What we do with your words
Your writing belongs to you. This says plainly what is kept, who can see it, and what you can ask us to do.
The short version, which is most of it.
We know your first name, your email address, and that somebody is paying for your place. That is nearly everything.
What you write is yours. Your private writing can only be read by you. Teri can only read something if you send it to her. Your parent cannot read any of it, ever, and there is no button that would let them.
Nothing you write is analysed, scored or graded, and no AI is trained on it.
We do not count anything you do in here. Not which pages you open, not how long you stay, not how often you come back. Nobody is measuring you.
Two exceptions, both explained properly below: if Teri thinks you are in danger she has to tell someone (section 8), and when you close your account your writing is locked away for a while rather than deleted straight off (section 9).
1. Who is responsible for your information
Teri Potter, working as The True Self. One person, not a company.
| Who to write to about your information | privacy@thetrueself.me |
| Anything else | hello@thetrueself.me |
| By post | Teri Potter t/a The True Self, c/o TWP Accounting, The Old Rectory, Church Street, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 8DE |
| Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office | ZC211707 |
The law calls her the "data controller", which just means she is the person responsible and the person who has to answer if you ask.
2. What we actually hold
Things you gave us
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your first name | So the app can say hello properly |
| Your email address | To sign you in, to reach you, and to reset your password if you forget it |
| Your password | Only as a scrambled version that nobody can unscramble, including us |
| The date you agreed to the terms and this notice | So we can show what you agreed to and when |
| The date you looked at the help numbers | So we know you saw them |
We do not ask for your surname, your address, your date of birth, your phone number, your school, or your parent's name. We do not want them.
Things you write
- Your private writing and voice notes
- Anything you send to Teri, and what she sends back
- Anything you post in the Village
Things about your membership
- That it is active, when it started, when it ends
- That an adult is paying, and who they are
Things the app records to stay secure
- When you sign in
- A scrambled version of your internet address, if something looks wrong and we need to investigate
- A record of anything Teri does that touches your account
3. Who can see what
| You | Teri | Your parent | Anyone else | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your private writing and voice notes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Something you send Teri | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Teri's replies to you | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Your Village posts | Yes | Yes | No | Everyone in your Village |
| Your name and email | Yes | Yes | They already have them | No |
| Whether your account is on, and when it ends | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
This is built into the software, not just promised. Teri's account has no permission to read your private writing. There is no screen, no search, no export and no override. It was tested to prove that if she asks the database directly for your writing, she gets nothing back.
The one honest exception, because it is true of every app ever made: the engineers who build and repair the system can reach the database underneath it, or they could never fix anything. They only do it to fix a fault, they are under a contract that forbids anything else, and every time is logged. Teri has no such access and no way to get it, and that is the promise that actually matters.
4. About your parent
They are paying. That gives them nothing except a receipt.
They cannot see anything you write. Not your private writing, not what you send Teri, not her replies, not the Village. There is no parent login and no parent dashboard.
They can see that your account is active and when it ends, because they are the one paying for it.
If you want to show them something, you can, by sharing it with them the same way you would share it with Teri. That is completely your call and nobody will ask you to.
If that ever changed we would have to tell you first, in plain words, and put a clear sign inside the app that stays visible for as long as anyone can see anything of yours. That is a rule the Information Commissioner sets for services used by people your age, and we would keep it anyway.
5. What we never do
- We never sell your information. Not to anyone, not for anything.
- We never follow you around the internet. No advertising, no tracking pixels, nothing that watches you on other sites.
- We never count anything you do inside this app. Not pages, not time, not how often you come back.
- We never let a computer write to you. Every reply from Teri was written by Teri.
- We never score, rate, grade, tag or analyse anything you write. No mood tracking. No risk score. No summary generated behind your back.
- We never train an AI on your writing or your voice. Every company we use is contractually banned from doing it.
- We never use anything you write to advertise this, even anonymously, unless you have separately said yes in writing.
Where a computer does help. The writing prompts you sometimes see are generated, and they are the same for everybody and nothing to do with you. And if you record a voice note and ask for it to be turned into writing, a speech to text service does that part. It only ever gets the recording you asked to have written down, and it is banned from keeping it or learning from it. Section 7 lists everyone involved.
6. Why we are allowed to hold it
The law needs a reason for everything. Here are ours.
| What | The reason |
|---|---|
| Your name, email and membership | We cannot run your account without them. The law calls this "performing a contract" |
| What you write | You said yes, specifically. You tick a separate box for this when you join, and you can take it back whenever you want |
| Keeping the app secure | Our legitimate interest in running something people can trust |
| Acting on a serious worry about your safety | Protecting children and people at risk, which the law treats as a proper reason on its own |
| Being able to answer a complaint later | Our legitimate interest in defending ourselves, and yours in being able to challenge us |
Because a lot of what people write here is about how they feel, mentally and physically, we treat everything you write as the most protected kind of information there is, whether it turns out to be or not. That is why we ask you to tick a separate box and why the security is as tight as it is.
Taking it back. You can withdraw that yes at any time, by telling us or by closing your account. If you do, we cannot keep running the space for you, so it ends, and section 9 explains what happens to what you wrote.
