Sovela Privacy Policy
Who we are
Sovela is made by Covalent Families Inc. (“we”, “us”). This policy covers the Sovela iPhone app, the websites at sovelaparents.com and sovelaparents.ca, and the Sovela console that professionals and our staff use.
- Privacy questions: privacy@sovelaparents.com
- Mailing address: c/o Legalinc Corporate Services, 131 Continental Drive, Suite 305, Newark, DE 19713
- Person responsible for privacy: Katie Hallee, Founder and CEO
Sovela is skills training and education for co-parents. It is not legal advice, not therapy and not an emergency service.
What we collect
We collect what you put into Sovela to run it, plus a small amount of technical information to keep accounts secure. We don’t buy information about you from anyone.
| What | Examples | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Email address, display name, the country and state or province you say your family lives in, sign-in methods (passkeys, an authenticator app, backup codes) | To sign you in and keep your records in your country |
| Phone number (optional) | A mobile number you add and verify | To text sign-in codes and notices that a message is waiting |
| Family records | Messages to the other parent, the calendar and swaps, expenses and payments recorded between you, exchange check-ins, the parenting plan you upload, notes about events | To provide the service you’re using |
| Your private space | Private notes, journal entries, vault files and documents, mood check-ins | For you alone; the other parent can’t see them or tell they exist |
| Children’s information | Each child’s first name or nickname, birth year and pronoun, entered by a parent; what a paired child’s device sends (see Children) | To give each child a schedule, packing list and notes |
| Learning | Coaching level, lesson progress, your setup answers (values, words to come back to) | To fit lessons and coaching to you |
| Devices | Device type, app version, a push notification token, when the device was last used | To deliver notifications and confirm they arrived |
| Payments | A customer reference from Stripe or the App Store, your plan and its status. We never receive or store full card numbers. | To manage a subscription, when billing is on |
| Connected services (optional) | Access tokens for YNAB or Clio, stored encrypted | To bring in expenses you choose (YNAB) or send exports to your attorney’s system (Clio) |
| Feedback and support | What you write to us, an email address if you give one, the page you were on | To answer you and improve Sovela |
| Waitlist | Your email address, an optional note, the country our network provider detects, where you came from (for example, a booth link) | To tell you when Sovela is available |
| Security and audit | IP address and browser or device description for each signed-in session; a log of every time staff or a professional opens family records, every consent change and every export | To protect accounts and keep an accountable record of access |
What we never collect
- Your location. Sovela never tracks where you or your children are. An exchange check-in records that you checked in and when, plus any place you choose to type. It never uses GPS.
- Your contacts or photo library, beyond a file or picture you choose to add.
- Advertising or analytics identifiers. The app has no ad networks, trackers or third-party analytics SDKs, and our website sets no tracking cookies.
- Anything from a child’s device beyond what’s listed under Children.
- Full payment card numbers. Stripe and Apple handle those. We see only a reference and your plan.
We don’t sell or rent personal information, and we don’t share it for advertising. We never label, rate or score a parent.
How we use it
We use personal information only to:
- provide Sovela: deliver messages, keep the calendar and records, teach lessons and offer coaching;
- sign you in and protect accounts, including detecting misuse and limiting repeated attempts;
- send the texts, emails and notifications you’ve asked for;
- carry out what you choose to share: with the other parent, with a professional you’ve given access, or in an export you request;
- handle subscriptions, when billing is on;
- answer support questions and feedback, and fix problems;
- keep the records the law requires, and the audit log of who opened what;
- count how Sovela is used overall (for example, how many lessons were finished) so we can improve it. We count; we don’t draw conclusions about any person.
We don’t use your family records to train AI models, and we don’t allow our providers to.
Legal bases (where a law asks for one, such as for visitors from the EU or UK): providing the service you signed up for (contract); keeping accounts secure and records accountable (legitimate interests); consent, for optional texts and for pairing a child’s device; and legal obligations.
Where your information is kept
Sovela keeps each family’s records in that family’s own country, in a separate system for each:
- United States families: servers in the United States (DigitalOcean, New York region).
- Canadian families: servers in Canada (DigitalOcean, Toronto region). Canadian family records, backups and encryption keys stay in Canada.
The two systems don’t share family data. A small global directory, run in the United States, holds only what’s needed to send you to the right country when you sign in: a one-way scrambled (hashed) form of your email address or phone number, and which country holds your account. It holds no family records.
If your family moves countries, you can move your account, and the records move with it.
