- The free Ikigai on the home page never leaves your browser. We can’t see it.
- The full app stores what you put in it, your account details and a little technical data, so it can sync and keep you signed in.
- Journal entries are analysed to link them to values. That is the feature, and it is never used to train general-purpose AI.
- No ads, no trackers, no selling your data.
- Export or delete everything whenever you like.
1. Who we are and what this covers
Histos is operated by Alvaro Rodriguez, based in Miami, Florida, United States (“Histos”, “we”, “us”), who is the controller of the personal data described in this policy. It covers the website at histos.app, the free Ikigai teaser embedded on it, the Histos application at my.histos.app and the Histos apps for macOS, iOS and Android (together, the “Services”).
Histos is a place to write about what matters to you. We have tried to design it so that we hold as little of that as possible, and to say plainly what we do hold. Questions go to hello@histos.app.
2. The website and the free Ikigai
The Ikigai teaser on histos.app runs entirely in your browser. The items you add and where you place them are held in your browser’s memory only. Nothing you enter is sent to us, and we have no way to see it. When you close or reload the page, it is gone.
histos.app itself sets no tracking cookies and loads no advertising or social-media scripts. Fonts are served from our own domain. We count visits with PostHog in cookieless mode: it records which page was viewed, the referring site, your browser and device type, and stores nothing in your browser. Visitors are counted with a hash of your IP address and browser that rotates daily; the IP address itself is dropped and not stored, so we can tell how many people came without being able to recognise you from one day to the next. Like any web server, our hosting provider records standard access logs (your IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time) so that the site can be served and defended against abuse. These logs are kept for a short period and are not used to identify you.
When you click to start the Ikigai teaser, the browser downloads the application bundle. Some of its components may be fetched from a content delivery network operated by Google, which receives your IP address as part of that request in the same way any web resource does. No information about what you put in the circles is involved.
3. What we collect when you use the full app
Account information
Your email address, the name and profile picture you or your sign-in provider give us, and an identifier for your account. If you sign in with Google or Apple we receive only what that provider shares for sign-in; we do not get access to your Google or Apple account.
Your content
The things you create in Histos: Ikigai items and their positions, the interests, values and skills in your graph and the links between them, journal entries, the values Histos associates with those entries and how it classifies them (espoused, tested, wobbly), goals, your library, and your settings. This is the heart of the app, and it is the most sensitive information we hold. Journal entries in particular may reveal things about your health, beliefs, relationships or sexuality. We treat all content as confidential regardless of what it contains.
Technical information
Device type, operating system and app version, the IP address used when you sign in, timestamps of sync operations, and error reports if something crashes. We use this to keep your data in sync across devices, to keep your account secure and to fix bugs.
Feedback and bug reports
When you use Send feedback or Report a bug in the app, we receive what you type, your email address and account identifier, the app version, your device and operating system, and for bug reports the app’s recent diagnostic log lines. We never attach your journal entries, map or other content; diagnostic logs record what the app did, not what you wrote. These reports are stored with PostHog.
Payment information
The app is currently free. If you subscribe to a paid plan in future, payment will be taken by the Apple App Store, Google Play or our payment processor. We receive confirmation of what you bought and when; we never see or store your full card number.
Correspondence
If you email us, we keep the conversation so we can help you and refer back to it later.
4. How we use it
- To run the app. Storing your content, syncing it between your devices, signing you in and showing you your own map, graph and journal.
- To do what the journal promises. When you write an entry, Histos analyses the text to notice values and things that rhyme with them, links them loosely to the entry, and over time sorts your values into espoused, tested and wobbly. This is automated language analysis. See the next section for how it works.
- To keep things secure. Detecting unusual sign-ins, preventing abuse and protecting the Services and other users.
- To support you. Answering your emails and investigating problems you report.
- To improve Histos. Understanding, in aggregate, which features are used and where the app fails. We use technical information and counts for this, not the text of your entries.
