Legal · Porchlight
Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how Porchlight, a service operated by Levelbrook Consulting (“Porchlight”, “we”, “us”), handles the audio recordings, personal stories, and account information entrusted to it. It forms part of our Terms of Service. For data we process on behalf of a community or family account, that customer is the “controller” and Porchlight is the “processor”; the binding data terms are in our Data Processing Addendum. A plain-language summary is on Who can see what.
1. Who this policy covers
Porchlight is used by communities and families (“customers”) and by three groups of people: residents, who record their life stories; staff (for example activity directors and coordinators), who use the dashboard; and family members, who listen and reply. This policy describes how each group's information is handled.
2. Our role: controller and processor
Resident and family content
The customer decides who is enrolled and why, and is the controller. We process that content on the customer's instructions as its processor.
Our own data
For our own account, billing, support, and website data (for example staff sign-in details and basic site analytics), we are the controller.
3. Information we collect
- Resident content: audio recordings of life-story answers, transcripts of those recordings, and AI-generated summaries, briefings, highlights, and topic tags.
- Resident profile facts: basic facts provided by the customer to make the interview gentle and relevant (for example hometown, or whether the resident was married or served in the military), and the resident's own one-tap “how are you feeling today?” answers.
- Family content: voice messages and suggested topics or photos that family members send, and the contact details (name, email, phone, relationship) used to connect and notify them.
- Staff account data: name, email, phone number, and password (stored only as a salted hash).
- Billing data: the billing contact and plan. Card and bank details are collected by our payment processor and never touch our servers.
- Technical data: notification logs, IP address, device and browser information, usage events, and similar data needed to deliver, secure, and troubleshoot the Service.
4. How we use information
Purposes
We use information to provide and operate the Service (run the interview, transcribe and summarize recordings, deliver family messages and notifications, print books that are ordered), to authenticate users and secure accounts, to bill customers, to provide support, to maintain and improve the Service, to detect and prevent fraud and abuse, and to comply with law.
What we do not do
We do not sell resident or family data, we do not “share” it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not use it to advertise to anyone. We do not use resident or family content to train AI models of our own.
Legal bases (GDPR and UK GDPR)
Where European or UK data-protection law applies, the customer establishes the legal basis for processing resident and family data (typically consent or another lawful basis it has obtained). For data where we are the controller, we rely on performance of our contract with the customer, our legitimate interests in operating and securing the Service, and compliance with legal obligations.
5. Who can access content
- Staff at a resident's community can see that resident's stories, summaries, and highlights to support enrichment programming and care.
- Family members see only the residents they have been connected to, through a private, per-family link, and only the stories the resident or staff have not restricted.
- Porchlight personnel access content only as needed to operate, support, and secure the Service, under confidentiality obligations.
- Nothing is public. Access runs through private links and accounts rather than a directory, and resident recordings are never made publicly searchable.
6. Service providers (subprocessors)
Who they are
We use a small set of providers to deliver the Service: hosting and storage, speech-to-text transcription, an AI model provider (which tidies transcripts, writes summaries and briefings, and turns family-suggested topics into questions), email and text-message delivery, and payment processing. The current list, and what each one touches, is published on our Subprocessors page.
The terms they are under
Providers receive data only so they can perform their function for us, and we never permit them to use it for advertising. Our transcription and AI providers are currently used under developer terms that may allow the provider to retain submitted content, including to improve its models. We are moving them to paid terms with data-processing commitments that exclude training on your content, and will have those in place before any resident's audio is processed in a live community pilot. The Subprocessors page shows the current status.
7. International transfers
We and our providers may process data in the United States and other countries. Where data is transferred internationally and the law requires it, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.
8. Security
We apply reasonable safeguards appropriate to a service that handles sensitive personal stories, including encrypted transport, access controls so that staff and family see only what they are authorized to see, hashed passwords, and private, optionally password-protected family pages. More detail is on our Security page. No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach affecting personal data, we will notify the affected customer without undue delay so it can meet its own notification obligations.
9. Retention
Stories are meant to last
We keep resident content while the customer's account is active, and follow the customer's and the family's wishes about ongoing access, export, or removal, including after a resident passes away. We treat requests about a late resident's stories with particular care.
After an account ends
Content is handled as described in the Terms of Service and the Data Processing Addendum. We keep account, billing, and log data only as long as needed for the purposes above or as required by law.
10. Your rights and choices
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, port, or restrict personal data, and to object to certain processing. Because the customer controls resident and family content, residents and families should direct such requests to their community (or, for a family plan, the account holder); we will help the customer respond. For data where we are the controller, contact us using the details below. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.
California
We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under the CCPA/CPRA.
11. Notifications
The Service sends email and, where enabled, text-message notifications (for example when a new story or message arrives) to the recipients a customer sets up. Every email to a family member links to a preferences page where the recipient can stop them. The customer is responsible for having the right to contact those recipients.
12. Participation is voluntary
Recording is always voluntary. A resident agrees on their own device (or on a paper form) before anything is recorded, may decline, and may stop at any time. Customers decide which residents are enrolled and which family members are connected.
13. Cookies
We use only the cookies needed to sign people in and keep the Service secure (for example a session cookie). We do not use advertising cookies.
14. Children
Porchlight is intended for customers, their adult staff, adult residents, and the family members they connect. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 13.
15. Not a medical service
Porchlight is a life-story, enrichment, and family-connection tool. It is not a medical device and does not provide clinical, diagnostic, or therapeutic services. Our position on HIPAA is described on our HIPAA & BAAs page.
16. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the Service evolves. The “Last updated” date and version at the top of this page show when it last changed, and we will tell the customers we serve about material changes before they take effect.