Privacy Policy

What we collect from businesses (our customers)

• Account details: your name, email address, and sign-in method (Google, GitHub, or email/password via Google Firebase Authentication). We never see or store your password.
• Bot configuration: the settings, knowledge, links, and website content you provide or ask us to scan so your chatbot can answer questions about your business.
• Team members: names, email addresses, and optional phone numbers of employees you add, used for sign-in, alerts, and (if configured) SMS notifications.
• Billing: payments are processed by Stripe. We store your plan and subscription status, but your card details never touch our servers.
• Free-month checks: to keep it to one free month per business, we keep a one-way scrambled (hashed) form of the internet address you start a plan from and of a random id kept in your browser's local storage, the website your chatbot runs on, and Stripe's card fingerprint (a code that identifies a card without revealing its number). They are used only to decide whether a free month applies. The address and browser checks are kept for 30 and 90 days.
• Visits to botdesk.studio: without cookies, we record the pages viewed, your IP address, approximate location, device and browser type, and how you arrived (a search engine, a referring site, or a campaign tag). When you create an account, we match it to how you first arrived so we know which channels bring customers. Your browser also keeps how you arrived (the referring site's name and any campaign tag, not the full address) in session storage until you close the tab, so steps like building a demo or starting a signup are added to anonymous counts by channel. Those counts hold no IP address, email or identifier.

What we process for visitors of our customers' websites

• Chat messages: conversations with a business's chatbot are stored so the business can read them, receive transcripts, and follow up. We process this data on behalf of the business you were chatting with; contact that business for requests about your conversation.
• Contact details you choose to share: if you submit your name, phone number, or email through a chat (for a callback, booking, or quote), it is delivered to that business.
• Technical and location data: your IP address, the approximate country and city it resolves to, your device type and browser family, and how you arrived at the site (for example a search engine or a referring link). The business that runs the widget can see this alongside your conversation, and uses it to recognise returning visitors, to route and answer enquiries, and to exclude its own staff's visits from its statistics.
• Order status, when a business has connected its store: if you ask "where is my order?", we ask you for the order number and the email address on the order, and use them to look that single order up in the business's own store (Shopify or WooCommerce). We do this live and we do not store any of the order data, including the email you give us. The email is used once, to check it matches the order, so that we never reveal someone else's order to you.
• Account details, when you are signed in to the business's website: if the business has set this up, its website sends us a signed note with the account details it chooses to share with you (for example your last order number or next appointment). We use them only to answer you in that chat, and they are sent to OpenAI as part of the conversation. By default we do not keep them: the chat history and emails the business receives show only that you were signed in and your name, with the details hidden. The business can choose to keep them.
• Chat messages are sent to OpenAI to generate the AI's responses. They are not used by us to train AI models.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We do not use it to build advertising profiles or to make automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

Calendars and bookings

• Bookings: when a business turns on booking, we store each booking (the visitor’s name, email and phone number, the time they chose, the service, and any answers they give to the business’s questions). We use it to create the booking and to email the business and the visitor.
• Calendar links (iCal / ICS): when a business connects a calendar, for example Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple iCloud, we read only the busy times (a start and an end) from the private calendar link the business gives us. We never read event titles or descriptions. We store that link encrypted, and the business can remove it at any time.
• Cal.com and Calendly: when a business connects one of these, we read that account’s open times and create the booking there with the visitor’s name, email and phone number. Cal.com or Calendly then emails the visitor.
• Google Calendar (one-click connection): when a business connects its Google account, we ask Google for two calendar permissions and the account’s email address. We read only the busy times (a start and an end) of that account’s main (primary) calendar, through Google’s free/busy service, so the chatbot never offers a time the business is busy. We never read event titles, descriptions, guests or other calendars. We write only the events for bookings made through BotDesk: one event per confirmed booking on the primary calendar, holding the service, the time and the visitor’s name, phone number, email and answers, and we delete that event when the booking is cancelled. We do not add the visitor as a Google guest, so Google sends them nothing. We use the email address only to show the business which account is connected. Google’s access and refresh tokens are stored encrypted; the business can disconnect at any time, and we then revoke our access with Google and delete the tokens.
• Google API data and Limited Use: BotDesk’s use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements (and, for Google Workspace data, the Google Workspace API User Data and Developer Policy). In plain words: we use Google Calendar data only to show the business’s open times and to keep its calendar up to date with its bookings. We do not sell it, use it for advertising, or use it to train AI models, and no person at BotDesk reads it unless the business asks us to for support, it is needed for security, or the law requires it.
• Square Appointments (one-click connection): when a business connects Square, we read its locations, its bookable services and the open times Square shows, and we create bookings there. To do that we look up or add the visitor as a Square customer (name, phone number and email) and send the booking with the visitor’s note. We cancel a booking in Square when it is cancelled in BotDesk. Square’s tokens are stored encrypted, and we revoke them when the business disconnects.
• Jobber (one-click connection): when a business connects Jobber, each new booking or booking request is sent to that Jobber account: we look up the client by email or phone, add the client if there is none (name, email and phone number), and add a request with a note holding the time, the service and the visitor’s answers. We read only the account name and those client matches. Jobber’s tokens are stored encrypted, and we remove our access when the business disconnects.
• Calendar options today: the BotDesk built-in calendar, calendar links (iCal / ICS), Cal.com and Calendly, and the one-click connections above as each one is switched on.

