Privacy Policy

What we store

• Your account: an anonymous ID created when you first open Protag, plus the display name, handle, bio, pronouns and profile picture you choose.
• Your birthday, which we ask for before you play or write. Protag is for people 13 and older, and readers under 18 get stories kept suitable for their age. We never show your birthday to anyone, and it isn't sent to our analytics provider, only your age group. If you tell us you're under 13, we don't keep the birthday and the account can't be used.
• Your answers when you start: the fandoms you pick (to suggest stories) and, if you tell us, how you heard about Protag.
• Your personas (the names and pronouns you play as) and the characters you save to reuse in your stories.
• Your phone number, if you sign in. We use it only to sign you in and to keep one account per person.
• What you write and upload: stories you create, cover and character images, your messages in chats, comments, likes, follows and blocks.
• Your usage: how many free messages you have used today and your time zone, so the free allowance resets at your midnight.
• Your plan: whether you have Protag+, where you bought it, and when it renews or ends.
• Notifications: if you turn them on in the app, a push token for your device, so characters can text you when you've been away from a chat. You can turn this off in Profile ("Characters can text me") or in your phone's settings.
• How you use Protag: pages and screens you open, buttons you tap, features you use (like starting a chat or hitting the message limit), your device and app version, and approximate location from your network address. We use this to understand what works and to fix problems.
• Session recordings: a replay of how pages and screens were used. Everything you type is hidden, and so is the text of your chats; recordings show the layout, not your words.
• Error reports: what went wrong when the app or site crashes, with the technical details needed to fix it.
• Story reply usage: how many AI tokens each reply took, how long it took and what it cost. Not the text itself.
• Reports you send about stories, comments and accounts, and moderators' decisions about them.
• Abuse prevention: sign-in attempts and the network address they came from, kept briefly to stop spam.

How we use it

• To run Protag: your account and sign-in, your stories and chats, the replies, and the texts characters send you.
• To keep Protag safe: screening posts, handling reports, age checks and stopping spam and abuse.
• For Protag+: knowing whether you have it, and handling renewals, cancellations and refunds.
• To understand and improve Protag, from analytics, session recordings and error reports.

We don't sell your personal information, and we don't use it or share it for advertising.

What other readers see

What you publish is public: stories, comments, and your profile's name, handle, bio, pronouns and picture. Your chats, personas, birthday and phone number are never shown to other readers.

Who processes it

• Story replies are written by an AI model. Your messages and the story's setup are sent to Anthropic to generate each reply, and to write the texts characters send you while you're away. Anthropic processes them for us and, under its commercial terms, doesn't use them to train its models. The apps ask for your agreement before anything you write is sent.
• Stories, comments, profiles and images you post are checked by an AI model (Anthropic) for content that breaks the rules before they go public.
• Sign-in codes are sent by our text-message provider (Prelude or Twilio), which receives your phone number for that purpose.
• Notifications reach your phone through Expo's push service and Apple or Google. They receive your device's push token and the text of each notification.
• Purchases in the app are handled by the App Store or Google Play, and RevenueCat processes subscription status for us. Purchases on the web are handled by Stripe. We never see your card details.
• Product analytics, session recordings and error reports are processed by PostHog.
• Protag runs on Vercel, and our database is hosted by Turso.

These providers act on our behalf and may only use the data to provide their service to us. We may also disclose information when the law requires it, to protect people from harm, or to a company that takes over Protag, which would remain bound by this policy.

How long we keep it

• Your account and what you've written: until you delete it, or your account.
• Sign-in attempts: briefly, to stop spam.
• Analytics, session recordings and error reports: as long as we need them to understand and improve Protag. Contact us to have yours deleted.
• Records of purchases: Apple, Google, RevenueCat and Stripe keep these as the law and their own policies require.

Your choices and rights

You can delete chats and stories at any time, and delete your whole account in the app (Profile) or on the web (Chats). Deleting your account removes your stories, chats, comments, likes, uploads, personas, saved characters, birthday, push tokens and phone number, and cancels a Protag+ subscription bought on the web; copies in our database provider's backups expire on its regular schedule. Manage or cancel an App Store or Google Play subscription in that store's account settings.

Depending on where you live, you can also ask to access, correct, download or delete your personal information, or object to or limit how we use it. Contact us and we'll answer within 30 days. If we turn a request down, you can appeal by replying to our answer.

In the European Economic Area and the UK, we rely on providing the service you asked for, our legitimate interests in keeping Protag safe and improving it, your consent (for notifications, and for the AI storyteller in the apps), and our legal obligations. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

In California and other US states with privacy laws, we don't sell your personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we won't treat you differently for using your rights.

Children

Protag isn't for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their personal information. If someone tells us they're under 13, the account is locked, their birthday isn't kept and nothing more about them goes to analytics. If you think a child under 13 is using Protag, contact us and we'll delete the account.

Where it's processed and how it's protected

We're based in the United States, and our providers process data in the United States and other countries. Where the law requires it, transfers rely on safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. Data is encrypted in transit and access to it is limited. No system is perfectly secure, so contact us straight away if you think your account has been misused.

Changes to this policy

We'll change the date at the top when we update this policy, and tell you in the app before a significant change takes effect.

Contact us

Questions, requests or complaints about your privacy: