Privacy Policy

Last updated: 14 June 2026

Who we are and how to contact us

The Caring App (“we”, “us”, “our”) provides care information and coordination tools, including the Care Funding Guide and Care Journey. When you use our website and tools, The Caring App is the data controller for your personal data, which means we decide how and why it is used.

You can reach us about anything in this policy, including any request about your data, at privacy@thecaring.app. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO); our registration number will be added here once it has been issued.

The personal data we collect

We collect only what we need to run the service:

Your email address, when you sign in. We use a magic-link sign-in, so you do not set a password.
A record of which of our tools you have used. When you open one of our connected tools while signed in, we store your email, an identifier for the tool, and the dates you first and last used it. We do not record what you did inside the tool.
What you type into our assistant, Seacole, when you use the Care Funding Guide. Please do not enter names or other details that identify you or the person you care for. Seacole does not need them.
What you choose to save in Care Journey. You can use Care Journey without saving anything. If you choose to save your plan, we store your progress, which plan to show you, and the outward part of your postcode (for example “SW1A”), linked to your email. See the Care Journey section below for how we handle anything sensitive.

We do not ask for financial account numbers, government identifiers (such as National Insurance numbers), or health records.

How we use your data and our lawful basis

We use your data for the following purposes:

To sign you in and keep your account secure. Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in providing a working, secure sign-in.
To give you the care funding guidance you ask for through Seacole. Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in giving you the information you have asked for. Seacole provides general information, not financial or legal advice.
To run your account across our connected tools and show you the tools you have used. Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in providing your account and helping you return to the tools you have chosen. See “Your account across our tools” below.
To give you your Care Journey plan and remember your progress, if you choose to save it. Lawful basis: your consent, and your explicit consent for any health-related information. You can withdraw this at any time.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed our interest in providing these features against your rights, and we limit the data to the minimum needed. You can object to this processing at any time using the contact details above.

Your account across our tools

When you sign in on our website and open one of our connected tools (such as the Care Funding Guide), we securely confirm your email to that tool so you are signed in without entering a second code. If you do not already have an account for that tool, opening it creates one for you, using your email. This only happens when you deliberately open a tool; we never create tool accounts silently or in bulk.

We keep a simple record of which tools you have used, made up of your email, the tool, and when you used it, so your account can show them to you. We do not record what you typed or anything else about what you did. We use this only to sign you in and to show you your own tools. We never use it for profiling, advertising, or marketing, and we never sell your data.

Because our tools are linked by your email address, if you ask us to delete your data we remove it across all of our connected tools. See “Your rights” below.

Care Journey

If you use Care Journey, we help you work out what to do as a carer and give you a personalised plan. You can use it without saving anything. If you choose to save your plan to your account, we store your progress, the plan to show you, and your outward postcode, linked to your email, so we can give it back to you next time.

Please describe your situation without naming or identifying the person you care for. We do not need their details. Some of what you tell us, for example a health condition, is sensitive (special category) information. We only save sensitive information if you give your explicit consent, and you can withdraw that consent and delete your saved plan at any time. We use this only to give you your plan and your progress, never for advertising or profiling.

Lawful basis: your consent, including explicit consent for any health-related information.

Who we share your data with

We use a small number of trusted providers to run the service, and we have or are putting in place a data processing agreement with each. They act on our instructions and may not use your data for their own purposes.

Supabase stores your account data, your tool-usage record, and your saved data. This is hosted in the UK and EU (the Care Funding Guide uses London; our main account data uses Ireland).
Anthropic (the Claude API) processes the messages you type into Seacole, to generate responses. Anthropic processes this in the United States. Anthropic does not use your data to train its models and does not sell it.
Vercel hosts and delivers our website.

We never sell your personal data, and we do not share it for anyone else's advertising.

Sending data outside the UK

Most of your data stays in the UK and EU. When you use Seacole, the messages you type are sent to Anthropic for processing in the United States, which is outside the UK. We make this transfer lawful using UK-approved safeguards: the EU Standard Contractual Clauses together with the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, set out in our agreement with Anthropic. We have assessed the risks of this transfer and minimise the data involved, which is why we ask you not to include identifying details in Seacole.

How long we keep your data

Account and email: while your account is active. If you do not use your account for 24 months, we delete it and the data linked to it.
Tool-usage record: while your account is active. It is deleted when your account is deleted, and in any case after 24 months of inactivity.
Sign-in hand-off codes: these are temporary. They can only be used once, expire within about a minute and a half, and are deleted promptly after use, so they are not kept as a usage log.
Seacole conversation data: kept only as long as needed to provide the service, and then deleted.
Care Journey saved data: while your account is active, deleted on your request or when you close your account, and in any case after 12 months of inactivity.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to object to or restrict how we use it, to data portability, and to withdraw consent where we rely on it. Withdrawing consent does not affect anything we did before you withdrew it.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@thecaring.app. We will respond within one month.

If you ask us to delete your data, we remove it across all of our connected tools, which are linked by your email address. This includes your sign-in account, your tool-usage record, any Care Funding Guide data we hold, and any Care Journey data you saved. A Subject Access Request is handled the same way: we gather your data from every connected tool, again by your email.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you can complain to the ICO at ico.org.uk, although we would welcome the chance to put things right first.

Cookies

We use only the cookies and similar storage that are strictly necessary to run the website and keep you signed in. These do not require your consent and are not used to track you. We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not sell your data. If we introduce analytics or any non-essential cookies in future, we will ask for your consent first and update this policy.

Changes to this policy

If we make significant changes to this policy, we will update the date above and, where appropriate, let you know.