Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice explains how HelloCues ("we", "us") collects, uses, shares, keeps and deletes personal data when you use Method by HelloCues (the "Service") — on the web at hellocuesmethod.com and in the Method app for iPhone. We are the data controller for personal data collected through the Service.

What we collect

• Account: email address, name, account identifier, sign-in credentials (held by our authentication provider, never in readable form by us), account creation date, and — if you choose to add it — your birthday.
• Grooming profile: what you tell us about your hair, beard, scalp and skin, your goals, concerns, sensitivities, preferences, climate and routine habits.
• My Products: the products you tell us you own or currently use, and corrections you make to them.
• Routines: your saved routine, custom steps, reminders and completions.
• Ask Method: the questions you write, Method's answers, conversation history, any photo you attach, and the feedback you give on an answer.
• Progress and check-ins: your check-in answers, notes, scores and any progress photo you choose to upload (photo upload is optional and requires your separate consent).
• Photos you choose to send: profile photo, Ask photos, progress photos, and product or label photos you scan.
• Voice: if you dictate in the iPhone app, Apple's speech recognition converts your speech to text on your device or on Apple's servers. Method receives only the text you submit — we do not receive or store audio recordings. On the web, when you record a voice note in Ask, the recording is sent through the Lovable AI Gateway to Google only to turn it into text. Method does not store the recording; the text is placed in your message box for you to edit, and is sent to Ask only if you choose to send it.
• Talk with Method (live voice): when you start a call, your microphone audio is streamed through the Lovable AI Gateway to OpenAI to run the live conversation and produce Method's spoken reply. The microphone is on only between Start and Stop, and you can revoke microphone access in your browser or device settings at any time. Method does not store the audio. Your questions and Method's answers are saved as text in your Ask conversation, the same as typed messages, and you can delete them with your Ask history or your account.
• Weather location: if you choose “Use my location” or enter a place for the weather card, we save that exact latitude and longitude (and a place name) on your profile and send the coordinates to Open-Meteo to fetch local weather. We use it only to show weather relevant to your grooming. It stays until you clear it from the weather card or delete your account.
• Learn and in-app activity: which articles you open or dismiss, prompts you dismiss, preferences you set.
• Shop activity: the HelloCues products you view, your cart, and a click reference used to connect an order to your Method account.
• Membership: your plan (Free or Method Pro), plan status, renewal dates, referral records, and — for web subscriptions — billing identifiers held by our payment processor. We never receive or store your full card number.
• Operational records: request logs, error reports, rate-limiting counters, and AI usage/cost records. These may include an account identifier, an IP address and technical request metadata.
• Support messages: what you write to us.

What we do not do

• We do not run advertising in Method, and we do not build advertising profiles.
• We do not track you across other companies' apps or websites, and we do not use an advertising identifier.
• We do not sell or share your personal data for advertising or cross-context behavioural advertising.
• We do not use your data, your conversations or your photos to train AI models — ours, Google's or OpenAI's. (Checking the quality of Method's own answers is a separate thing, and is explained below.)
• We do not use third-party advertising cookies.

Why we use it

• To provide the Service and personalise your coaching, routine and recommendations (performance of our contract with you).
• To answer you in Ask Method, including reading a photo you attach (performance of our contract).
• To send reminders and emails you have enabled (contract / consent).
• To keep the Service secure, prevent abuse and enforce fair-use limits (legitimate interests).
• To measure and improve quality, cost and safety of the Service, including evaluating AI answer quality (legitimate interests).
• To provide customer support, and to meet legal, tax and accounting obligations.

AI processing and third-party AI providers

Method's coaching is generated with AI. To answer you, we send the AI provider the question you wrote, the recent conversation, any photo you attached, and the relevant parts of your grooming profile, My Products and routine. We do not send your email address, your name, your billing details or your payment information.

Our current AI providers are:

• Google (Gemini models, accessed through the Lovable AI Gateway): generates Ask Method answers, coaching takeaways, photo and label reading, and product identification. Content sent for these purposes is not used to train Google's models. Ask Method asks your permission before anything is sent, and you can withdraw it at any time in Account under “Ask Method AI sharing”; Ask then stops sending until you allow it again.
• OpenAI: runs live voice calls (see Talk with Method above). It is also used to check the quality of Method's own answers. Your Ask questions are sent to OpenAI for quality review only if you have separately opted in; that option is not currently offered, so typed Ask questions are not sent to OpenAI for review. Where quality review does run, a text-only question, never a photo, is sent so we can compare its answer with the one you received. You are never shown that comparison and it never changes your account. Your identity is replaced with a one-way code before the question is sent, OpenAI is told not to store the request, and data sharing for model training and organisation-level logging are switched off. OpenAI still applies its standard API retention for abuse monitoring; we have not established Zero Data Retention. Our own copy of the comparison is deleted within 30 days.
• Perplexity and Firecrawl (product research): when Method looks up public details about a product, it sends the product's brand and name to Perplexity to search the web, and the address of a public product page to Firecrawl to read it. Your messages, photos and account details are not sent.

