Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy — "I'm The Boss of Me"

Last updated: 26 October 2026

In short

Everything a young person writes in the workbook stays on their own device unless account storage is switched on. It is off unless someone turns it on, turning it off deletes the whole stored copy, and no screen or tool we operate displays what a young person writes in it. (The one place the team does read what someone writes is the optional feedback form in section 2b, and the form says so.) Apart from that, we hold only what we need to run an account and confirm a purchase: an email address, a name for the account holder, and whether the App has been paid for.

This policy explains the detail, including for parents and guardians.

1. Who is responsible for your data (the "data controller")

Karen Whelan, sole trader trading as SOULution

• Address: 25 Slí na Coille, Tramore Road, Waterford, X91 DDX9, Ireland
• Email: hello@thebossofme.ie

For any privacy question or request, contact hello@thebossofme.ie.

We are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer, but Karen Whelan is the responsible contact for data protection matters.

2. What a young person writes: on the device, and optionally with the account

By default, everything a young person writes in I'm The Boss of Me lives only on the device it was written on. We receive none of it, and if the app is deleted or the phone is lost, that writing is gone.

The account holder can choose to turn on account storage. With it on, a copy of the workbook is kept with the account, so that a lost, broken or replaced phone does not mean a lost journal. It is off unless it is switched on, and nothing is uploaded before that.

What is stored when account storage is on

• Journal entries — the date, the title, the text of the entry, the mood word if one was chosen, and the writing prompt if one was chosen.
• Workbook answers — the text typed into the chapter and pathway questions, and when each answer was last changed. That time is used for one thing only: when a device and the stored copy hold different versions of the same answer, it settles which is newer. It is never read for any other purpose — not to judge how someone works, when they write, or how often they change their mind — and no screen, report or feature shows it.
• Wheel of Life — the 1–5 ratings and the written reflections beside them.
• Progress signals — the mood word chosen on a given day, which sections have been opened, challenge-day ticks, which affirmations have been shown, and when the app was last opened.

The name typed into the workbook's welcome screen is not stored, and there is no server-side copy of it.

What it is used for

Keeping the workbook safe with the account, restoring it on a new device, and choosing which of Karen's affirmations to show. It is never used for advertising, profiling, model training, or sale or sharing of any kind, and no report or analytics view includes it.

Bringing your writing back to a device

With account storage on, when the account is signed in on a device that does not have all of its writing — a new phone, a replacement, or one that was reset — the App fetches the account's stored copy and adds it back to that device before it sends anything up. That is how a new phone shows the journal the old one had.

It only ever brings back the account's own stored writing, to someone signed in to that account. It never copies anything to another account, and nothing is brought back while account storage is off.

If the device and the stored copy hold different versions of the same thing, the newer version is kept. For a workbook answer written before 25 September 2026, whose editing time the App did not record, the stored copy's version is kept.

Who can see it

The young person, signed in on their own account. Access rules in the database allow the account owner and no one else; there is no screen in the app, the admin tools, or the reporting tools that can display a journal entry, a workbook answer or a wheel reflection.

What we will not claim. The people who run this service hold database credentials that can technically read any row, including a journal entry. Nothing in the app can do it — but the database can, and we are not going to tell you otherwise. That access is limited to the small number of people who operate the service, and is used only to fix a fault that cannot be fixed another way, or where the law requires it.

We cannot currently promise you a record of it. Reads of the database are not logged today, so if someone with those credentials looked, there would be no audit trail to show you. We would rather say that plainly than print a promise we cannot keep. Changes to the *structure* of the database are logged; reads of your writing are not.

If a parent or guardian holds the account

For under-16s the account is held by a parent or guardian. Anyone who can sign in to the account can read what is stored with it — including journal entries.

This is a real change, and it is the most important thing to understand before agreeing. While everything stayed on the device, we could not have handed a young person's journal to anyone, because we never had it. With account storage on, a parent or guardian who knows the account password can read it simply by signing in. We are not able to prevent that, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

If you are the young person using this workbook: you are allowed to say no to account storage, and nothing in the app is locked, hidden or reduced if you do. Everything keeps working exactly as it does now — it just stays on your device. If you want a copy you can keep without it being readable by whoever holds the account, use Print / Save as PDF instead.

If you are the parent or guardian: the private space this workbook offers is part of how it works. Turning on account storage protects the writing from a lost phone, and it also makes it readable by you. That is a trade worth talking about with the young person before you make it, rather than after.

