Privacy Policy
Chronic Friends is a wellness, self-tracking, and community app for people living with chronic illness. Protecting your data matters deeply to us — especially because we handle information about your health. This Privacy Policy explains, in plain language, what data we collect, why we use it, who we share it with, and what rights you have.
Where you can use Chronic Friends. Chronic Friends is offered in two places, and this policy covers both. There is the mobile app for iPhone and Android, and there is the web version at chronicfriends.app, which runs in your browser on a computer and can be installed as a desktop app. Both are the same product: you sign in with the same account, and your journal, community and settings are the same data, synchronised through your account. Three things work differently in the browser: Health Sync is not available (it reads from Apple Health or Health Connect, which only exist on your phone); medication reminders only ring while the page is open, because a browser cannot wake itself up; and Premium cannot be purchased from a computer — it is activated in the mobile app, and a subscription bought there unlocks the web version too. Our public information website, chronicfriends.org, is a separate site and does not require an account.
Our mission is to help people all over the world who live with a chronic condition feel less alone, understand their own patterns, and carry their health information with confidence. Chronic Friends is dedicated exclusively to chronic illness and supports a broad and growing range of conditions — digestive, musculoskeletal, autoimmune, respiratory, metabolic, neurological, pelvic, and mental-health conditions, among others (see our Terms of Service for the current list). We do not privilege any single "primary" condition: every condition is treated equally, and whatever condition brought you here, the way we protect your data is exactly the same.
Chronic Friends is available to users around the world. We use the GDPR (EU) and the revFADP (Switzerland) as our global baseline, because they are among the strictest data protection laws in the world. For users in the United States, we also follow the U.S. rules that apply to consumer health apps, such as the FTC Health Breach Notification Rule and state health-privacy laws (for example California's CCPA/CPRA and Washington's My Health My Data Act). We also aim to comply with the data protection laws that apply where you live. Depending on your country or region, you may have additional rights (see Section 8).
1. What data we collect
- Account / profile: email, username, encrypted password, language, country.
- Health & wellness data (special category): the condition(s) you choose to follow; symptom and wellness check-ins; journal entries and notes about how you feel; food logging and scanning; and the parameters you enter for self-tracking and visualization — including body-map entries, the inputs shown in the symptom/wellness radar, energy and fatigue logs, and any readings you type in yourself from your own home devices (for example blood pressure, peak flow, or glucose). All of this is data you enter yourself — the only exception is Health Sync, described next, which reads from your phone's own health store if you switch it on.
- Health Sync — readings from your phone's health store (optional, off until you turn it on): if you enable Health Sync and grant permission in your phone's own system dialog, the app reads your step count, sleep duration and activity minutes — and, only if your device records them, resting heart rate and heart-rate variability — from Apple Health (HealthKit) on iPhone or Health Connect on Android. Three things about this: it is read-only (we never write anything into Apple Health or Health Connect); those readings stay on your device and are not uploaded to our servers, so they are shown next to your journal and can appear in a PDF report that you choose to generate, but we do not receive them — with one exception, and only one: if you join the steps tournament, the four step totals described below are uploaded, and nothing else is; and if a day has no data, the app says so instead of estimating a value. You can withdraw this permission at any time from your phone's settings, and the rest of the app keeps working exactly the same.
- The steps tournament (optional, off until you join): Chronic Friends includes a friendly steps tournament — a table of who has walked the most today, this week, this month and this year, which starts again on 1 January. Taking part is a choice you make, and nothing is published until you make it. If you join, four numbers — your step totals for those four periods — are uploaded to our servers together with the display name and avatar you already show in the community, so that other members can see them in the table. Nothing else about your health goes with them: not sleep, not activity minutes, not a single day-by-day figure, and nothing from your journal. If you leave the tournament, your row is deleted, not hidden, and you disappear from the table.