Model training and quality checks are not the same thing

Training means a provider uses your content to change how its AI model behaves for everyone. That does not happen with your Method data — not at Google, not at OpenAI, and not with any model of our own. The quality check described above is different: it is us comparing two answers to the same question so Method's coaching gets better. It is pseudonymised, short-lived, internal, and invisible to you.

AI answers are educational grooming guidance. They are not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for a licensed professional.

Photos

Every photo you send is stored privately, in your own folder, and is readable only through a short-lived link issued to you. No photo is public, no other member can see your photos, and no photo is used to train AI models.

• Profile photo: stored privately; used only to show your picture to you. Not analysed by AI. You can replace or remove it at any time.
• Ask photo: stored privately with the conversation; sent to our AI provider so Method can answer your question about it. Deleting the conversation removes it.
• Progress / check-in photo: optional, and only after you agree to photo handling. Stored privately; sent to our AI provider to generate the observations shown back to you. You can delete an individual check-in photo.
• Product or label photo: sent to our AI provider to identify the product or read its label; handled as an Ask photo.

We do not use photo metadata for location tracking or profiling.

Who we share it with

• Lovable Cloud (Supabase infrastructure): hosting, database, authentication, and private file storage for all Method member data.
• Google, via the Lovable AI Gateway: AI generation, as described above.
• OpenAI, via the Lovable AI Gateway: live voice calls when you start one, and internal AI quality evaluation only with your separate opt-in, as described above.
• Perplexity and Firecrawl: public product research, as described above. They receive product names and public page addresses, not your personal data.
• Stripe: payment processing, billing, tax and invoicing for web Method Pro subscriptions.
• Apple: if you subscribe to Method Pro inside the iPhone app, Apple processes the purchase and tells us your subscription status. Apple does not give us your payment details.
• Shopify: our store platform for physical HelloCues products. See below.
• Email delivery provider: to send the emails you have enabled.
• Professional advisers and authorities: where reasonably needed or legally required.

Buying physical HelloCues products

Physical products are sold and fulfilled through Shopify, separately from your Method membership. When you check out, you leave Method and contract with the HelloCues store. Method sends Shopify the items in your cart and a click reference; Shopify handles your payment, delivery address and order. Method does not receive your card details. Where an order carries our click reference, we record that a purchase happened and its value so we can connect it to your Method account and to any credit you earned — not to build an advertising profile. Shopify's own cookies and terms apply on the store.

Method Pro

Method Pro bought on the web is billed by Stripe. Method Pro bought in the iPhone app is billed by Apple, managed in your Apple Account settings, and cancelled with Apple. We keep a record of your entitlement and its status either way, so your plan is the same on every device.

How long we keep it

• Account, grooming profile, My Products, routines, Ask conversations, check-ins, photos, Learn activity: kept while your account exists, then deleted when you delete your account.
• Rate-limiting counters: deleted automatically after 24 hours.
• AI quality-evaluation records (OpenAI sample): maximum 30 days.
• AI usage and cost records: kept for up to 24 months for financial and capacity planning; the link to your account is removed when you delete your account.
• Email unsubscribe records: kept without your account identifier, so an opt-out keeps working.
• Billing, subscription and tax records: kept by our payment processor and by us as long as required by law (typically several years).
• Shopify orders: kept by the HelloCues store as business records, independently of your Method account.
• Operational logs and error reports: kept for up to 90 days for security and reliability.

We keep a record longer than the periods above only where there is a specific security, fraud-prevention, audit or legal reason to — for example a billing record we are required to keep. We do not keep anything indefinitely by default.

AI providers apply their own retention to the request itself. Google requests made through the gateway are not retained for training. OpenAI evaluation requests are subject to OpenAI's standard API retention for abuse monitoring.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account from the app or the website. Deletion is permanent and removes your profile, grooming data, My Products, routines, Ask conversations and attachments, check-ins, every photo you uploaded, referral records and membership records. A live web subscription is cancelled as part of deletion; an App Store subscription must also be cancelled with Apple, because only Apple can stop it. A small number of records are kept without you attached to them — email opt-outs, anonymous usage and cost figures, submissions that are business records, and legally required billing records. If any part of deletion fails, nothing is confirmed and you can retry.

International transfers

Personal data may be processed outside your country, including in the United States. Where required we rely on appropriate safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses or an adequacy decision.

Your rights

Depending on where you live you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, export or object to processing of your personal data, and to withdraw consent. You can export your data and delete your account in the app, or contact us. EU and UK residents may also complain to their supervisory authority.

Children

Method is not intended for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect data from children.

Security

We use encryption in transit, authenticated access, per-member isolation enforced in the database, private file storage with short-lived access links, and least-privilege backend controls.

Cookies

On the web we use essential cookies and local storage to keep you signed in and remember preferences. We do not use third-party advertising cookies. The iPhone app does not use advertising identifiers or tracking technologies.

Contact

Questions, requests or complaints: email info@hellocues.com or use the in-app support option on your Profile page.