Turning it off

Account storage can be turned off at any time in Settings. Turning it off deletes the entire server copy at that moment — journal, answers, reflections and signals together. The copy on the device is untouched. No reason is required.

Deleting the account deletes the stored copy with it.

Deleting something on one device

When you delete a journal entry, a workbook answer or a Wheel of Life snapshot on one device, the App keeps a short note that that item was deleted, so your other devices remove it too instead of bringing it back. The note holds which item and when — never what it said.

These notes are part of account storage: they are deleted when account storage is switched off or the account is deleted, and each one is removed automatically 90 days after it was made, by which time every device in normal use has seen it.

With account storage off

• We cannot read, recover, restore, or export this content — not even if you ask us to.
• If the device is lost or reset, the browser data is cleared, or the app is removed, the content is permanently lost.
• Content does not sync between devices.

We recommend using the in-app Print / Save as PDF feature to keep a copy of anything you want to preserve.

The Teen Check-In is separate

Agreeing to account storage does not turn on the Teen Check-In, and turning either off does not affect the other. Each has its own switch in Settings and its own section of this policy (see section 2a).

2a. The Check-In questions

Sometimes we ask whether you'd like to answer a short set of questions about how things are going for you. You'd answer them once near the start and once after you've been through the chapters and pathways.

Answering is optional, and so is being asked. You choose once, and if you say no we don't ask again. Nothing in the app is locked, hidden, shortened or changed because of what you choose. You can change your mind either way at any time in Settings.

What we store if you say yes

• Your answer to each of the ten statements — a number from 1 to 5.
• Your answer to the 1 to 10 question about how much you feel like the boss of you.
• The one optional sentence at the end, if you choose to write one.
• Which version of the questions you answered, whether it was the first or the second time, and the date.

You can skip any question. A skipped question is stored as nothing at all — not as a zero and not as a "declined to answer", so a skipped question and a low answer can never be mistaken for one another.

What we do not store

We do not store a score, a total, or an average for you. No total is calculated anywhere — not on your device, not on our servers, and not in any report. There is no column for one.

We do not compare your two sets of answers to each other and keep the result. We do not attach your answers to anything else you do in the app, and we do not use them to change what the app shows you.

What it is for

To find out whether the programme actually helps.

Your answers are combined with everyone else's and looked at as totals across many people. Reports never show one person's answers, and where too few people have answered for a total to be meaningful or anonymous, no number is shown at all. The sentence you can write at the end is not included in any report.

What it is not for

It is not a test, an assessment, a screening tool or a diagnosis. It does not decide anything about you, it is never shown back to you, and nobody reads your individual answers to form a view about you or to decide what you should do.

We do not use it for advertising, for profiling, or to train any AI model.

Deleting it

Go to Settings → The check-in questions and turn it off. Your answers are deleted at that moment — both the ratings and the sentence. They are not hidden, archived, or kept "in case you change your mind". If you delete your account, the answers go with it.

2b. The feedback form for testers

While the App is being tested, we ask testers for feedback in a short form at thebossofme.ie/feedback (on the website, not inside the iPhone app). It is optional, every question can be skipped, and it takes about 5 minutes.

What we store if you send it

Your answers to the questions you chose to answer, the version of the form, and when you agreed and sent it. They are stored with your account so that each person sends it only once and so that you can delete it. Nothing is sent until you press Submit: until then, what you have filled in stays on your device.

Who sees it, and how

The team reads the answers, including anything you write in your own words. They see them as totals for each question and as comments without your name, your email, or any date, in a shuffled order, and nothing at all is shown until at least five people have sent the form. A spreadsheet of the answers can be downloaded, also with no name, email or date. Each time the team opens the answers or downloads them, it is recorded.

What you write in the form is never given to the in-app helper and is never put in our error logs.

The form asks whether anything in the App made you feel worse or upset. Your answer is read along with everyone else's, without your name, so nobody will contact you because of it. If something is on your mind, talk to an adult you trust, or contact Childline on 1800 66 66 66 or text HELLO to 50808, free, any time. In an emergency, ring 112 or 999.

Sharing your words

*[Brendan: please review this subsection — it is the one place a young person's own words, and possibly their first name, may be published.]*

At the end of the form we ask "Can we share your words?" Nothing is chosen for you, and "No" is always an option: if you choose it, nothing below happens and nothing extra is stored.