Exceptions to keep in mind:
- The waitlist on our website is kept by Cloudflare, with its primary copy in North America. It holds only what’s listed under What we collect.
- AI features may send text to Anthropic in the United States (see AI features). For Canadian families, these features stay off unless the text can be processed in a way we disclose and you accept.
- Texts and email pass through Twilio and Postmark, which are US companies.
Service providers
We use a few companies to run Sovela. Each one gets only what its job needs, and we require them by contract to protect it and to use it only for us.
| Provider | What it does | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | Hosts our servers, databases and backups (US: New York; Canada: Toronto) | All app data, encrypted at rest |
| Cloudflare | Runs our website and its waitlist, and protects our sites from attacks | Website visits, waitlist entries |
| Twilio | Sends text messages | Your phone number and the text |
| Postmark | Sends email | Your email address and the email |
| Apple | Delivers notifications; processes App Store purchases | A device token and a notification with no content; purchase records |
| Stripe | Processes subscriptions bought on the web | Your email, plan and payment details (entered with Stripe directly) |
| Anthropic | AI features (see AI features) | The text needed for that feature, never children’s information |
| YNAB, Clio | Only if you connect them | What you choose to import or send |
Notifications never show message content or name Sovela, so a phone’s lock screen doesn’t reveal anything to someone looking over your shoulder. We’ll update this list before adding a provider that receives personal information.
Text messages (SMS)
If you add a mobile number, Covalent Families Inc. texts it sign-in codes and notices that a message is waiting for you. You agree to this when you ask for your first code. How often varies with how you use Sovela.
- Texts don’t say what they’re about. They don’t name Sovela, show message content or include a link, in case someone else sees your phone.
- Message and data rates may apply.
- To stop: reply STOP. For help, reply HELP or email us. You can also remove your number in Settings.
- We don’t use your number for marketing. We never share it, or your consent to texts, with anyone for their own marketing.
Mobile carriers aren’t liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
Children
Sovela is for parents. Accounts are for adults (18 or older, or the age of majority where you live). A parent can add a child’s first name or nickname, birth year and pronoun so the schedule and lessons fit the family.
A child’s own device. A parent can pair a child’s device to show that child a simple home screen: their schedule, a packing list, notes from parents, and a way to ask for things with pictures. Pairing requires the parent to agree on the pairing screen, which says what the device shows and keeps. We record that consent (who, when, and the version of the notice).
| What | Kept |
|---|---|
| Child’s name or nickname, birth year, age group (entered by a parent) | While the child is in the family |
| Device record: a scrambled (hashed) token, device type, who paired it, when, and the day it was last used (never shown) | Until removed. A device unused for 90 days is unpaired automatically. |
| Picture requests (“ask for things”) and when they were made | 90 days after a parent marks them handled |
| Packing items the child adds | Until removed, then 90 days |
| Notes from parents | Until the parent deletes them, at most 1 year |
Packing ticks stay on the child’s device. We never collect a child’s location, photos, contacts, typed messages, or advertising or analytics identifiers, and the child’s app has no third-party code. Children’s information is never sent to an AI provider and is left out of exports for courts or attorneys.
Either parent can see that a device is paired (not where or when it’s used) and can remove it. Removing it ends the device’s access at once. Remove and delete what [child] made also deletes the child’s requests. If you believe we hold information about a child that a parent didn’t provide, email us and we’ll delete it.
AI features
Some features use Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, a US company. Each one sends only the text it needs, and nothing about your children.
| Feature | What’s sent | When |
|---|---|---|
| Refine (suggests a calmer way to say a message) | The draft you’re writing and, for context, the message it answers | Only when you ask for a suggestion |
| Plan reading (explains your parenting plan and answers questions about it) | The text of the plan you uploaded and your question | When you upload a plan or ask about it |
| Questions about the law | Your question and published, attorney-reviewed passages | When you ask |
| Help (the support assistant) | Your question and help articles. It never sees your account or family, and we don’t keep the question. | When you ask |
- Rules first. Refine always runs our own rules first. If the AI is off, slow or gives an answer that fails our checks, you get the rule-based suggestion instead.
- Answers have to quote their source. Plan and law answers must quote the plan or the passage word for word, and we check the quote before showing it. It’s information, not legal advice.
- No training, no retention. We use Anthropic under terms that don’t let it use your text to train models. We will turn these features on for families only once a zero-data-retention agreement is in place, under which Anthropic doesn’t store the text after answering.
