Privacy Policy

SafeOps processes personal information as described below in providing the CareOps for Counsel service. Because this service deals with mental health, we describe what we collect and where it is kept as specifically as we can.

Effective 8 October 2026

This English text is provided for convenience. The Korean version is the original and governs if the two differ.

1. What we collect

• Account information — name and email, entered by you when you sign up. We do not ask for a phone number at sign-up. If you add one in Settings, it is shared with your counselor as a contact number when you connect; every feature works if you leave it blank.
• Sign-in with Kakao, Google or Apple — if you sign up or log in with one of these, we receive the member ID that company assigns to you and, if you agree, your name (nickname) and email. The ID is used only to recognise you when you log in; we never receive that account’s password. Email is required for these accounts too, and we pre-fill it when the company provides one. If you use Apple’s ‘Hide My Email’, we receive the relay address Apple creates.
• Counselling-related records — your conversations with the AI, assessment answers and results, mood records, and whatever you write in the app yourself: thought records, safety plans, values notes. These are information about your health (sensitive information), so we ask for your consent to them separately when you sign up.
• Answers about counselling and medical-care experiences, diagnosis names heard at a hospital, physical health, alcohol and caffeine, people you live with, and family.
• Messages with your counselor — conversations with a counselor you are connected to, and your appointments.
• A device identifier for notifications — a push token. It is deleted when you turn notifications off.
• Maeumi notification usage — app opens, permission choices, send and open times, and identifiers linking to an unfinished conversation or follow-up, and assessment types and completion dates. These notification records contain no conversation text or assessment results.
• App settings — your display language, the country you chose, and your device’s time zone (for example, Asia/Seoul). We use them only to open your conversations at the times you set, to show text in your language, and to show the crisis contacts for where you are (if you have not chosen a country, we work out which country from your time zone). We do not collect your location.
• Service usage records — only what kind of thing you tapped: opening the app, opening the plans screen, tapping a purchase button and how it ended (completed or cancelled). Nothing you said and no payment details are included. We use them only to improve the service, and delete app-open records after 35 days and plans-screen records after 180 days.
• How you found us — one line on your account saying which link, search or app (for example an Instagram profile link) you came through. On the web we remember the first address you opened in a cookie for 30 days; when you tap the app download link we turn your IP address into an irreversible value (a hash), keep it for 7 days and match it with an app sign-up. We never store the IP address itself. We use this only to see which outreach helped, and delete it when you delete your account.
• Questionnaires inside other AI services — when you use CareOps Maeumi questionnaires through an AI service such as ChatGPT or Claude, we score the answers that service sends and return the result. We do not store the answers or the results. We do not receive your account or your conversation; we keep only a count of which questionnaire was used. How that AI service handles your conversation is governed by its own policy.
• Partner verification (optional) — if you join a partner discount (during the partnership period set for each school or partner), we send a code to the university email you enter. We do not store the address; we keep only an irreversible value (a hash) that stops several accounts from using the same email, the university domain (for example, snu.ac.kr), and when you verified. If you verify with a partner code, we do not ask for an email and keep only which partner the code belonged to and when you verified. If you ask to verify with a student ID, we use the student ID image you upload only to confirm that you are a current student and delete it as soon as the check is done (approved or declined); images from requests we could not check are deleted after 7 days. We strip location and device information from the image as soon as we receive it, and we do not separately store the name, student number or photo on the ID — only an irreversible value (a hash) that stops several accounts from using the same student ID, the school name, and when you asked and were verified. Please cover anything we don't need, such as a national ID number, before uploading. We use these records only to check discount eligibility and delete them 6 months after that partnership ends, or right away if you delete your account.
• iOS install ad measurement — we start the Meta SDK only if you allow app tracking on your device. App-open events, device identifiers and SDK diagnostic or crash information may be sent to Meta. We do not send counselling conversations, assessment answers or results, names or email addresses as Meta ad measurement events.
• The counselor service (counselor app and web) — counselor account information (name, email, organisation), the session notes, transcripts, client records and appointments a counselor writes, and the audio of sessions a counselor chose to record (see section 2).