If you choose yes, we keep your answers to three questions only: what you would tell a friend the app is, what would make you open it instead of scrolling, and what you would say to Karen. We keep them separately from the rest of your feedback, and we take them out of your answers without a name, so the two can never be matched up. The other two questions in that part (a moment that stuck with you, and when and where you would use it) are never shared. With them we keep how you want to be named (your first name and age group, or no name at all), your age group from the first question, which version of this wording you agreed to, and the date.

We'd only use your exact words, and we'll show you before anything goes public. If you're under 18, we'll ask your parent or guardian too before we use anything, and until they have said yes in writing, the team cannot even see your words. If you skipped the age question, we treat you as under 18.

You can change your mind at any time, by choosing Stop sharing my words in Settings → Your feedback or by emailing hello@thebossofme.ie. Your shared words are then deleted. Deleting your feedback, or your account, deletes them too.

Deleting it

Go to Settings → Your feedback and choose Delete my feedback. It is deleted at that moment, together with any words you said we could share. If you delete your account, your feedback goes with it.

3. What we do collect, and why

We do not use advertising or analytics trackers, we do not profile users, and we do not carry out automated decision-making.

4. Payment information

Payments are processed by PayPal. Card and bank details are entered directly with PayPal and we never see or store them. We receive only confirmation that a payment succeeded, the amount, and a transaction reference, which we link to the account.

PayPal is an independent controller of the data you give it. See PayPal's own privacy statement.

5. Children's and young people's data

The App is intended for young people aged 13–18, and the account holder must be 16 or over (or a parent/guardian acting for a 13–15 year old).

We have deliberately minimised children's data:

• We hold no account in a child's name. The account belongs to the adult or the 16+ user.
• We never receive the young person's workbook writing unless account storage is on — and even then no one reads it (section 2). The only words a young person writes that the team reads are their answers to the optional feedback form, shown without a name (section 2b).
• The personalisation name a young person enters is stored on the device only and is deliberately kept separate from the account holder's name held on our servers.
• There is no chat, no messaging, no social feed, and no way for anyone to contact a young person through the App.
• We do not knowingly collect personal data directly from children.

If you believe a child's personal data has reached us in error, contact hello@thebossofme.ie and we will delete it promptly.

6. Who we share data with (processors)

We do not sell or rent personal data. We share it only with service providers who process it on our instructions:

Each is bound by a data processing agreement. Where data is transferred outside the EEA, transfers are made under appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

We may also disclose data where required by law, or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

6a. Email we send you

We email the account holder — the adult who created the account. We never email a young person, and we hold no contact details for them.

We send two kinds of message:

• Account emails, which are necessary to provide the service: confirming your account, signing you in, resetting your password, and confirming access after a purchase.
• Service emails about the workbook you bought, such as how to get started. You can stop these at any time.

No email we send ever contains anything a young person has written. That is a rule about our emails, not a claim about storage: if account storage is switched on, journal entries, workbook answers and Wheel of Life reflections are held with the account (see section 2). No email template can reach that content, and no screen or tool we operate displays it.

Every non-essential email carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing takes effect immediately. You can also change your email preferences at any time in Settings inside the app. We keep a record of what we sent you, and of your choice to opt out, so that we can honour it and evidence that we did.

We do not currently send marketing email to app users. If that changes, this policy will be updated first and we will ask for your consent separately.

The launch waitlist

Separately from the App, an adult may join a launch waitlist — from a link or a QR code at a talk. This list is for parents, teachers and youth workers; it is not for people under 18, and the sign-up page says so.

• What we hold: your email address, optionally your name and which of parent / teacher or youth worker / school or organisation you said you are, and a short code saying which link or QR you used. Nothing else, and nothing about any young person.
• Why: to email you once, when the workbook is ready. That is the only message this list is used for.
• Your consent is explicit, given by ticking an unticked box, and recorded with the date.
• Leaving: every email carries a one-click unsubscribe that needs no sign-in. Unsubscribing keeps only your address, so that we can honour the opt-out. The same page also offers complete deletion, which removes your details entirely.
• How long: stated in our retention record and reviewed before launch. A waitlist entry is not an account and is not linked to one.

6b. The in-app helper, which leaves the EU

The App includes a helper a young person can ask questions of. Most answers come from a fixed set of written replies and involve nobody outside the App.

For a question those do not cover, the helper composes an answer from Karen's own material. To do that, exactly three things are sent to Anthropic, the company that provides the language model:

• the question as it was typed
• which page of the workbook they were on
• the passages of Karen's material the App selected as relevant

The helper asks first. Before anything typed into it can be sent, the helper says that questions go to Anthropic and asks for permission, with Allow and Not now. "Not now" leaves the helper off, and everything else in the App works the same. The answer is remembered on that device for that account only, and Turn off the AI helper, in the helper, takes it back. What the device keeps is one small note and nothing else: that permission was given, which version of the wording it was given to, and the day. It is not sent to us. The helper stores nothing else on the device: not the questions, not the answers, not when it was opened.

