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AssistBernice

Privacy Policy

Effective June 27, 2026

Privacy Policy

AssistBernice is an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tool designed for people with expressive aphasia, their families, and caregivers. We built it with one guiding principle: your communication data belongs to you and stays on your device.

This policy explains what information AssistBernice collects, where it goes, and your rights over it. We have worked to keep this plain and readable — you should not need a lawyer to understand how we treat your data.

What data AssistBernice stores

AssistBernice stores all of its data locally in your browser using localStorage. This data never leaves your device unless you choose to send a family message or email digest (see below). Stored data includes:

  • Communicator profiles: name, relationship, caregiver name, and caregiver notes
  • Custom phrase tiles: labels, spoken text, categories, and photos you upload
  • Communication metrics: phrase counts, usage totals, session counts
  • Recent and most-used phrases
  • Family messages you compose and save
  • Settings: text size, tile size, speech rate, high contrast, language preference, morning reminder time, and default family contact (name, email, phone)

We do not have access to any of this data. It is stored on your device only. If you clear your browser storage or use a different device, this data will not be available.

When data leaves your device

AssistBernice only transmits data off your device when you explicitly request it:

Family messages and quick-send

When you send a family message or use quick-send, the message text, sender name, recipient name, recipient email address, and/or recipient phone number are sent to our server, which forwards them to:

We do not store messages on our servers. The server acts as a relay only: your message is forwarded to the delivery provider and the connection closes.

Family digest email

When you send a family digest, today's communication summary — including spoken phrase counts, recent phrases, and saved family messages — is sent to the email address you specify. This data is processed by Resend for delivery and is not stored by AssistBernice.

Family companion link

The family companion link (/family) encodes a snapshot of today's activity as a base64 parameter in the URL itself. No server request is made. Anyone with the link can read its contents.

Milestone sharing

If you choose to share a milestone moment using the opt-in share button, the milestone text is shared using your browser's Web Share API (to another app or contact on your device) or copied to your clipboard. No milestone data is sent to AssistBernice servers.

Voice and speech

AssistBernice uses the Web Speech API, which is built into your browser. Text-to-speech synthesis runs locally on your device using system voices. Some browsers may send speech requests to their vendor's cloud servers (for example, Google Chrome may use Google's servers for certain voices). AssistBernice has no control over your browser's speech processing.

If speech privacy is a concern, use a browser with fully on-device voices, or check your browser's voice synthesis settings.

What we do not collect

  • We do not use cookies
  • We do not use analytics or tracking tools
  • We do not create user accounts
  • We do not collect IP addresses for profiling
  • We do not share data with advertisers
  • We do not use your data to train AI models

Healthcare and HIPAA notice

AssistBernice is not a HIPAA-covered entity and is not HIPAA-compliant in its current form. It is designed for personal and family use, not clinical or covered-entity use.

Do not use AssistBernice in a clinical workflow, with patient records, or in any context where HIPAA compliance is required, unless you have independently verified compliance for your specific deployment. Speech-language pathologists and rehabilitation centers should obtain appropriate legal guidance before using AssistBernice with patient data.

Children

AssistBernice does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Because all data is stored locally on the user's device and no accounts are created, AssistBernice does not receive this information in any case.

Your rights and data deletion

Because all your data is stored locally on your device, you have full control at all times:

  • Access: All data is visible within the app.
  • Deletion: Use the "Reset workspace" button in Settings to permanently delete all locally stored data. Clearing your browser's localStorage for this site achieves the same result.
  • Portability: Profile export and import is planned for a future release.

For any data that passed through our servers as part of a family message (recipient email/phone used during delivery), that data is not retained by AssistBernice. Contact the relevant delivery provider (Resend or Twilio) if you wish to request deletion of delivery logs.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the product evolves. Material changes will be noted with a new effective date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review it periodically.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Reach us at [email protected].