- Canadian families: the text would be processed in the United States. These features stay off for Canadian accounts unless we tell you first and you choose to use them.
- Not used for decisions about you. AI output is a suggestion you can ignore. It’s never used to label, rate or decide anything about a parent.
Sharing with the other parent and with professionals
The other parent sees what’s shared between you: messages you send, the shared calendar and swaps, expenses and payments recorded between you, exchange check-ins and the parenting plan. They never see your private space (notes, journal, vault, mood check-ins) or whether it has anything in it.
Professionals (a mediator, an attorney, a parenting coordinator) see family records only if you grant them access. Being a member of an organization on Sovela doesn’t give anyone access to your records. Only your grant does.
- You choose what they can see and for how long, and you can withdraw access at any time.
- Some access, such as a neutral professional working with both parents, needs both parents to agree.
- Every time a professional or a Sovela staff member opens family records, it’s written to a tamper-evident log.
Exports. You can export your records, for example for a court or your attorney. An export is signed, so anyone can check it wasn’t altered. A professional you’ve granted access may export what that grant covers.
Otherwise, we disclose personal information only:
- when the law requires it, such as a valid subpoena or court order. Where we’re allowed to, we’ll tell you first, so you can respond;
- to protect someone from serious harm;
- to a company that takes over Sovela, under the same promises, after telling you.
We don’t give either parent’s records to the other parent’s attorney without the owner’s consent or a court order.
Keeping, deleting and exporting
We keep personal information while your account is open and for the times below. After that we delete it, or keep only counts that can’t identify anyone.
- Your private space (notes, journal, vault files, mood check-ins) is encrypted with a key for you alone. When you delete it, or your account, we destroy the key, so the content can’t be recovered, even by us.
- Shared records (messages, the calendar, expenses, check-ins) are kept in a tamper-evident chain, because their value to a court depends on not being altered. If you close your account, your copy is deleted. The other parent keeps the record of what you exchanged, as they would with a text or email you’d sent.
- Children’s information: the times under Children.
- Backups are kept for 30 days and then expire. Deleted content disappears from backups when they do.
- The waitlist: until we invite you, or until you ask us to remove you. At the latest, a year after Sovela opens where you live.
- Security and audit records: as long as needed to protect accounts and meet our legal obligations.
Deleting your account. You can delete your account in the app’s Settings, or by emailing us. We’ll confirm with a second factor, delete your account and private space, and keep only what the law requires us to keep.
Exporting. You can export your records at any time, in a signed file anyone can verify.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- see the personal information we hold about you, and get a copy;
- correct it;
- delete it, subject to what we must keep by law and to the other parent’s copy of shared records;
- withdraw consent, for texts or a professional’s access, at any time;
- move your account to another country where Sovela runs.
Much of this you can do yourself in the app. For the rest, email privacy@sovelaparents.com. We’ll verify it’s you and answer within 30 days. We won’t treat you differently for asking.
United States. Some states (including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia and others) give residents these rights by law. We don’t sell or share personal information for targeted advertising, so there’s nothing to opt out of. You may name an authorized agent. If we decline a request, you can appeal by replying to our answer.
Canada. You have these rights under PIPEDA and provincial law, including Quebec’s Law 25. If you’re not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or your provincial commissioner.
Elsewhere. Sovela is offered in the United States and Canada. If you use it from somewhere else, write to us and we’ll honour the rights your local law gives you.
Security
- Signing in uses passkeys, or a one-time code, with a second factor for sensitive actions such as exports, granting access or deleting data.
- Encryption. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Private-space content, vault files and plans are also encrypted with keys held in a separate key service in your country.
- Separation. The database itself enforces who can read each family’s records, so a mistake in the app can’t show one family’s records to another.
- Accountability. Sovela staff have no standing access to family records. Emergency access is limited, and every access by staff or a professional goes into a tamper-evident log.
- Lock screens. Texts and notifications never name Sovela or show content.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your information, we’ll tell you and the regulators the law requires, as quickly as we can.
Changes and contact
If we change this policy, we’ll post the new version here with a new date. If a change matters, such as a new kind of information or a new use for it, we’ll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.
Contact: privacy@sovelaparents.com, or write to Covalent Families Inc., c/o Legalinc Corporate Services, 131 Continental Drive, Suite 305, Newark, DE 19713. In Canada, our person responsible for privacy is Katie Hallee, Founder and CEO, at the same address.