Nothing that identifies them is sent with it. Not their name, not their email address, not any account identifier, and nothing they have written elsewhere in the App — not their journal, not their workbook answers, not their mood, not their Wheel of Life. The helper has no access to a journal entry: it is left out by the way the feature is built, not by a setting anyone could change by accident.

Personal data leaves the EU in two places, and this is one of them. Anthropic processes the question in the United States. The other is a sign-in code sent by text message: for someone who signs in with a phone number, Twilio receives that number and the code, in the United States and elsewhere (section 6). Everything else — the account, the workbook content, and anything stored with an account — stays in the EU. The transfer to Anthropic is made under the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses; both are covered by the safeguards in section 6. Anthropic does not use the question to train its models, and deletes it within 30 days, unless it needs to keep it longer to enforce its usage policy or to comply with the law.

A question is personal data if the person typing it puts something personal into it, which is why we keep what goes with it to nothing. We also hold no record of who asked what, or when: the App deliberately keeps no per-person history of helper use.

Reporting an answer. Under an answer the AI wrote, Report this answer lets someone tell us it was wrong, upsetting, unsafe or something else. A report keeps that answer and the reason picked from that short list — never the question, and nothing that says who sent it. Reports are kept for up to a year (provisional) so the team can check and improve what the helper says. So that a report can only ever be about something the AI actually wrote, the App keeps a fingerprint of each AI answer for 30 days: a code that cannot be turned back into the words, with nothing about who asked or what.

Nothing in the workbook requires the helper. It can be left alone and everything else works exactly the same.

7. Cookies and similar technologies

We use only what is necessary to make the App work. We do not use advertising, marketing, or third-party analytics cookies.

• Essential storage: authentication tokens to keep you signed in.
• Local storage on your device: workbook content, progress, and settings (never sent to us — see section 2).

Because we use only strictly necessary storage, we do not display a consent banner for advertising or tracking cookies.

8. How long we keep data

• Account data: for as long as the account is open, and then deleted within 30 days of a deletion request.
• Purchase and transaction records: retained for 6 years to meet Irish tax and accounting obligations, even after account deletion.
• Email delivery logs: short retention by our email provider for deliverability and security purposes.
• On-device content: retained on your device until you delete it. We hold none of it.
• Feedback form answers, and any words you said we could share: kept while the account is open, unless you delete them sooner in Settings (section 2b).
• Reports of helper answers: the reported answer and its reason, for up to a year (provisional); the fingerprints that check a report is about a real AI answer, 30 days (section 6b).

9. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you;
• rectify inaccurate data;
• erase your data ("right to be forgotten"), subject to records we must keep by law;
• restrict or object to processing;
• data portability — receive your data in a portable format;
• withdraw consent where processing is based on consent;
• complain to a supervisory authority.

To exercise any right, email hello@thebossofme.ie. We will respond within one month. We may need to verify your identity first.

Note: what an access or portability request returns depends on whether account storage was switched on. With it off, we hold only account data (email, name, purchase status, consent record). With it on, we also hold the workbook content synced under that consent — journal entries, workbook answers and Wheel of Life reflections — and those are included in any access or portability request. You can also export your workbook directly from the App at any time, and turning storage off deletes our copy.

Complaints: you may lodge a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission — dataprotection.ie, 21 Fitzwilliam Square South, Dublin 2, D02 RD28 — or with the supervisory authority in your EU country of residence.

10. Security

We protect data using: encryption in transit (HTTPS); encrypted password storage handled by our authentication provider (we never see or store raw passwords); database access controls so account records are only accessible to the account owner; server-side-only granting of purchase access, so access cannot be altered from a browser; and secrets held server-side only.

No system is perfectly secure, but the architecture deliberately minimises what could be exposed. A young person's writing leaves the device only if account storage is switched on, which is off by default and reversible; where it is on, the stored copy is readable only by that account, is excluded from every report and admin screen we operate, and is deleted in full when storage is switched off.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. Material changes will be notified by email or in-app before taking effect. The "Last updated" date at the top of this policy always reflects the current version.

12. Contact

Email: hello@thebossofme.ie Post: SOULution, 25 Slí na Coille, Tramore Road, Waterford, X91 DDX9, Ireland