Origin — Privacy Policy

If you apply to the pilot, we store the name and email address you give us, your answer to “how did you come across the pilot?”, and a record of the two tick boxes you were shown — whether you agreed to what taking part involves, and whether you asked to hear from us afterwards. That is all. We do not store your IP address, your browser, or anything about the device you applied from. We keep an internal note of whether you were invited, and a log of which emails we sent you and when.

When you sign in, we receive your email address, and — if you use Google to sign in — your name and profile picture. This is how we know it's you.

If you answer the optional setup questions, you may tell us how you come to questions of meaning, which traditions are part of your life, and — if you choose one of the open-ended answers — a line in your own words about which tradition that is. You may also tell us your age range, country and language. Every one of these is optional, both screens can be skipped, and skipping them changes nothing about what you can read. They decide only which sources Origin offers you first.

When you ask Origin a question, we store the question and the response, so you can return to it later in your history.

When you save a reflection, we store what you write. This is the most personal thing Origin holds, and we treat it that way.

When you give feedback (a thumbs up/down, or a written note), we store that too, linked to your account.

We also collect some technical information automatically — things like your IP address and basic device information — the same way almost every website does, mainly to keep Origin secure and working properly.

We do not collect more than this. We don't buy data about you from anyone else, and we don't use your data for anything beyond running and improving Origin.

Some of what you might share with Origin — your religious tradition, or things you write in a question or reflection — counts as especially sensitive personal information under privacy law (things like beliefs, health, and similarly personal topics get extra protection). Because of that, before you can use those parts of Origin, we ask for your clear, explicit permission, separately from agreeing to our Terms of Service. You can withdraw that permission at any time — see §5.

For the more ordinary things (your email, keeping your account running), we rely on it simply being necessary to provide you the service you signed up for.

The pilot application is a separate thing again. The name and email you give us there, and your answer about how you found us, are held because you asked to take part and we cannot reply otherwise. Agreeing to what taking part involves is required — there is no application without it. Agreeing to hear from us later is not, and refusing it has no effect on your application: it is a separate, unticked box governing a separate list. Either way, every email we send carries a one-click link that stops all of it.

We don't sell your data. We don't show your questions or reflections to other users. A short list of trusted services help us run Origin, and each only sees what it needs to do its job:

Each of these companies is bound by contract to only use your data to provide their service to us — never for their own purposes.

Some of these companies are based in the United States. If you're in the EU or UK, that means your data may travel there under legal safeguards designed for exactly this situation. If you'd like more detail on this, just ask us.

Your account information and reflections are kept for as long as your account is active.

If you delete something — a reflection, a question, or your whole account — we remove it. (Backups take a little longer to catch up; see our note on backups below.)

Anonymous usage analytics are kept for a limited time and then automatically cleared.

Pilot applications are kept until the end of the round after the one you applied for, so we can write to you about a second round if you asked us to, and are then deleted. If you use the one-click link in any of our emails, we stop contacting you at once and delete the application record at the next clear-out. Ask us and we'll delete it straight away instead.

A note on backups: when you delete something, it's removed from Origin immediately, but it may remain in routine backup copies for a short additional period before those backups themselves expire and are overwritten. This is normal for any online service and not something that's accessible or used day-to-day.

You're always in control of what you've shared with Origin:

• See what we have — ask us, and we'll show you.
• Fix anything wrong — let us know and we'll correct it.
• Take it with you — ask for a copy of your reflections and data in a usable format.
• Delete a single reflection or question — remove just that one thing, any time.
• Delete your whole account — everything tied to it is permanently removed.
• Change your mind about sensitive data — you can withdraw the permission described in §2 at any time, which is the same as deleting your account.

To do any of this today, contact us at [email protected] — we'll act on it within 30 days, usually much sooner. (We're a small team building something new; over time, more of this will become instant and self-service in the app itself.)

We store your data with strict access controls, so that — by design — only you can read your own reflections, questions, and profile information through the app. We limit who on our team can access the underlying systems, and we use industry-standard security practices for how data is stored and transmitted.

No system is perfectly unbreakable, and we'll never claim otherwise. If something ever goes wrong that puts your data at risk, we'll tell you plainly what happened and what we're doing about it.

Origin uses a small number of essential cookies to keep you signed in and the app working. With your permission, we also use analytics cookies to understand how Origin is used, in the anonymous way described in §3. You can choose "essential only" at any time.

Origin is currently intended for people 18 and older. If we learn that someone under 18 has created an account, we'll remove it.

If we make a meaningful change to how we handle your data, we'll tell you clearly — not bury it in a silent update — before it takes effect.

Questions, requests, or concerns about your data: [email protected].