers
  • Transaction Data: Transaction amounts, dates, merchant names, categories
  • Connection Data: Financial institution information and connection status

2.3 Usage Information

  • Application Usage: Pages visited, features used, session duration
  • AI Interactions: Queries submitted to AI services, responses generated
  • System Logs: Error logs, performance metrics, security events

2.4 Technical Information

  • Device Information: Browser type, operating system, IP address
  • Cookies: Session cookies for authentication and functionality
  • Security Data: Login attempts, suspicious activity detection
  • IP Geolocation: Approximate geographic location (city/region level) derived from IP address for security and fraud prevention purposes

3. HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

3.1 Primary Services

  • Provide personal finance management and budgeting tools
  • Connect to your financial accounts through Plaid
  • Categorize and analyze your financial transactions
  • Generate AI-powered financial insights and recommendations
  • Detect and manage recurring subscriptions

3.2 Account Management

  • Create and maintain your user account
  • Authenticate your identity and secure your account
  • Detect suspicious login activity using IP-based geolocation (city/region level)
  • Provide risk-based security measures to protect your account
  • Provide customer support and respond to inquiries
  • Send important account and security notifications

3.3 Service Improvement

  • Analyze usage patterns to improve our services
  • Develop new features and functionality
  • Monitor and maintain system security and performance
  • Conduct research and analytics on financial trends

3.4 Anonymized Crowdsourced Subscription Detection

To improve our subscription detection accuracy for all users, we collect and aggregate anonymized pattern data when users confirm or dismiss detected subscriptions. This helps identify common subscription services and improve detection confidence.

What we collect (anonymized):

  • Normalized merchant names (e.g., "netflix" not your specific transaction details)
  • Typical subscription amount ranges (e.g., "$15-20/month")
  • Common billing frequencies (monthly, annual, etc.)
  • Aggregate confirmation and dismissal counts

What we DO NOT collect:

  • Your name, account details, or any personally identifiable information
  • Your specific transaction amounts or dates
  • Any data that could identify you or your financial activity
  • Individual user actions or patterns

Your Control:

  • By default, your confirmation/dismissal actions contribute to this anonymized database
  • You can opt out at any time in Settings > Privacy > Subscription Pattern Sharing
  • Opting out does not affect your subscription detection functionality
  • Previous anonymized data cannot be traced back to you

This feature helps improve subscription detection for the entire BuoyAI community while protecting your individual privacy.

4. INFORMATION SHARING AND DISCLOSURE

4.1 Third-Party Service Providers

Plaid Inc.

  • Purpose: Secure connection to your financial accounts
  • Data Shared: Bank account credentials, transaction data
  • Protection: All data transmitted through encrypted connections
  • Control: You can disconnect accounts at any time

Google Services

  • OAuth Authentication: For secure login via Google account
  • AI Services: For generating financial insights (anonymous/aggregated data only)
  • Data Protection: Subject to Google's privacy policies

Stripe, Inc.

  • Purpose: Payment processing for subscriptions
  • Data Shared: Name, email, and payment details. Card data is entered directly with Stripe (PCI-DSS Level 1); we store only tokenized references (customer/subscription IDs)
  • Data Protection: Subject to Stripe's privacy policy

PostHog

  • Purpose: First-party product analytics to understand feature usage and improve the app (not advertising)
  • Data Shared: In-app usage/interaction events and device identifiers
  • Data Protection: Subject to PostHog's privacy policy

Sentry

  • Purpose: Crash and error monitoring to keep the app reliable
  • Data Shared: Crash reports and diagnostic/technical data
  • Data Protection: Subject to Sentry's privacy policy

4.2 We Do NOT Sell Your Data

  • We never sell, rent, or trade your personal or financial information
  • We do not share your data with advertisers or marketing companies
  • Financial data is used solely for providing our services to you

4.3 Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information when required by law or to:

  • Comply with legal process or government requests
  • Protect our rights, property, or safety
  • Prevent fraud or security threats
  • Enforce our terms of service

4.4 Connected AI Assistants (BuoyAI Connect)

BuoyAI Connect is an optional feature that lets you link a third-party AI assistant (such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini) to your BuoyAI account so you can ask it about your finances from within that assistant. It uses the industry-standard Model Context Protocol (MCP) with OAuth 2.0 authorization.

Nothing is shared until you connect an assistant and approve it. When you add BuoyAI as a connector, we show you a consent screen naming the specific assistant and the access it is requesting; data flows only after you approve, and only to the assistant you connected.

  • What is shared (read-only): When connected, the assistant can read your financial information to answer your questions — including your accounts and balances, transactions and spending summaries, cash-flow figures, budgets, savings goals, subscriptions, income summaries, and your profile and app preferences.
  • What is NOT shared or permitted: Your bank login credentials are never shared. The connection is read-only — a connected assistant cannot move money, make payments, initiate transfers, or change or delete your data.
  • Third-party processing: Once you share data with an assistant, its provider (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google) receives and processes that information under its own privacy policy and terms, which govern how that provider stores, uses, and retains it. We do not control that provider's handling of data you direct to it.
  • Your control: You can disconnect the assistant at any time from that assistant's own settings (removing the BuoyAI connector), which immediately revokes its access. Access is scoped and time-limited — authorization tokens expire and must be renewed — and every connection is tied to your explicit, per-assistant consent.
  • Availability: BuoyAI Connect is a Premium feature.

5. DATA SECURITY

5.1 Encryption Standards

  • Data in Transit: All communications encrypted with TLS 1.3
  • Data at Rest: Sensitive data encrypted with AES-256
  • Financial Tokens: Plaid access tokens encrypted before storage
  • Passwords: Hashed using BCrypt with salt

5.2 Security Measures

  • Authentication: Multi-factor authentication support
  • Access Controls: Role-based access and principle of least privilege
  • Container Security: Read-only filesystems and minimal capabilities
  • Monitoring: Continuous security monitoring and incident response
  • Biometric Unlock: Fingerprint/face verification happens entirely on your device through the operating system; biometric data never reaches our servers

5.3 Infrastructure Security

  • Network Protection: Firewall rules and secure proxy configuration
  • Regular Updates: Automated security patches and vulnerability scanning
  • Backup Security: Encrypted backups with secure access controls

5.4 Data Stored on Your Device (Mobile App)

To keep the mobile app fast and usable without an internet connection, it stores a local copy of your recent financial data (such as transactions, budgets, balances, and savings goals) and any changes you make while offline:

  • Protection: This on-device data lives in the app's private storage and is protected by your device's built-in encryption (standard on modern iOS and Android devices). Your bank login credentials are never stored on your device.
  • Deletion: The local copy is deleted automatically when you sign out, when your account is deleted, or when a different user signs in on the same device.
  • Your Control: You can turn off periodic background updates at any time in Settings → Privacy & Data → Background sync; the app will then refresh data only while you are using it.

6. DATA RETENTION

6.1 Account Data

  • Active Accounts: Retained while your account is active
  • Closed Accounts: Deleted within 30 days of account closure
  • User Request: Immediate deletion upon verified user request

6.2 Financial Data

  • Transaction History: Retained for service functionality
  • Connection Data: Maintained while accounts are connected
  • AI Insights: Stored to improve personalization and avoid duplicates

6.3 Log Data

  • Security Logs: 90 days for security monitoring
  • System Logs: 30 days for operational purposes
  • Error Logs: 90 days for troubleshooting and improvement

7. YOUR RIGHTS AND CHOICES

7.1 Account Control

  • Access: View your data in the app; request a full copy by emailing privacy@buoy-ai.com
  • Correction: Update incorrect or incomplete information
  • Deletion: Request deletion of your account and data — in the app (Settings → Delete Account) or, without the app, at buoy-ai.com/delete-account
  • Portability: Request an export of your data in a portable, machine-readable format by emailing privacy@buoy-ai.com

7.2 Connection Management

  • Disconnect Accounts: Remove bank connections at any time
  • Data Synchronization: Control when financial data is updated
  • Selective Access: Choose which accounts to connect

7.3 Privacy Settings

  • AI Features: Opt out of AI-powered insights
  • Connected AI Assistants: Review and revoke any third-party AI assistant you have linked via BuoyAI Connect (see Section 4.4) — disconnect it from that assistant's settings to immediately cut off access
  • Subscription Pattern Sharing: Opt out of contributing anonymized subscription pattern data (see Section 3.4)
  • Data Processing: Control how your data is analyzed
  • Communications: Manage notification preferences

8. COOKIES AND TRACKING

8.1 Essential Cookies and Storage

These are always active and cannot be turned off, because the app cannot function without them:

  • Authentication: Required for secure login and session management
  • Security: Necessary for fraud prevention and security
  • Functionality: Enable core application features (e.g. saved preferences)
  • Website preferences: Our site remembers, in your browser's local storage, that you dismissed or completed an offer prompt, so it does not ask you again. This exists purely to honour your choice, is never read for analytics or advertising, and never leaves your device.

8.2 Analytics Cookies and Storage (Consent-Based)

  • We use first-party product analytics (PostHog) to understand feature usage and improve the app. This sets analytics cookies / local storage and is not advertising.
  • These are off by default. We ask for your choice on first use via a consent banner, and analytics do not load — and no analytics cookies or storage are written — until you opt in.
  • You can change your choice at any time under Settings → Privacy & Data → Product analytics. Turning it off stops analytics collection immediately.
  • Crash reporting (Sentry) is used to diagnose errors and improve stability. See Section 4.1.

8.3 No Advertising or Cross-Site Tracking

  • We do not use advertising cookies or tracking pixels
  • No data shared with social media platforms for tracking
  • No behavioral advertising or profiling for marketing
  • We do use first-party product analytics (PostHog) and crash reporting (Sentry) to improve the app and fix bugs — never for advertising. See Section 4.1.

9. CHILDREN'S PRIVACY

BuoyAI is not intended for children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If you believe we have collected information from a child under 18, please contact us immediately.

10. INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS

Your information may be processed in countries where we operate. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your information when transferred internationally.

11. PRIVACY POLICY UPDATES

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. We will notify you of significant changes by:

  • Posting the updated policy on our website
  • Sending email notifications for material changes
  • Providing in-app notifications when you next log in

12. CONTACT INFORMATION

For privacy-related questions or concerns, contact us at:

Email: privacy@buoy-ai.com
Subject Line: Privacy Policy Inquiry

For data deletion requests or exercising your privacy rights: Email: privacy@buoy-ai.com
Subject Line: Data Rights Request

13. COMPLIANCE

This Privacy Policy complies with:

  • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
  • California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
  • Financial data protection standards
  • Plaid privacy and security requirements

Document Version: 1.2
Effective Date: September 9, 2025
Next Review: January 16, 2027

This Privacy Policy is part of our Terms of Service and governs your use of BuoyAI services.