Privacy & your data on YOPEY's AI
YOPEY (registered charity 1145573) takes your privacy seriously, especially because we work with young people. This page explains exactly what data this AI collects, why, who sees it, and how to delete it. This should be read in conjunction with YOPEY's main Privacy Notice and other policies here: yopeybefriender.org/privacy.
What we collect
- About you: your first name, surname, age, email, phone number, and home postcode.
- About where you study (if you're in education — school / college / uni): the name of your school / college / uni and which postcode you'd like care homes searched near (your place of education or home).
- From the chat: everything you type into the chatbot, plus what the bot replies (so we can keep context between sessions).
- Care home contacts: which care homes you reach out to and whether they reply, so we can send the right reminders.
Why we collect it
- Find care homes near you (postcode).
- Draft personalised introduction letters (name, age).
- Send you reminders if a care home hasn't replied (email).
- Send you welcome and training tips once you're accepted (email).
- Help YOPEY's moderators see overall stats and check on people who might need help.
Who else sees your data
We use these trusted services. Each only sees the data they need to do their part, and each has a Data Processing Agreement with YOPEY:
- Supabase (database, hosted in London) — stores everything.
- Google (the AI chatbot — Gemini, US-based, with EU standard contractual clauses) — sees the chat messages so it can reply. We use Google's paid API tier, where chat data is not used to train their models.
- Resend (sends the reminder emails) — sees your email address and the reminder content.
- Vercel and Render (run the website and the brain) — see data while it's being processed.
We do not sell, share, or rent your data to anyone else. Care homes you contact will see the email you send them — but that's you sending it, not us, and the draft we prepare is signed with your name only: we don't put your email, phone, age or postcode in it; that's up to you. A care home can also reach you back through YOPEY.
How long we keep it
We keep your data while your account is active. If you haven't used YOPEY Befriender for 12 months, our system automatically deletes your account and everything attached to it — name, postcode, chat history, the lot. You can also delete it yourself any time — see below.
One exception: if you ever told the bot something that raised a safeguarding concern, we keep that record so our safeguarding lead can handle it properly — even if the rest of your account is deleted. We don't keep it forever, only for the period set in our safeguarding policy, and only our safeguarding lead can see it.
On location: we only ever store your postcode (so we can find care homes near you), never your full address. We don't share it with care homes or anyone else, and it's deleted when your account is.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you can:
- Ask us what data we hold about you.
- Ask us to correct it.
- Ask us to delete it (do this below, or email us).
- Complain to the Information Commissioner's Office if you think we've mishandled your data.
Contact
Email hello@yopey.org or call 07711 255675. We'll reply within a few days.
Delete my data
This permanently removes your YOPEY account on YOPEY's AI, including every message you sent the chatbot, every care home contact you logged, and every nudge you've received. It can't be undone. It does not delete your profile on yopeybefriender.org, the reports you have written, or the badges you have been awarded. If you want those deleted too, email tony@yopey.org.
Last updated: October 2026. Registered charity 1145573.