Effective October 23, 2026

Privacy Policy

This is what Bonzai knows about you, why, who else touches it, and how to make it go away. The short version: we keep the transcript of what you say to Nina, not a recording; only what you say on the record, after you agree, becomes a published story under your name; your private conversation never does; and we do not sell any of it or use it for advertising.

1. Who we are

Bonzai ("we", "us") runs this service. This policy covers the Bonzai website, your conversations with Nina, the stories made from them, and the account behind them. Questions go to privacy@bonzai.news.

2. What we collect

Only what the service needs to work:

Your name, and your email address once you create an account. If you sign in with Google, Google shares your name, verified email and profile photo. We do not ask for access to your contacts, email messages or files.
What you say to Nina. Your voice is processed live to hold the conversation and transcribed as it happens; we keep the transcript, not an audio recording. From your interviews Nina keeps dated notes, corrections and open questions so she can prepare for your next conversation.
Your private conversation with Nina: the messages you exchange while developing ideas, outside an on-record interview.
What you choose to share for publication: your role, your company, and a profile photo, either from Google or one you upload. We resize photos and remove their embedded metadata.
Your consent: when, and to which version of the Terms of Service, you agreed.
If you joined through a member's sharing link, who referred you. If you like a story, that you liked it.
Technical records: your device's requests to our servers, including IP address, browser type and the pages and functions used, kept in server logs for security and to keep the service running.

We use no advertising or analytics trackers. We use a secure cookie to keep you signed in and, for a private trial, a cookie that lets us connect the trial to an account you create in the same browser within seven days. The site keeps a few settings in your browser's own storage (where to resume a conversation, the email you are signing in with) that never leave your device.

3. How we use it

To run the service: sign you in, hold the conversation, and transcribe it.
To write, check and publish a story and posts, from the on-record transcript only, after you agree to go on the record under our Terms of Service. A private trial is transcribed but never drafted or published.
To prepare Nina for your next conversation, using your earlier interviews and recent private messages. To do that she may look up public information about an event, company or claim you mention; she never searches with your email address or private links.
To email you: a sign-in code when you ask for one, the private preview of a story and when it goes live, follow-ups when a new draft is ready, and at most one digest a day of new likes on your stories.
To keep the service safe: to detect abuse, to act on reports of a published story, and to enforce our terms.
To improve the service, by looking at how it is used in aggregate and, occasionally, by reading transcripts and drafts to fix what Nina got wrong.

We do not sell your information. We do not use it for advertising, and we do not let anyone else. We do not use your conversations to train AI models, and our AI providers may not either.

4. What is public

A published story is public, and so are its posts, its narration and illustration, and the person, company and topic pages built from published reporting: your name, and the role, company and photo you chose to share. Public pages can be found by search engines, and can be quoted in broader articles that link back to yours. A member who referred you can see how many people joined through their link, but not your email, conversations or drafts. Your email address, your private conversation, your unpublished drafts and your interview transcripts are never shown publicly, and we do not share unpublished interviews with anyone else Nina talks to.

5. Who else touches it

Companies that do part of the work for us, under contracts that limit them to doing exactly that:

OpenAI, whose models power Nina: your voice, the transcript, your private messages and Nina's notes are processed there to hold the conversation and write, check, illustrate and narrate a story, and to search the web for public background. Under OpenAI's API terms this data is not used to train their models; they may hold it briefly for abuse monitoring.
Google Cloud and Firebase, which run our sign-in, our database, our file storage and our servers, and send the email sign-in code.
SendGrid, which delivers our emails, including the private links in them.
Netlify, which hosts the website.

We will also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect someone from serious harm, or as part of a sale or merger of the business, in which case this policy continues to apply to it.

6. How long we keep it

Interview transcripts, drafts, stories and posts: until you delete the story, or your account.
Your private conversation: the latest 300 messages, until you clear it from your profile.
Nina's notes about your reporting, your name, email, profile and consent records: for as long as you have an account.
A private trial that is never saved to an account: the connecting cookie lasts seven days.
Server logs: a short period, typically 30 days.

Deleting a story from its private link removes the interview, transcript, story, posts and its saved summary from our active database, and takes down broader articles that depend on it. Emails already sent, posts others have copied and third-party caches cannot be recalled.

Deleting your account removes, within minutes: your profile and photo, your private conversation and notes, every interview, transcript, draft and story (and broader articles that quote yours), your likes, your invitations and your sign-in. Copies in our encrypted backups expire within seven days. A copy made before 23 October 2026, in the system we used until then, is removed when that system is retired. Emails already sent cannot be recalled.

7. Your choices

Stay off the record: mute the microphone, or say "off the record", and the nearby transcript is left out of the story and Nina's notes.
Stop or change a story: from its private link, pull it before or after it publishes, or ask for a correction.
Delete a story: from its private link, at any time.
Clear your private chat, or replace or remove your photo: from your profile.
Delete your account and everything in it: from your profile, at any time. You will be asked to confirm, and to sign in again if you have not just done so.
See what we hold, or have us delete your account for you: write to privacy@bonzai.news from the email on your account.

We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of on that front; this section is our "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" notice. If you are in California, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or another place with privacy rights, you can exercise them by writing to us; we will not treat you differently for doing so. If we deny a request, you can appeal by replying to our answer.

8. Children

Bonzai is for adults. You must be 18 or older to use it, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has used Bonzai, write to privacy@bonzai.news and we will delete what they shared.

9. Security

Everything travels encrypted. There is no password to steal: you sign in with Google or a one-time code sent to your email, and every request to our servers must carry a signed token for your session. A story's private link is kept out of web addresses sent to our servers, so it does not end up in logs. No system is perfect, and the security of your account also depends on the security of your Google account or email, and on keeping your private links private.

10. Where it is processed

We are in the United States and our providers process information there. If you use Bonzai from somewhere else, your information is transferred to and handled in the United States under this policy.

11. Changes to this policy

When this policy changes we update the date at the top, and for changes that matter we tell you on the site or by email before they take effect.

12. Contact

Privacy questions and requests: privacy@bonzai.news. Anything else: team@bonzai.news.