2. How we handle voice

Client app — we do not collect your voice

When you speak with the app, your voice never leaves your device. Turning speech into text and producing the AI’s voice both happen on your phone; only the resulting text is sent to our servers. No recording is created and none is kept.

Where a device cannot do this on its own, the voice feature does not start. It does not quietly fall back to sending your voice somewhere else.

Counselor app — session recording

When a counselor starts recording a session, the session audio is sent over an encrypted connection to a transcription server we run ourselves and turned into text. Consent to record is obtained from the client by the counselor.

• The transcription server does not save audio to files. It is held in server memory only while the session runs, and erased when the session ends or after a period with no input.
• Audio is never sent to outside AI companies such as OpenAI. When a draft session note is produced, only the transcript text is sent, with names, contact details and other identifying information masked first.
• If ‘keep a copy of the recording’ (off by default) is turned on, the recording file is stored only on the counselor’s own device (phone or computer) and is not sent to our servers.
• If a counselor records outside the transcription server’s operating hours (08:00–21:00 Korea time), the audio is held temporarily on the counselor’s phone only (in app storage) until the server is available. It is then sent for transcription as described above, and removed from the phone once saved as a session.

3. Why we collect it

• To provide the service — AI counselling conversations, assessments and so on
• To carry your counselling through with a counselor you are connected to
• To send reminders about appointments and assessments — if app notifications are off, we send the same reminders (the day you planned to meet Maeumi, a message Maeumi left you, your weekly report) to the email you signed up with, at most once a day. The email never includes what you talked about, and you can turn it off in notification settings under My.
• To provide safety guidance when signs of crisis are detected
• To measure CareOps install ads on iOS only if you separately allow app tracking
• When app notifications are allowed, to time invitations using conversation completion, follow-up timing, assessment history, when you open the app, your Maeumi appointment time and your intake answers (concerns, better time of day, occupation), to suggest conversations or assessments and measure whether invitations help you return. Push text contains no names or specific counselling details. You can turn these off under notification settings in My (check-ins and assessment reminders) or in your device settings for CareOps.

If you use a counselor plan, a summary of your conversations with Maeumi and the full conversations themselves are passed to your counselor so they can write their feedback. If you applied before 2 October 2026, only the summary and a few of the sentences you wrote (up to five) are passed, as described when you applied. This stops when the plan ends.

The app displays no ads from other companies. iOS install ad measurement takes place only with the separate app tracking permission described above; declining it does not limit any app feature. Only if you agree to news and offers (optional) when you sign up or in notification settings do we send you CareOps news about new features, discounts and events, by app notification and email — never between 9 pm and 8 am. You can use every feature without agreeing, withdraw at any time in notification settings under My, and we email you the result each time you agree or withdraw. We never use what you talk about to choose what to send.

4. Where it is kept

Personal information is stored in data centres in the Republic of Korea, and everything in transit is encrypted (HTTPS). Every case where information is transferred outside Korea during processing is listed under “Transfers outside Korea” below.

One exception: turning counselor session recordings into text is done on a server in Japan (Microsoft Azure Japan West). That server does not store audio — it erases it after processing — and the resulting transcript is kept in the Korean data centre.

Transfers outside Korea

To provide the service we entrust some processing to the companies below, which means personal information is transferred outside Korea (Personal Information Protection Act, Article 28-8). Transfers happen when you use the service, over encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS).

If you do not want your information transferred outside Korea, contact us at thomaskim104@safeops.kr. Refusing transfers needed for a service feature may prevent you from using that feature (for example, AI conversations or notifications). Meta measurement is optional: declining or revoking app tracking in iPhone settings does not limit service features.

5. Processors we use

We entrust processing to the companies below, only as far as providing the service requires. They may not use it for any other purpose.

