Privacy notice

Last updated October 2026

Values Architect helps you explore personal material: your values, the stories behind them, and sometimes difficult history. We've tried to design it so that this material is protected, used only to give you the service, and always yours to delete. This notice explains, in plain language, what we collect and what happens to it.

What we collect

• Your account: your email address, and the name you choose to be called (optional).
• Your content: your card sort, notes, conversation, the map built from it, and the reports created from it.
• Purchases: what you bought and when. Card payments are handled by Stripe; we never see or store your card number.
• Usage records: counts of how much AI processing each map used (numbers only, no content), so we can manage costs. Our hosting providers keep standard technical logs such as IP addresses.

How your content is protected

• Your content is encrypted before it is stored, using AES-256 with a data key unique to you. Your key is itself encrypted by a master key held in Google Cloud Key Management Service, which never leaves that service. A copy of our database alone can't be read.
• Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS).
• Database access rules mean each signed-in person can only ever reach their own records, and no one can change payment or access records except our server.

To be clear about the limits: this is not “end-to-end” encryption. To show you your map and to hold the conversation, our server decrypts your content and sends the relevant parts to our AI provider. We don't look at your content unless you ask us to (for example, to help with a problem).

The AI

The conversation and reports are generated by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. When you answer a question, your card sort, the conversation so far and your map are sent to Anthropic to generate the next reply. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, this data is not used to train its models. Anthropic may keep it for a limited period (typically up to 30 days) for safety and abuse monitoring, after which it is deleted.

You don't need to use real names. First names, initials or “my friend” work just as well.

Who else processes your data

We use a small number of service providers, each only for its specific job:

• Vercel: hosting the website and app.
• Supabase: database and sign-in.
• Google Cloud: key management for encryption.
• Anthropic: the AI that holds the conversation and writes your reports.
• Stripe: payments.

Some of these providers process data outside Canada, including in the United States. We never sell your data, and never share it for advertising.

Sharing

Your map is private unless you create a share link. A share link shows a read-only copy of your outputs to anyone who has it, so share it only with people you trust. You decide whether a link includes your personal quotes and examples, and you can turn any link off at any time.

Keeping and deleting

We keep your content until you delete it. You can delete a single map, or your whole account from the Account page, which permanently removes your maps, conversations, reports, share links and encryption key. Encrypted database backups are kept for a short period for disaster recovery and then expire.

Your rights

You can ask to see, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you, or ask questions about this notice, by contacting us at hello@valuesarchitect.com.

Not a crisis service

Values Architect is a self-reflection tool, not a health or crisis service. If you're in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, please contact a local crisis line (in Canada, call or text 9-8-8) or your local emergency number.

Changes

If we make significant changes to this notice, we'll tell you in the app before they take effect.