Legal
This Privacy Policy explains how unburdening (referred to throughout as "unburdening," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal information when you use the unburdening mobile application and the unburdening.org website (together, the "Service").
unburdening is a mental health support app where people share what they're carrying — often things they've never told anyone. We take that responsibility seriously. This policy is written to be clear about exactly what happens to your information, including the parts that are imperfect.
If you don't understand something in this policy or want to exercise any of your rights, email us at hello@unburdening.org and a human will respond.
We collect only what we need to run the app: an anonymous account ID, anything you write (confessions and conversations), optional contact info if you choose to give it, and basic technical info needed for the service to work.
To run the app. To respond to you. To help people find each other. To keep the community safe. That's it.
We use the information we collect for the following purposes:
We do not use your content to train artificial intelligence models, target advertising, or for any purpose unrelated to running unburdening.
Before any confession is visible to other users, an automated process removes identifying details — names, places, employers, contact information. The original is kept private and only visible to you. The process is good but not perfect; please continue to be thoughtful about what you share publicly.
When you choose to share a confession with the community, we run it through an automated anonymization process before it appears in the feed visible to other users. This process is designed to remove or generalize:
Anonymization is performed by an AI model (currently Anthropic's Claude). Light grammar adjustments may occur as a side effect of removing identifying details. The emotional content, voice, and feeling of what you wrote are preserved. Every word and feeling shared in our community is real.
Important honesty about anonymization: Automated anonymization is good but not perfect. Some indirect identifying combinations may slip through, especially if a confession contains very specific details about a small community or rare situation. We encourage you to treat the shared feed as semi-public and be thoughtful about what you share. If you want absolute privacy, keep your confession in your personal space and do not share it.
Your original (non-anonymized) confession is stored in your private history and is only ever visible to you. It is never shown in the feed and is never sent to other users.
Only with the technical service providers we need to run the app. We don't sell your information, ever, to anyone, for any purpose.
We share information with the following categories of recipients:
We use the following third-party services to operate unburdening. Each is bound by data protection terms and processes data only on our instructions.
| Provider | What they do for us | Data they touch |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Provides the Claude AI model that powers the Wise Friend feature and the anonymization process. | Receives confession text when generating responses or anonymizing for sharing. Subject to Anthropic's standard API data handling (retention up to 30 days for trust and safety purposes; not used to train models). |
| Neon | Provides our PostgreSQL database where all account data and confessions are stored. | All stored data. Encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS). Located in the United States. |
| Vercel | Hosts our backend server and serves the unburdening.org website. | Processes API requests; does not retain user content beyond standard server logs. |
| Resend | Sends transactional emails (currently: magic-link account recovery emails only). | Your email address and the email contents. We do not send marketing emails through Resend or any provider. |
| Apple Push Notification Service | Delivers push notifications to your device when you've opted in. | Your device push token and the notification contents. |
When you and another user mutually consent to connect over a shared experience, you can exchange messages within unburdening. The other user sees only the anonymized version of your shared confession and whatever you choose to write in your conversation. Your identity, contact information, and private content are never exposed without your explicit action.
We may disclose information if we believe in good faith that doing so is required by law, valid legal process, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of any person — including responding to imminent threats of self-harm or harm to others. We publish a transparency report annually summarizing any such requests.
As long as your account exists. When you delete your account, everything goes — usually within 30 days. Some aggregated, non-identifying data may be kept for service operations.
We retain your information for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account:
If you have shared content that another user has saved a connection record of, that connection record is also deleted when you delete your account. The other user is notified that the connection was ended.
Standard industry encryption protects your data in transit and at rest. We don't currently offer end-to-end encryption. No system is perfectly secure.
We take security seriously. Specifically:
No security measure is perfect. If a security breach occurs that affects your data, we will notify you and applicable regulators promptly as required by law.
You can see, change, export, or delete everything we have on you, at any time, for any reason. Email hello@unburdening.org if you want help.
You have the following rights regarding your personal information:
We will respond to verifiable requests within 30 days. We do not charge for these requests except in cases of clearly excessive or repeated demand.
California residents have specific rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), including the rights listed above, the right to know what personal information is collected and how it's used, and the right to opt out of "sale" or "sharing" of personal information. We do not sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising or any other purpose. You have the right to non-discrimination for exercising any of your rights under California law.
If you are in the European Union, European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or Switzerland, your information is processed in the United States. We rely on the following legal bases for processing:
For transfers from the EU/UK to the US, we rely on appropriate safeguards as required by GDPR Article 46. You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.
unburdening is for adults 18 and older. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone younger.
The Service is not directed to anyone under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a person under 18, we will delete it. If you believe a child has provided us with information, please contact us at hello@unburdening.org.
If we believe you or someone else is at imminent risk, we may surface crisis resources or, in rare cases, contact emergency services. We do not monitor your private conversations.
unburdening is not a crisis service, a therapy service, or a substitute for professional mental health care. Our automated systems may detect content suggesting acute risk and respond by surfacing crisis resources within the app. In rare cases involving imminent and specific threats to life — to yourself or another person — we may contact emergency services or relevant authorities. We do not proactively monitor your private confessions or conversations for any other purpose.
If you are in crisis, please reach out to professional help. In the US, you can call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Outside the US, findahelpline.com can help you find support in your country.
We'll tell you before anything important changes.
If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you within the app and via email (if you've provided one) at least 30 days before the changes take effect. For non-material updates (fixing typos, clarifying language, adding new sub-processors with equivalent obligations), we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this policy.
Email a human. We will reply.
For any privacy-related question or to exercise any of the rights in this policy:
Email: hello@unburdening.org
This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to its conflict of laws principles.