At a glance
- What we collect: what you say to Penny (your voice), what you type and send her, photos you choose (like receipts), your money details (bills, debts, pay, and bank info if you connect one), and an ID for your account.
- All of it is linked to your account.
- Why: only to make Softkeep work for you.
- No tracking. No ads. We don't sell your data.
This is how the current test app works, in plain words. It matches what Penny tells you in the app when you ask "what happens to my data". It isn't a lawyer-written policy yet.
Why we need any of this
Softkeep is a household money app. It needs enough of your money picture to keep one leftover number honest: what's left after bills, what's due, what you told it about your situation. Without that, it would be guessing. Penny is the quiet voice inside Softkeep you can talk to; she uses the same books.
What we access
If you connect a bank (optional)
- You sign in on your bank's own screen through Plaid. Softkeep never sees your bank password.
- We request Plaid's Transactions product only. That syncs transactions and also lets us read balances (accounts/balance, including a live-balance path).
- We do not use Plaid Transfer. Softkeep cannot move money through Plaid.
- We do not use Plaid Auth today. We do not pull account/routing numbers that way.
When you chat (with Penny)
- What you type goes to Anthropic's API so Softkeep can understand it.
- For money questions Softkeep also sends the labels and numbers needed to answer (bill names, debt names, pay you track, a short stretch of recent chat), not a dump of your whole life.
Photos you choose (like receipts)
- You can take a picture of a receipt, or pick one from your photos, and send it to Penny.
- The photo goes to Anthropic so Softkeep can read it and pull out the amounts.
- What Penny reads from it (like the amounts) is saved in your household books, linked to your account.
- We don't keep the picture itself.
- It's used only to make the app work. Never for tracking or ads.
Voice (when Penny talks out loud)
- When the iPhone app reads a reply out loud, the text of that reply goes to xAI (text-to-speech) so it can be spoken. It is the words Penny is about to say, not a copy of your books.
- Anthropic still writes every reply; xAI only reads it aloud.
Microphone (when you talk to Penny)
- The iPhone app uses your microphone while you hold Penny or the mic button, and while Penny is talking so you can interrupt her by speaking.
- Only what you say after you start talking is sent, and Amazon Transcribe (part of Amazon Web Services) turns it into text. That text is then handled like anything you type.
- We don't keep the recording itself. Amazon, which turns your voice into text, is set not to keep or learn from your audio. The app deletes its copy once it's sent, and our server only holds it in memory long enough to turn it into text.
What we do not access
- Your bank password
- Any way to send money from your bank through Plaid
- Your contacts
- Photos you didn't choose. Softkeep only reads the photos you pick or take for it.
- Other things on your phone that have nothing to do with Softkeep
What we store
Your household books, which may include:
- Bills and debts you added
- Transactions and balances (if a bank is linked)
- Pay / household labels and situation notes
- Chat history
- What you say to Penny, turned into text and kept with your chat
- What Penny reads from receipt photos you choose (the picture itself isn't kept)
- An ID for your account, so your books stay yours
- A Plaid access token when linked (refreshes bank data, not your password)
- Derived money state Softkeep computes from the above (including Living / Foundation / emergency cushion tags)
Service secrets (Anthropic, xAI, Plaid client keys, AWS/KMS, alert email) live in protected config, not in your books.
How it is stored
- Hosted: household books on the Softkeep host disk as AWS KMS envelopes, served over HTTPS. Households isolated; wrong household → 403.
- Nightly backups: ciphertext to Amazon S3. Everyday backup credentials are write-oriented (put new backups; not meant to wipe the trail). Roll off on a ~30-day cycle.
Why each piece is kept
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Bills, debts, income, notes | So leftover and "what's due" are about your household |
| Balances / transactions | So the picture stays fresh without typing every number |
| Plaid token | Refresh bank data without logging in every time |
| Chat history | Remember the thread you're in |
| Receipt photos you choose | To pull out the amounts so you don't have to type them |
| What you say to Penny | So you can talk instead of type |
| Encrypted backups | A dead disk shouldn't erase the books |
Who else can see something
| Who | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Plaid | Bank link; transactions + balances you approve | Bank connection |
| Anthropic | Chat, money labels and recent messages needed to answer, and receipt photos you choose | Understanding, replies, and reading receipts |
| Amazon Web Services | KMS key use, encrypted books, S3 backups; your recorded voice when you talk to Penny (Amazon Transcribe) | Host, storage, encryption; speech to text |
| xAI | The text of replies Penny reads out loud | Text-to-speech |
| Us (operators) | We don't read balances/debts as a habit. Fixing a wrong number may mean looking at that number, and we say when we do. | Support only |
We do not sell your data. We don't track you across other apps or websites, and we don't use your data for ads.
Consent: you choose
We only keep your data with your consent. You should be able to say yes (or no) in plain language before Softkeep holds household books or connects a bank.
- Before a bank link: Softkeep shows a short privacy note, then you choose to continue on Plaid's screen (or cancel). Connecting is optional.
- Using the app: Creating / using a household means you agree we may store the books described above (bills, debts, chat, what Penny reads from photos you choose, and bank data if you link) so Softkeep can do its job, under the commitments on this page.
- You can withdraw: ask us to delete your data (live app within 7 days; backups age out in roughly 30 days). Stop using Softkeep anytime; bank link can be removed without wiping everything if you only want to disconnect the bank.
- Kids / someone else's money: only connect accounts and enter books you have the right to manage.
If consent is missing, unclear, or can't be recorded for a new user path, that path should not collect data until consent is fixed. That is a product rule, not fine print.
Your choices
- Bank link is optional.
- Ask anytime: "what happens to my data" (source of truth in the app).
- Delete: ask us. Gone from the live app within 7 days; backups age out in roughly 30 days.
- If you go quiet: we currently keep books about 12 months.
- Breach: we tell you within 72 hours of confirming it.
What this is not
- Not "bank certified" or third-party audited.
- Not yet a full legal privacy policy (like GDPR or CCPA). We'll have one reviewed by a lawyer before Softkeep opens to everyone.
- Not a claim that every product money-gate is finished shipping.
- Not financial advice. Softkeep prepares numbers; you decide. Just Penny's take as your money buddy: she's not a licensed financial advisor, and this isn't professional financial advice. The decision is always yours.
The old waitlist
There's no waitlist anymore. If you joined the old one and want your email gone, write to softkeep@mail.grokbot.com and we'll delete it.
Website visits
This website's server keeps basic visit logs: the page asked for (without anything after a ?), the kind of request and the site name, the time, how the server answered (status code, size and how long it took), the device and browser name your browser reports, and your internet address. There are no cookies and no tracking scripts, and we use the logs only to count visits. The logs are capped at about 60 MB, and the oldest are deleted as new ones fill up.
Questions
Ask Penny in the app anytime: "what happens to my data." Or email us at softkeep@mail.grokbot.com.
Softkeep privacy statement · last updated October 30, 2026