Privacy Policy

1. Who this covers

It applies to Data Principals, meaning both visitors and registered users.

2. What we collect

Account details: your name, email and organisation. Your password is held by our sign-in provider, never by us. Usage data such as the pages and features you use, session, IP, and device. Documents you upload, which we do not use to train models. Payment details, handled by processors with no full card number stored. And any correspondence with us.

If you work with others in a workspace, we also keep the email addresses people are invited with, and what people write in the workspace's Team thread.

3. Purpose and lawful basis

We process your data on the basis of consent, to run the Service, handle billing, keep things secure, improve the product in aggregated and de-identified form, provide support, and meet legal obligations. You can withdraw consent at any time. That will not affect earlier processing, and it may limit what you can use.

4. Your rights

You can access your data, correct or complete it, ask for erasure subject to legal retention, raise a grievance, and nominate someone to act for you. Write to joshua@simplesurface.ai.

5. Retention

We keep your data while your account is active. When you close your account, we delete your data straight away. Work in a workspace you share with others stays with them.

When you delete an item, such as a document or a chat, it stays in the Bin for 30 days and is then deleted for good. Uploaded documents follow the same rule: they are deleted with the item they belong to.

Deleted data can remain in our encrypted backups for up to 30 more days before those backups are overwritten.

Usage and billing records, such as what you were charged and when, are accounting records. We keep them as long as tax and accounting law requires (in India, up to 8 years). After you close your account they no longer name you.

Our request and error logs on Google Cloud are kept for up to 30 days.

For each message you send Simplesurface, we keep a record of what it was told and what it did, for up to 90 days. It holds your message and your earlier messages in that chat; what Simplesurface knew of your workspace, such as what was on your screen and your canvas, the names of your files, your simpledoc's title and headings, and who else is in the workspace; and each action it took and how it ended. It does not hold copies of your files.

Every save of a DOCX, XLSX or PPTX file keeps its own copy, so earlier versions can be opened. Those copies are deleted with the file. A simpledoc keeps its 50 newest versions, and every version saved when someone checks it in.

An invitation keeps the email address it was sent to. Lines in a workspace's Team thread cannot be edited or deleted, and stay with the workspace. When you close your account, the lines you wrote are deleted.

6. Security

We encrypt data at rest and in transit, control access, review our practices, and notify you of a breach as the law requires.

In a workspace you share, every member sees its simpledoc, files, sources and pictures, its Team thread, the blocks members share, who is in it and who is there now, and who has a document checked out. Your chats and your own canvas stay private to you. The workspace's owner also sees open invitations and what each person's use in the workspace has cost this month.

Simplesurface staff who run the Service can open a chat, and the record of each message described in section 5, to find and fix a problem or to test changes to Simplesurface. Each time they open one, we record who did and when. If we turn a record into a test, we keep that copy until we delete it.

7. Companies we share data with

To run the Service we send data to these companies, under our own accounts with them:

AI models: Fireworks AI, Together AI, OpenAI and OpenRouter answer your requests, and Anthropic writes short summaries of workspace content. They receive your prompts, the parts of your documents and sources needed for a task, and the research context, so they can produce an answer. OpenRouter is a backup route that passes a request to another AI host when our main hosts are unavailable.

Chat replies: Groq writes Simplesurface's chat replies and receives your messages and the context needed to answer them.

Zero data retention is on for our Together AI and Groq accounts, so they do not store your prompts or their responses.

Pictures: OpenAI draws the pictures Simplesurface makes for you, from a description Simplesurface writes. We store each picture with your workspace.

Web search: Exa receives the search queries Simplesurface writes for your requests and the addresses of the web pages Simplesurface reads. It never receives your documents. Exa's policy allows it to use search queries to improve its service.

Public data sources: the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) and the World Bank receive the data search terms only, never your account details.

Service monitoring: Langfuse receives technical records of each request and AI call, such as timings, error codes and which model was used, so we can find and fix faults. These records can include a document's title, a file name, a web address or a search query, but never the content of your documents or Simplesurface's answers.

Sign-in: Clerk holds your name, email, password and sign-in records, and sends our sign-in emails.

Invitations: Resend sends the email when someone is invited to a workspace. It receives the address the invitation goes to, the name or email address of the person who sent it, and the workspace's name.

Payments: Razorpay processes your payments in its own checkout. We never see your full card number.

Hosting: Google Cloud runs the Service, its database and backups, file storage, and the document editor. Upstash runs a short-lived cache for rate limits, for live document edits, and for resuming an answer if your connection drops: it holds Simplesurface's streamed answer text for up to an hour.

We never sell personal data.

8. Cross-border transfers

We are incorporated in India, and we store your data there: the Service, its database and file storage run on Google Cloud in Mumbai, our cache runs on Upstash in Mumbai, and Razorpay processes payments in India. Database backups are held in Google Cloud's Asia region.

To answer your requests we send data abroad. Clerk (sign-in), the FRED data service, and the AI hosts Fireworks AI, OpenRouter and Groq process data in the United States. Langfuse (service monitoring) runs in Ireland. Resend (invitation emails) processes data in Japan. Anthropic stores data in the United States and may process it in the US, Europe, Asia or Australia. OpenAI, Together AI, Exa, the World Bank, and the AI hosts OpenRouter passes requests to may process data in the US or other countries where they operate. Upstash and Langfuse may also process data in other countries where they operate.

We rely on safeguards consistent with the DPDP Act.

9. Cookies

We use only essential cookies, for sign-in and to keep the Service working. You can control these in your browser, though disabling them will break functionality.

10. Children's data

The Service is not directed at anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their data. Contact our Grievance Officer with any concern.

11. Grievance Officer

Joshua Soans, joshua@simplesurface.ai, Simplesurface Technology Solutions Private Limited, 235 Binnamangala, 2nd Floor, 13th Cross Road, 2nd Stage, Indiranagar, Bangalore North, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560038, India. We acknowledge within 3 working days and aim to resolve within 30 days.

12. Changes

We let you know about material changes. Continuing to use the Service means you accept them.