Meta receives the install ad measurement information above only if you allow iOS app tracking. The Meta SDK does not receive counselling content or assessment results. We do not sell or otherwise provide personal information to any other third party.

6. Google Calendar integration data (Google Workspace APIs)

If a counselor chooses to turn on the Google Calendar integration, CareOps for Counsel does the following, and only with that counselor’s own calendar. The appointments flow one way, from CareOps for Counsel to Google; events in Google are never turned into CareOps for Counsel appointments, and events CareOps for Counsel did not create are never changed.

However, if the counselor moves or deletes a session event that CareOps for Counsel created, CareOps for Counsel receives a change notification and moves or deletes the matching appointment. For this it reads only the identifier and times of changed events — not titles or descriptions — and does not store changes to personal events.

• Writing events (calendar.events) — creates an event on the counselor’s calendar for a confirmed appointment, and edits or deletes that same event when the appointment changes or is cancelled. The event title is “Session — client name” only — no service name, notes or clinical content.
• Reading busy times (calendar.freebusy) — on the self-booking screen, reads only the start and end of busy blocks so that times clashing with the counselor’s personal schedule are excluded. Event titles, attendees and details are not retrieved.
• Showing personal events (reading calendar.events) — when the counselor opens the CareOps for Counsel calendar screen, reads only the title and start/end time of their Google events and shows them on that counselor’s own screen only, so clashes are visible at a glance. Other members of the same centre see only the times, as “personal event”, without titles. Descriptions, locations and attendees are not retrieved, and the events are not stored or logged on our servers — they disappear when the screen is closed.

Limited Use. The use of raw or derived user data received from Google Workspace APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements, and such data is not used to develop, train, or improve any generalized or foundational AI/ML models. It is used only for the calendar synchronisation described above, and is never transferred to or sold to third parties. Humans read it only where the user has explicitly consented, or where it is necessary for security purposes or to comply with applicable law.

A counselor can disconnect the integration at any time under My practice → Settings → Integrations. On disconnection the stored access token is discarded immediately and we ask Google to revoke the grant.

7. How long we keep it

When you close your account, the data you created in the app is deleted immediately. If you signed up with Apple, we also end the link with your Apple account when you close your account. You can also disconnect Kakao or Google sign-in from that company’s own account settings.

Counselling records written by a counselor — session notes, transcripts, assessment response sheets, appointment and payment records — remain. These are documents a counselor must retain under law and professional ethics. Their link to your account is severed, so they can no longer be retrieved through your account, and the retention period follows the policy of the organisation that provided the counselling. See the account deletion guide for details.

8. Your rights

You may at any time ask to access, correct or delete your personal information, or to have its processing stopped. You can do this yourself under You → Settings in the app, or write to thomaskim104@safeops.kr and we will act on it and tell you the outcome within 7 business days.

9. Safeguards

• Encryption in transit (HTTPS)
• Separate access rights per user — counselling records open to your counselor and, if they belong to a centre, that centre’s director
• Identifying information masked before anything is sent out for AI processing
• Counselling conversations are never written to server logs in the original

Access by our staff — We limit access to stored information to the smallest number of people needed to run the service. Counselling records, including your conversations with the AI, are viewed only (1) when you ask or agree, (2) when strictly necessary to recover from an outage or respond to a security incident, or (3) when required by law — and only to the extent needed.

10. Children’s personal information

Only people aged 14 or over may sign up for this service themselves. Processing the personal information of a child under 14 requires the consent of their legal guardian.

11. What this service does not do

This service is not a medical device and does not provide diagnosis or treatment. It does not diagnose illness or recommend medication. In an emergency in Korea, call 119, or the suicide prevention line on 109. Outside Korea, use your local emergency number — the app shows crisis contacts for the country you are in where we have them, and a helpline finder otherwise.

12. Contact

Chief privacy officer — Taehyung Kim (CEO), thomaskim104@safeops.kr

Send any question, complaint or request for redress about your personal information to the contact above.

When this policy changes, we post the change here together with its effective date.