ecou ("we," "us," "our") is a product of Homestead AI LLC. We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy. This Privacy Policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you use the ecou website and applications, and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.
This policy covers ecou specifically. For our company website at homesteadai.org, see the Homestead AI Privacy Policy instead.
Please read this policy carefully. By creating an account or using ecou, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use ecou.
ecou was built as a private digital space where your family's content is owned by you. It is never sold, never exploited. That principle shapes not just this policy, but the way ecou is engineered; see Zero-knowledge encryption below for how we put it into practice.
Controller Name: Homestead AI LLC (operating ecou)
Address: 205 Van Buren Street Suite 120, #1021, Herndon, VA 20170, USA
Email: privacy@homesteadai.org
Website: https://ecou.app/
We collect several types of information from and about users of ecou:
- Account information you give us directly, such as your name and email address when you register.
- Family content you create in ecou: stories, photos, family trees, and media, which is encrypted on your device before it ever reaches us, so we receive and store it, but not in a form we can read. See Zero-knowledge encryption below.
- Information about your device, your connection, and how you use the app (see Infrastructure & hosting below).
- Communications between you and us, including support requests and inquiries.
We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us to:
- Provide, operate, and improve ecou.
- Create and manage your account.
- Respond to your inquiries, comments, and support requests.
- Notify you about changes to the app or this policy.
- Understand how the app is used, in aggregate, so we can improve it.
- Detect, prevent, and address fraud, security incidents, and abuse.
- Fulfill any other purpose for which you provide the information, with your consent where required.
We may also aggregate or de-identify information so that it no longer identifies you, and use that aggregated or de-identified data to study and improve the app. We do not attempt to re-identify this information unless required by law.
The family content you create in ecou, trees, timelines, profiles, stories, and media, is encrypted on your own device before it is ever sent to our servers. We never receive, transmit, or store this content in a readable form.
This is made possible by a master password that you, individually, set for your own account, separate from your account login and known only to you. It is not shared across a family or group; each person who contributes to a family's archive protects their own content with their own master password. That master password is what encrypts your content before it leaves your device and what decrypts it again when you view it in the app. We never transmit or store your master password, and we do not hold or manage any separate encryption keys behind it.
The practical result: we, including our own employees, cannot view, read, or access the family content you create. It also means we cannot recover that content on your behalf if your master password is lost, so please keep it somewhere safe. Because this content is never visible to us, it is also never used for advertising, and we do not run ads or monetize your family's data in any way.
ecou is built on Google Cloud Platform and Firebase, operated by Google LLC ("Google"). Google processes account information, authentication data, and app usage data on our behalf, strictly to host, secure, and operate ecou. Google's use of this data is described at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
Your encrypted family content is never readable by Google, by us, or by anyone other than you and the family members you choose to share it with; see Zero-knowledge encryption above.
We do not sell your personal information. We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual, without restriction. We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide:
- To service providers and processors we use to support the app, including Google LLC (Google Cloud Platform & Firebase) as described above, who are contractually obligated to protect your information.
- To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including responding to any government or regulatory request.
- If we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Homestead AI, our users, or others.
- In connection with a merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business, in which case we will provide notice before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
We retain personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. How long we retain a given piece of information depends on factors such as how long your account remains active, our tax, accounting, and audit obligations, and our need to resolve disputes and enforce our agreements. When information is no longer needed for these purposes, we delete or anonymize it; where immediate deletion is not possible (for example, because information remains in secure backup archives), we isolate it from further use until deletion is possible.
We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure, including encryption of data in transit and at rest, access controls, and regular security assessments. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to the app; any transmission is at your own risk.
You can review and change your account information within the app, or by contacting us directly at the email address below. You may also have additional rights depending on where you live, including the right to access, correct, delete, or port your data, and the right to object to or restrict certain processing. If you are located in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.
Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. Because there is no sale or sharing for you to opt out of, we do not need to respond to browser opt-out signals to give you that protection. Out of respect for your preferences, however, when we detect a Do Not Track (DNT) or Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, we do not enable any tracking technologies beyond what is strictly needed for basic functionality.
Homestead AI is based in the United States. If you access ecou from outside the United States, your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States or other countries where our service providers operate. By using ecou, you consent to this transfer, storage, and processing.
ecou is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child, we will take steps to delete that information.
ecou may contain links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of those websites, and we encourage you to review the privacy policy of any website you visit.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time in response to changing legal, technical, or business developments. When we update this policy, we will post the updated version here and revise the "Updated" date at the top of this page. If we make a material change, we will provide additional notice, such as by email or a prominent notice in the app, before the change takes effect. We encourage you to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your information.
If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at privacy@homesteadai.org.