7. Who else is involved
Nobody sees your writing except the companies that make the app work, and each of them is under a contract that says they can only do what we tell them.
| Who | What they do | Do they see what you write |
|---|---|---|
| [HOSTING AND DATABASE PROVIDER, TO CONFIRM] | Stores the app and the database | It is stored on their systems, encrypted |
| [SPEECH TO TEXT SERVICE, TO CONFIRM] | Turns a voice note into writing, if you ask | Only the recording you asked about |
| Resend | Sends the emails that say something is waiting | Only your email address. Never your writing |
| The KBI Group | Builds and looks after the app | Only if they need to fix a fault, and it is logged |
| Stripe | Takes the payment from whoever is paying | Nothing of yours |
We do not use Google Analytics, Meta pixels, advertising networks, session recording or third party fonts anywhere in this app.
Our emails never contain your writing. If Teri has replied, the email says something is waiting. It does not say what.
8. The safety exception
We would much rather tell you this now than have you find out at the worst moment.
If Teri reads something you sent her and genuinely believes you or someone else is in serious danger, she has to pass that on to somebody who can help. That might be children's services, your GP, the police, or in an emergency the ambulance service.
- She will talk to you first, tell you what worried her, ask what you think, and tell you who she wants to contact and why. The only exception is if telling you first would put you in more danger.
- She will not tell your parent automatically. If the problem involves them, or if telling them would make things worse for you, she tells someone else instead. She will tell you which.
- She only ever shares the minimum. Who is at risk, what was said, when, and how to get in touch. Not everything you have ever written.
- She writes it down, including what you said about it, even if she ended up doing something different.
- She cannot act on your private writing, because she cannot read it. It can only ever come from something you chose to send her, or something you posted in the Village.
That record is kept even if you close your account. We keep it until your 25th birthday, or five years, whichever is longer. That is not us being difficult. A record like that is sometimes the only proof of what happened to someone, and people sometimes want it years later.
The [Safeguarding Policy] is the full version, written for adults, and section 8 of it is about you.
9. How long we keep things, and what happens if you leave
While your account is open, we keep what you write, because it is yours and you might want it.
When you close your account, your writing is not deleted immediately. It is moved into a locked archive for five years and then deleted for good.
We know that is not what you would expect, so here is the honest reason. If someone ever says they were treated badly here, or if you ever came back and wanted your writing, or if Teri's insurance requires her to show what happened, the record has to exist. Deleting everything the moment somebody leaves sounds respectful but it takes away your evidence as well as ours.
The important part: the locked archive keeps the wall up. Your private writing and any voice notes you never shared go into it in a form Teri cannot open. She could not read them while you were here and she cannot read them afterwards. What she can reach is only what she could already see: things you sent her, her own replies, and any safety record.
Everything else
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account and your name | 5 years after you close it |
| Village posts | Removed from the Village when you close your account, kept in the archive for 5 years |
| Safety records | Until your 25th birthday, or 5 years, whichever is longer |
| Security logs | 12 months |
| Emails between us | 24 months |
| A record of what you agreed to and when | As long as your account exists, plus 12 months |
10. Your rights, in plain words
All of these are free, and using one will never change how you are treated here.
| You can | What that means |
|---|---|
| Ask for a copy of everything | We will send it. You can also download it yourself from your settings any time |
| Ask us to fix something wrong | Like your name or your email |
| Ask us to delete things | See below |
| Ask us to stop using something | While we look into a problem you have raised |
| Take your writing with you | The export in your settings does it in one click |
| Object to something we are doing | And we will actually look at your situation, not just quote a policy |
| Take back your yes | At any time, for any reason, without explaining |
How to ask. Do it in your settings where you can, or email privacy@thetrueself.me. We will answer within one month. We will not charge you and we will not make you justify yourself.
About deleting, honestly.
- Ask us to delete your private writing and we will, every time, without argument. Teri never saw it, so nothing about it could ever be part of a complaint.
- Some things we may have to keep, and if so we will tell you exactly what and why. Things you sent Teri, her replies, and any safety record are the record of what actually happened, and the law lets us keep them where we would need them to defend or bring a legal claim. We keep only what we genuinely need and only for as long as section 9 says.
- If you would rather nothing at all were kept, say so and we will look at your particular situation properly.
You are old enough to ask us any of this yourself. You do not need a parent to do it for you, and we will not tell them you asked.
11. If you are unhappy about your information
Tell us first if you want to. Email privacy@thetrueself.me or use the form at thetrueself.me/complaint. The law says we have to make complaining easy, and that we have to acknowledge it within 30 days. We aim to tell you we have got it within 5 working days, and to give you a proper answer well before the month is up.
Or go straight to the regulator. The Information Commissioner's Office is the organisation that makes sure people like us follow these rules.
- ico.org.uk
- 0303 123 1113
- Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
You can go to them at any point. You do not need our permission, you do not have to come to us first, and it does not cost anything.
12. If any of this changes
If we change this notice we will change the version and date at the top and keep the old ones so you can see what changed.
If a change actually affects what happens to your writing, we will email you before it happens, in words you can read, and where the law says we have to ask you again, we will ask rather than assume.
13. Cookies
Inside this app, the only things stored on your device are the ones that keep you signed in and remember how you set the app to look. Nothing counts what you do in here. The [Cookie Policy] has the detail, and it explains that the public website does count visits while the app never does.
14. Getting in touch
privacy@thetrueself.me, or Teri Potter t/a The True Self, c/o TWP Accounting, The Old Rectory, Church Street, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 8DE.
A person will read it and a person will answer it.
If you need help right now: 999 in an emergency. Childline 0800 1111, free, any time, and it does not show on the phone bill. Text SHOUT to 85258. Samaritans 116 123. Outside the UK, findahelpline.com.
In My Room · Privacy Notice · Version 1.0 · [DATE] Also read: [In My Room Terms] · [Safeguarding Policy] · [Cookie Policy]