Privacy policy

BRO is a pattern-tracking and summary tool designed to help individuals record symptoms, appointments, and health-related information in a calm, non-diagnostic way. BRO is published by TI BARJAC LTD, a company registered in the Republic of Cyprus under number HE 476931, with its registered office at Onisiforou Center, 2nd floor, Neofytou Nikolaidi & Theodorou Kolokotroni, Agios Theodoros, 8011 Paphos, Cyprus. "We", "our" and "us" mean TI BARJAC LTD, which is the data controller for the limited personal data this policy describes.

Your privacy is foundational to how BRO is built. This policy explains, plainly and fully, how your information is handled when you use BRO.

1. The short version

• Your health information stays on your device. We never see it.
• There are two exceptions, both optional, and both only when you choose to use them. The first is Big Bro, our optional premium AI companion. If you choose to use it, the specific information you select is sent — with things like email, phone number and postcode removed, and the full text shown to you before anything is sent — to an external AI service to generate a reply. It is fully opt-in, you see exactly what will be sent before it goes, and it is explained in full in section 6. The second is Tell us about the journey: if you choose to answer it, your answers about one healthcare journey — never anything from your record — are sent anonymously, after you have seen exactly what will go. It is explained in full in section 7.
• BRO does not use analytics, cookies, or tracking of any kind (see section 3).
• We do not sell, share, or advertise with your data — ever.
• You can email us at hello@bigbro.org.uk with any questions.

2. Information you enter into BRO

BRO allows you to enter personal health-related information, including:

• Symptoms and patterns you've noticed
• Notes, observations, and free-text diary entries
• Appointments and what was discussed
• Procedures and medications
• How symptoms are affecting your life

Family history. BRO also lets you record conditions that run in your family — a relative's relationship to you, which side of the family they are on, what was diagnosed and at what age. This is health information about other people, so it is recorded carefully: BRO stores the relationship only, never a name, and there is nowhere in the app to type one. It is kept on your device with the rest of your record, and it goes nowhere else unless you choose to include it in a summary you share.

This information is entered voluntarily by you and is stored only on your device. Your record lives under bro-health-record, your diary entries under bro-diary-entries, and anything you add to Documents under bro-documents. Voice notes you record are kept as audio files on your device, listed under bro-voice-recordings. So that your record survives if your phone clears the app's web storage, BRO also keeps a second copy of these on the same device, in the app's own storage, under keys beginning bro-durable:. Alongside those, BRO keeps a handful of small settings keys beginning bro- — things like whether you have seen a particular notice, and the name you gave your summary. None of the settings keys contain health information, and none of this leaves your device unless you choose to send part of it to Big Bro (see section 6).

We never receive this information and we have no access to it. Nothing you enter is transmitted anywhere, other than the optional Big Bro feature, which sends only what you choose — see section 6. Tell us about the journey (section 7) never reads or sends any of it. There are copies of it, and they are all on your phone: the second copy described above, plus any backup file you choose to save. If you delete the app, or clear its data in your phone's settings, what is on the phone is gone — including from us, because we never had it. Clearing only the app's web storage is not enough on its own: the second copy is what brings your record back after that. The one action that removes everything is Delete all my data inside the app. A backup file you saved somewhere else is yours alone — only you can delete that.

3. Analytics

BRO does not use analytics. There is no analytics service on the app, no cookies, and no tracking of any kind. If that ever changes, this policy will be updated to say exactly what is collected before the change goes live.

4. If you email us

If you contact us at hello@bigbro.org.uk, we will see your email address and the contents of your message. We use this only to reply to you. We do not add you to any mailing list, and we do not share your email with anyone.

The hello@bigbro.org.uk address is forwarded to a personal inbox managed by the founder. Email is not encrypted end-to-end — please don't include sensitive medical details in messages to us.