- Self-assessment questionnaires (optional): the answers you give to standardised questionnaires you choose to complete — such as the PHQ-9, the GAD-7, the AUDIT-C or a condition activity index — and the score they add up to. You choose whether to open one and you can delete the result afterwards. These questionnaires are reproduced from their official published versions and the app shows you the score without interpreting it (see Section 11).
- Community: posts and private messages.
- Teleconsultation: appointment details, communications with doctors, and any health information you choose to share. We do not record video consultations.
- Subscription / payment: subscription status via RevenueCat; charges via Apple / Google; consultation payments via Stripe. We never store card details.
- Doctor verification (doctors only): identity documents and credentials, sent directly to Stripe Identity. These document images do not pass through our own servers.
- Technical / usage: device, operating system, identifiers, and error logs.
2. How we use your data
We use your data to: run your account; provide the health and self-tracking features; run the community and messaging; enable video consultations; manage subscriptions and payments; verify doctors; keep the app secure; improve it; and send you important service notices.
Artificial intelligence. This version of Chronic Friends does not send your health data to any artificial-intelligence service. Nothing you log is transmitted to a third-party AI provider, and no AI feature is active in the app.
If we ever introduce a feature that does send your data to an AI provider, we will not switch it on silently. We will first update this policy to name the provider, the data involved, where it is processed and how long it is kept, and we will ask you for separate, explicit consent before a single entry leaves your device. You will be able to withdraw that consent at any time, and refusing it will never block the rest of the app. Any such feature would be informational only: it would describe your own logged data and would not predict, diagnose, or recommend treatment (see Section 11).
We never sell your data and never use it for advertising.
3. Legal basis
- Explicit consent (Art. 9.2.a GDPR) for health data — you can withdraw it at any time.
- Contract (Art. 6.1.b) for your account, subscription, and consultations.
- Legitimate interest (Art. 6.1.f) for security and improvement.
- Legal obligation (Art. 6.1.c) where the law requires it.
4. Who we share with
- Firebase (Google) — authentication, database, storage, and push notifications.
- RevenueCat — subscription management.
- Stripe — doctor verification and consultation payments.
- Daily.co — video consultations.
- Open Food Facts — when you scan a food barcode, your device looks it up directly in the Open Food Facts database, so your device's IP address and the scanned barcode reach their servers. No account or health data is sent with the lookup.
- Apple / Google — app distribution and billing.
- GitHub (Microsoft) — hosting of our websites and of the web version at chronicfriends.app. GitHub serves the page files to your browser, so it sees your IP address and basic request information. No account or health data is sent to GitHub: your data travels between your browser and Firebase, not through the hosting.
Being found by other members. Other members can find you by typing your name into the community search and send you a friend request. To make that possible, your display name and avatar — the same ones you already show on your posts — are listed in a directory that any signed-in, verified member can search. Your email address is never in it, and neither is anything about your health or the conditions you follow. You can switch this off whenever you like, in Settings → “Let others find me”: switching it off removes you from that directory, and from then on nobody can reach you by searching. Your existing friendships and conversations are unaffected. Nobody can send you a message without you having accepted them as a friend first.
The steps tournament. If you join the steps tournament, the step totals described in Section 1 are visible to any signed-in, verified member, next to your display name and avatar. This is the only health-related figure that other members can ever see about you, it happens only if you choose to take part, and leaving the tournament deletes your row.
Verified doctors receive only the health information you choose to share for a given visit. We may also disclose data where the law requires it. We do not share your data with anyone else.
5. Where your data is stored, and international transfers
Your account and health data are stored on Google Cloud / Firebase servers in Zurich, Switzerland (region europe-west6). Files you upload are stored in Frankfurt, Germany (region europe-west3). We host in Europe on purpose: Switzerland is covered by a European Commission adequacy decision and applies the revFADP, one of the strictest data-protection laws anywhere, and the GDPR applies to how we handle your data regardless of where the servers sit. Both storage locations are permanent and cannot be changed.