- To tell you about the service. Sending messages about your account, security, changes to these documents and, if you opt in, occasional news about Histos. You can opt out of news at any time.
- To comply with the law and to establish or defend legal claims.
We do not use your data for advertising, and we do not sell it.
5. Journal entries and automated analysis
Linking entries to values is the point of the journal, so this analysis happens by default when you write. It is done by our own systems together with a language model from an artificial intelligence provider acting on our behalf. You choose which provider Histos uses from the options offered in the app. At the moment the available provider is Anthropic, whose Claude models we access through its commercial API. Under Anthropic’s commercial terms your text is not used to train its models, is retained only for a limited period for security and abuse prevention, and is not used for any purpose of Anthropic’s own. If we add other providers, the same standard will apply to each one, and this policy will list them.
We do not use your entries to train general-purpose models, ours or anyone else’s. The analysis exists to reflect your own words back to you; nothing about it makes decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you, and you remain the judge of what it notices.
Because entries can include special categories of data, we rely on your explicit consent to process them for this purpose. You give that consent when you create your account and can withdraw it at any time by deleting your account or by writing to us. If you prefer to keep certain thoughts out of the analysis entirely, the simplest way is not to write them in Histos.
6. Legal bases
If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or another place with similar rules, we rely on these legal bases:
- Performance of a contract for running the app, storing and syncing your content, sign-in and support.
- Consent for analysing journal entries that may contain special categories of data, and for optional news emails.
- Legitimate interests for security, abuse prevention, aggregate product improvement and service messages. Our interest is in keeping Histos working and safe; we have weighed it against your interests and do not think it overrides them.
- Legal obligation where we have to keep or disclose information by law.
8. International transfers
Histos is based in the United States, so your data is processed and stored there and in the countries where our providers operate. If you use Histos from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or another place with data transfer rules, we rely on an adequacy decision, the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where a provider is certified, or the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses with additional safeguards. You can ask us for details of the safeguards that apply.
9. Security
Your content is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access to production systems is limited to the people who need it to run the Services and is logged. We do not read your content except when you ask for support that requires it, to investigate abuse, or when the law requires it. No system is perfectly secure, so if you believe your account or data has been compromised please tell us at hello@histos.app straight away. If a breach affects you, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.
10. How long we keep it
- Account and content: for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account, or ask us to, we delete your account and content from live systems within 30 days and from backups within 90 days.
- Individual items: when you delete an entry, node or item in the app it is removed from live systems immediately and from backups within 90 days.
- Technical logs: up to 90 days, unless we need a specific record longer to investigate a security incident.
- Correspondence: up to two years after the conversation ends.
- Payment records: for as long as tax and accounting law requires.
If you have not used your account for a long time we may contact you before deleting it.
11. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can:
- Export your content from the app in a portable format.
- Access, correct or delete your data, either in the app or by asking us.
- Delete your account and everything in it.
- Opt out of any non-essential email.
If you are in the EEA, the UK or a place with similar laws, you also have the rights to restrict or object to certain processing, to data portability, to withdraw consent at any time without affecting what was done before, and to complain to your data protection authority. We would appreciate the chance to address your concern first.
If you are a California resident, you have the rights to know, delete and correct, to opt out of sale or sharing, and not to be discriminated against for exercising them. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we have not done so in the past twelve months.
To exercise any right, use the settings in the app or write to hello@histos.app. We may ask you to verify that you own the account. We respond within 30 days, or sooner where the law requires.
12. Children
Histos is not intended for anyone under 16, or under the age at which a person can consent to online services in their country if that is higher, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us and we will delete it.
14. Changes to this policy
We will update this policy when our practices change. The date at the top shows the latest version. If a change materially affects how we use your data we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect and, where the law requires, ask for your consent again.
15. Contact
Privacy questions and requests go to hello@histos.app. The app lives at my.histos.app, and our Terms of Service describe the rest of the relationship.