5. Data sharing

We do not:

• Sell your data
• Share your personal health data with third parties
• Use your data for advertising
• Combine your data with data from other sources

There are two exceptions, both optional and both only when you choose to use them. The optional Big Bro feature is one: when you use it, the information you choose is sent to an AI provider, acting on your instruction, to generate your reply (see section 6). This is a processing service you actively choose to use — not selling, advertising, or sharing your data for anyone else's purposes, which we never do. The other is Tell us about the journey: if you choose to answer it, your anonymous answers are sent to a database we run, for this app's "What we heard" reports and nothing else (see section 7).

Anything you choose to export from BRO is entirely under your control. That includes the doctor summary — whether you copy it or save it as a PDF — and the backup file you can create of your whole record. Once either leaves your device it is outside BRO's protection, so please keep them as you would any other personal medical document. A backup file in particular holds everything you have recorded, so store it somewhere you would be comfortable storing your medical notes.

6. Big Bro (optional premium AI companion)

Big Bro is an optional, premium feature. Everything above about your health information staying on your device remains true — Big Bro is one of two deliberate exceptions (the other is Tell us about the journey, section 7), and it only ever operates when you choose to use it.

What it does. Big Bro helps you understand a term from your records, prepare questions for an appointment, or organise what you have recorded into a readable summary. To do this it uses an external artificial-intelligence service — currently Claude, made by Anthropic — to generate a reply.

It is opt-in, twice over. Big Bro does nothing unless you turn it on (a one-time consent) and then confirm each individual send. Nothing is sent automatically or in the background.

What is sent — and what is not. Only the specific information you choose for that request is sent. Before anything leaves your device, we automatically remove things like email addresses, phone numbers, NHS numbers, postcodes and dates of birth written as numbers. Names are different. Removing them could change the words you used to describe what’s happening, so instead we show you exactly what will be sent first. You can edit any part of it, and if the name you've saved in BRO appears, we’ll flag that for you. We send the minimum needed for the task, never your whole record, and in a continuing conversation only your new message plus the conversation so far. You also see roughly how much, before you confirm.

How it is sent. Your chosen information travels over an encrypted connection to a relay we operate, whose only job is to pass the request to the AI provider and return the reply. It stores nothing, keeps no database, and does not log your health content.

Checking your subscription. Big Bro is a paid feature, so each request also carries a random ID that our subscription service, RevenueCat, gave this copy of the app. It contains no name, email or health information. The relay uses it only to ask RevenueCat whether your subscription is active, and never passes it to the AI provider or keeps it. If you were given a tester code, the app sends that code instead. RevenueCat handles subscriptions for us but never receives any of your health information.

The AI provider. The provider (currently Anthropic) processes your request to generate the reply. Under their commercial API terms they do not use the data to train their models and do not retain it after responding.

International transfer. The provider may process your request outside the UK/EU (for example, in the United States). This applies only to the information you choose to send, and is governed by the provider's data-processing terms and appropriate safeguards.

It still never diagnoses. Big Bro will not tell you what condition you have or interpret your results — it helps you understand and prepare, and routes decisions back to your healthcare team. It is not a medical device.

Your control. You can choose not to use Big Bro at all, use it for only some things, or stop at any time. A conversation is held only in memory while it is open, and is not saved anywhere once you close it.

7. Tell us about the journey (optional, anonymous)

"Tell us about the journey" is an optional set of questions about one healthcare journey you went through yourself — how the system worked, not the people in it. It is the second of the two exceptions described in section 1. Like Big Bro, it sends nothing unless you choose to answer it and press Send.

What is sent. Your answers to the journey questions. If you write something in the last box, your words are sent too — after names and numbers we recognise have been replaced on your phone, and only after you have been shown exactly what will go. With the answers go the month you sent them, which app you used, and a marker if you are one of our testers, so that testers' answers are never counted.

What is not sent. Nothing from your record. Nothing that identifies you: no name, no email, nothing about your device, and no account — BRO does not have accounts. Nothing about where you are beyond the nation you choose in your answers. Your connection's IP address is used for a moment to limit how often answers can be sent, and is never stored.

Where it goes. To a database run by TI BARJAC LTD on Cloudflare, held under EU jurisdiction.

What it is used for. BRO's "What we heard" reports, and improving BRO. Nothing else.