What stays on your phone: the readings Health Sync takes from Apple Health or Health Connect — sleep, activity minutes, resting heart rate, heart-rate variability, and your day-by-day step counts — are stored only on your device. They are not sent to Firebase and they do not reach our servers. If you delete the app, they go with it. There is one exception, and only one: if you choose to join the steps tournament, your four step totals are uploaded so that the table can be drawn, as described in Sections 1 and 4. The day-by-day figures behind them never leave your phone.
On a computer. When you use the web version at chronicfriends.app, the same rules apply, with one addition: your browser keeps a working copy of your entries in its own local storage on that computer, so the app still opens if you lose connection. Signing out or clearing your browser data removes that local copy from that computer; it does not delete your account, and your data is still there when you sign in again from your phone or another computer.
A limited set of providers may process certain non-health data outside Switzerland or the EEA (for example, in the United States): RevenueCat (subscription status), Stripe (doctor verification and consultation payments), and Apple / Google (billing and app distribution). Where this happens, we rely on safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) or the EU–US / Swiss–US Data Privacy Framework.
6. Retention
We keep your data while your account is active. After you delete your account, we delete your data within 30 days, except where the law requires us to keep certain records (for example, billing). Consultation records may be subject to specific retention requirements. Backups rotate out in the normal course.
If you take part in the steps tournament, your row is deleted the moment you leave it, and in any case when you delete your account.
7. Contact and data controller
- Data controller: Chronic Friends LLC, a limited liability company registered in Wyoming, USA
- Registered address: 30 N Gould St, Ste N, Sheridan, WY 82801, USA
- EU representative (Art. 27 GDPR): Prighter EU Rep GmbH, Schellinggasse 3/10, 1010 Vienna, Austria. Users in the EU may contact our EU representative directly on any data protection matter.
- Contact: info@chronicfriends.org
8. Your rights
You have the right to: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, data portability, and withdrawal of consent. To exercise any of these, email info@chronicfriends.org; we reply within 30 days.
You may also have additional regional rights, including: lodging a complaint with the supervisory authority in Switzerland, the EU, or the UK; rights under US state privacy laws (such as California's CCPA/CPRA and Washington's My Health My Data Act), including the right that we do not sell your data; and similar rights in Brazil, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore, and elsewhere.
9. Data security
We protect your data with encryption in transit and at rest, and with access controls. Sensitive doctor-verification documents are sent directly to Stripe and do not pass through our servers. No system is ever 100% secure, but we work to keep your information safe.
10. Minors
Chronic Friends is intended for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone younger. If you believe a minor has provided us with data, please contact us so we can remove it.
11. Medical disclaimer
Chronic Friends is a wellness, self-tracking, and community tool. It is not a medical device and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
- The radar, body map, graphs, and trends visualize the data you enter yourself. They do not predict, diagnose, or detect any disease or medical condition.
- Choosing which condition(s) you follow only personalizes which trackers you see. It is not a diagnosis, and Chronic Friends does not provide medical advice.
- Any readings you type in from your own home devices (such as blood pressure, peak flow, or glucose) are shown only as a simple timeline of what you entered, with no reference ranges, no colour zones, no "high/low/normal" labels, and no alerts or interpretation.
- Standardised questionnaires (such as the PHQ-9, the GAD-7, the AUDIT-C, or a condition activity index) are self-assessment tools, reproduced from their official published versions and offered only in the languages in which an official translation exists. The app shows you the score you obtained and does not interpret it: it assigns no severity category, no risk level, and no clinical threshold, it raises no alert, and no other feature of the app reads that score to change what you are shown. A score is not a diagnosis. It is there for you to discuss with your doctor.
- This version of the app does not use artificial intelligence on your health data, and does not send it to any AI provider.
- Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health professional with any questions about your condition, and never disregard professional medical advice because of something you saw in the app.
- Online consultations are conducted by independent, licensed professionals and are only available where a verified doctor is licensed in your location.
- In an emergency, call your local emergency services.
12. Changes
We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes within the app.
13. Contact
Questions about this policy or your data? Email info@chronicfriends.org.