Chats with the assistant on botdesk.studio

When you chat with our own assistant on botdesk.studio, or try the sample chat on our homepage, we keep that conversation, with the same technical and location data listed above, so our team can read it and follow up. These chats are emailed to us when they finish. Demos you build of your own website are not kept as chats with us.

Service providers we rely on

Retention & deletion

Account and bot data is kept while your subscription is active. Beyond that we apply specific limits rather than keeping things indefinitely:

To delete your account and its data, email hello@botdesk.studio and we'll complete the deletion within 30 days.

Children and students

BotDesk is a tool for businesses. It is not directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

• If a young visitor chats: every chatbot is built so that, when a visitor says or clearly shows they are under 18 (their age, their grade in school, “my mom”), it doesn’t ask for their name, phone number, email or other personal details, and doesn’t take them as a lead. It answers their question simply and suggests a parent or guardian gets in touch with the business. It never asks visitors how old they are, so it only goes by what they say, and like any AI it can miss a sign.
• On tutoring and other education sites: it’s also built to never ask about a child’s name, school or records, and to leave those details out of the lead it sends the business if they’re shared anyway.
• What’s kept: anything typed in a chat is stored like any other conversation: for the business, for no longer than 12 months after the last message (the most recent 100 per chatbot). The text is sent to OpenAI to write each reply. We do not use chats to train AI models.
• Schools and tutoring businesses: if you use BotDesk on a site that students visit, you are responsible for your own obligations, including FERPA where it applies and any parental consent your students need. BotDesk isn’t designed as a school records system, so don’t use it to collect grades, records or other student information.
• Deleting a child’s chat: if you’re a parent or guardian and think your child shared personal information in a chat, email hello@botdesk.studio with the website and roughly when it happened. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, email us and we will delete it.

Health information

BotDesk isn’t set up for HIPAA, and we don’t sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). Every chat is saved for up to 12 months so the business can read it, and the text is sent to OpenAI to write each reply. If a visitor types a health detail, such as why they’re booking a visit, that is saved too.

• For health practices (dentists, clinics, therapists and similar): the safe way to use it is to keep it to general questions (hours, location, insurance you accept, how to become a new patient), set the greeting to ask visitors not to share health details in the chat, and let it take just a name and number so your team calls back. If your practice needs a BAA, don’t use BotDesk for patient intake.
• What the chatbot is built to do: never give medical advice or diagnose, not ask about symptoms beyond what the visit is for, and tell anyone describing an emergency, such as chest pain or trouble breathing, to call 911 first. For counselling and therapy practices, it’s also built to leave health details out of the lead it sends.
• For visitors: please don’t share health details in a chat. Give them to the practice directly.

Social Security and card numbers in a chat

If a visitor types a Social Security number or a payment card number into a business’s chatbot, we replace it with “[number removed for your privacy]” when the message reaches our server, before it is sent to the AI or saved. OpenAI, the saved chat, the lead and the business’s email only ever get that mark, never the number.

• What it catches: Social Security numbers written with dashes or spaces, like 123-45-6789 or 123 45 6789, and card numbers of 13 to 19 digits, with or without spaces or dashes, that pass the standard check that card numbers use. Phone numbers are left alone.
• What it doesn’t catch: a Social Security number typed as nine digits with no dashes or spaces, bank account and routing numbers, and anything typed into a booking form instead of the chat.
• What the chatbot says: when a number is removed, the chatbot is told to ask the visitor not to share Social Security, card or bank numbers in the chat.
• On the visitor’s own screen, the message still shows as they typed it in their own chat window.
• For visitors: please don’t type these numbers into any chat. Give them to the business directly.

Email preferences

Marketing emails include an unsubscribe link and stop immediately when used. Operational email (receipts, alerts you configured, security notices) is sent as part of the service.

Your rights

You can request a copy, correction, or deletion of your personal data at any time by emailing hello@botdesk.studio. If you chatted with a business's widget, direct requests to that business, and we'll assist them in fulfilling it.

Changes

We'll update this page when our practices change and revise the date above. Material changes are announced to account holders by email.