How it is published. Only as numbers, with how many people answered — never as anyone's story. Your words are quoted only if you ticked "You may quote my words", and then only as "one respondent said", with no where or when.

A person reads your words. Anything you write in the last box is read by a person at TI BARJAC LTD. The original is deleted after that review, and never kept longer than 90 days after it arrives. Only a checked version is kept, and only where there is a reason to keep it.

We cannot delete your answers on request. Nothing we hold identifies you, so if you ask us to find and delete your answers, we have no way to find them. That is the honest consequence of holding nothing that could.

If this ever changes. If the purpose of these answers ever changes, we will show you a new notice before you send anything again.

8. Future features and research

BRO's long-term mission includes the possibility of feeding anonymous, combined patterns — never personal information — back into clinical and research systems, so that what people record about their own health can help improve the care that follows.

This is a future feature, not a current one. If and when it is built, it will:

• Be entirely opt-in, with explicit, specific consent
• Share only de-identified, combined pattern data — never your name, your free text, your appointments, or anything that could identify you
• Be documented in detail in this privacy policy before it goes live
• Be designed with appropriate safeguards under UK and EU GDPR provisions for health and research data

Until then, other than the two optional exceptions described in sections 6 and 7, none of your data leaves your device.

9. Medical positioning

BRO is not a medical device. It does not diagnose, treat, monitor, or make clinical decisions. It is a personal record-keeping and pattern-noticing tool. BRO does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and is not a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare professional. Always consult your doctor about any medical concerns. BRO's optional AI companion, Big Bro, likewise does not diagnose or give medical advice (see section 6).

10. Security

Because your information is stored only on your device, the security of that information depends on the security of your device. We recommend:

• Keeping your device locked with a passcode, PIN, or biometric
• Keeping your phone's software up to date
• Being mindful when using BRO on shared or public devices

BRO itself does not transmit your health information anywhere — except where you actively use Big Bro (see section 6), which sends only the information you choose, over an encrypted connection. Tell us about the journey (section 7) sends only your answers, also over an encrypted connection, and never your record.

11. Your rights

Because we don't hold your personal health data, most data-protection rights (access, correction, deletion, portability) are exercised directly by you on your own device — your data is yours, immediately and completely.

For the limited information we do process (any email correspondence), and for the information you choose to send when you use Big Bro, under EU GDPR, UK GDPR, and equivalent laws in other regions, you have the right to:

• Ask what information we hold about you
• Ask us to correct or delete it
• Object to its processing
• Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority — in Cyprus, the Office of the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection (or, if you are elsewhere, your local data-protection authority)

Answers sent through Tell us about the journey are the one place these rights cannot reach in practice: nothing we hold identifies you, so we cannot find your answers to show, correct or delete them (see section 7).

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@bigbro.org.uk.

12. International users

BRO is available globally. Email sent to hello@bigbro.org.uk is forwarded to an inbox managed by the founder in Cyprus. Because your health data never leaves your device, there are no international transfers of your health information — with two exceptions, both optional: if you use the optional Big Bro feature, the information you choose may be processed by an AI provider outside the UK/EU (see section 6); and if you use Tell us about the journey, your anonymous answers are held in a database run by TI BARJAC LTD on Cloudflare, under EU jurisdiction (see section 7).

13. Children's privacy

BRO is intended for adults. It is not directed at children. Different countries set the minimum age for digital consent differently (commonly between 13 and 16). If you are under the age of digital consent in your country, please use BRO only with the involvement of a parent or guardian. If you believe a child has used BRO on a device you control and you wish to remove the data, deleting the app, or clearing its data in your phone's settings, will delete it.

14. Changes to this policy

If we make material changes to this policy — for example, adding a new feature that involves processing data differently — we will update this page and revise the "Last updated" date at the top. For significant changes, we will surface a notice in the app itself.

15. Contact

For any privacy questions, requests, or concerns, please email:

hello@bigbro.org.uk

BRO is built on the belief that your story belongs to you. This policy is the practical expression of that belief.