Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account and profile — your name (including a middle name or suffix if you add one), email address, password (stored in encrypted form, never readable by us), and, if you choose to add them, your phone number, birthday, gender, a short bio, a profile photo, and favorites such as a favorite holiday, flower, book, movie, food or drink.
• Signing in with Google, Apple or Facebook — if you choose one of these, we receive the name, email address and profile picture that service shares with us. We never receive your password for that service.
• Life events and milestones — what you choose to record in the app: who an event happened to and who it is for, what happened, dates, descriptions, photos, and the milestones and reminders you set. Because MileStone Five is about grief and other life-changing events, what you record can be sensitive, and may include information about health or loss. We treat it with extra care and use it only to provide the app to you and the people you share it with.
• Your support circle — the people in your circle and their relationship to you.
• People you invite — when you invite someone who doesn't use MileStone Five yet, the name, email address and phone number you give us for them, so we can send your invitation. See section 7.
• Messages, comments and reactions — messages you send in one-to-one and group chats, comments and likes on life events, and whether messages have been read.
• Reports — if you report a person or content, what you tell us, so we can review it.
• Reflections on the blog — the name you choose to display, your email address, and what you write. Your email address is never shown publicly.
• Early-access list and new-post emails — your email address, your name if you give it, and whether you asked to receive an email when we publish a new post (with when and where you agreed).
• Submitted stories — if you send us a story to publish, its text, any photos, and the name and short bio you would like shown.
• Photos — only the photos you choose to add, from your camera or photo library. The app asks your permission before using the camera or your photos.

Information collected automatically

• Pages visited — when you are signed in on the website, we record which pages you open, to understand how it is used and to keep it secure.
• Where you came from — when you join the early-access list, the page you signed up on and any campaign information in the link you followed.
• Sign-in and preferences — small pieces of information stored on your device that keep you signed in and remember your choices, including your email, text and notification preferences.
• Notifications — if you allow notifications, a notification token for your device, so we can send the notifications you ask for, and a record of the notifications we have sent you.
• App usage on Android — our Android app includes Google's Firebase Analytics, which automatically records basic usage (for example when the app is opened, how long it is used, the app version, device model, and approximate region based on your device settings) and, by default, your device's advertising ID. We don't use this for advertising, and we don't combine it with other companies' data. Our iPhone app has this turned off.
• We don't collect your location, your phone's contacts, your microphone, or information from other apps on your device. If we ever add a feature that would use your location or contacts, we will ask your permission when you first use it, explain why, keep the rest of the app working if you say no, and update this policy before the feature is released.
• Embedded video — our creator video is hosted by YouTube in privacy-enhanced mode: YouTube doesn't store information about you until you press play. When you play it, YouTube (Google) may collect information under its own privacy policy.

2. How we use your information

• Provide, maintain and improve the website and the app
• Share what you choose with your support circle, and send the invitations you ask us to send
• Send the emails, text messages and notifications you have asked for — about life events, milestones and dates, messages, and, if you asked, new posts on our blog
• Review reflections before they appear, and show approved reflections on the blog
• Tell you when early access opens, and manage the early-access list
• Publish stories you have given us permission to publish, credited the way you chose
• Keep the Platform safe: review reports, and warn or block accounts that break our Terms
• Keep the website and app secure and prevent abuse
• Answer your questions

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

3. Who we share it with

• The public — only what you choose to publish: approved reflections (with the display name you gave) and stories you have given us permission to publish.
• Your support circle and the people you message — only what you choose to share with them.
• Service providers — companies that run parts of the Platform for us and may only use your information to do so: Base44, which hosts our website and web app, stores their data, handles sign-in and sends our emails; Google Cloud, which hosts the database and stores the photos for our mobile app; Firebase (Google), which delivers mobile notifications and provides the Android usage analytics described above; ClickSend, which delivers the text messages and emails our mobile app sends (it receives the phone number or email address and the message); Apple and Google, which deliver our mobile app; Google, Apple and Meta (Facebook), only if you choose to sign in with them; and YouTube, which hosts our video.
• Legal authorities — when the law requires it.

4. How long we keep it

We keep your information only as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy:

• Your account and everything you record in the app — for as long as your account is open, however many years that is. Nothing is deleted because time has passed. When you ask us to close your account, we delete your information, except anything we must keep by law.
• Messages — for as long as the accounts in the conversation are open, unless they are deleted sooner.
• People you invite — until they join, until the life event they were invited to is deleted, or until they ask us to remove their details.
• Reflections — approved reflections stay on the blog until you ask us to remove them, or the post is taken down. Reflections we don't approve are never shown, and we delete them.
• Early-access list and new-post emails — until early access opens for you, or until you ask to be removed. If you unsubscribe from new-post emails, we keep a note that you unsubscribed so we don't email you again.
• Records of pages visited and app usage — only as long as we need them to understand how the Platform is used and keep it secure.

Moving to our new app. We are building a new version of MileStone Five. Information you recorded in the earlier version of the app may be carried into the new version so you don't lose it. It stays covered by this policy.

5. Keeping it safe

We use appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your information from unauthorized access, change, disclosure or loss, including encrypting passwords and limiting who can see your information. No method of storing or sending information online is completely secure.

6. Your choices and rights

• Ask us to show you, correct, export or delete the personal information we hold about you, or to close your account.
• Remove a reflection, or leave the early-access list.
• Stop new-post emails at any time with the Unsubscribe link in every email.
• Turn email, text or push notifications on or off in the app's settings, and notifications off in your device's settings.

Email us at milestonefiveapp@gmail.com; we'll respond within 30 days.

7. If someone invited you

If a MileStone Five user invited you to support them, they gave us your name and your email address or phone number, and we sent you their invitation by email or text message. We use your details only to send that invitation and updates about the life event you were invited to. If you would like us to delete your details and stop contacting you, email milestonefiveapp@gmail.com and we will do so.

8. Please share with care

Approved reflections are public. Please don't include private details about other people, or anything about yourself you wouldn't want others to read. When you invite someone, please make sure they are happy for you to share their contact details with us.

9. Children

MileStone Five isn't intended for children under 13, on the web or in our mobile apps, and we don't knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we'll post the new version here and change the "Last updated" date. If a change affects how we use information you have already given us, we'll tell you before it takes effect.

11. Contact us

Questions about this policy or your information: milestonefiveapp@gmail.com

MileStone Five · 4560 South Blvd, Suite 116, Virginia Beach, VA 23452