CareOps Maeumi Privacy Policy

SafeOps processes personal information as described below in providing the CareOps Maeumi service. Because this service deals with mental health, we describe what we collect and where it is kept as specifically as we can.

Effective 29 October 2026

This English text is provided for convenience. The Korean version is the original and governs if the two differ.

1. What we collect

• Account information — name and email, entered by you when you sign up. We do not ask for a phone number at sign-up. If you add one in Settings, it is shared with your counselor as a contact number when you connect; every feature works if you leave it blank.
• Guardian’s email — collected only when someone under 14 signs up, to request their legal guardian’s consent (section 9).
• Sign-in with Kakao, Google or Apple — if you sign up or log in with one of these, we receive the member ID that company assigns to you and, if you agree, your name (nickname) and email. The ID is used only to recognise you when you log in; we never receive that account’s password. Email is required for these accounts too, and we pre-fill it when the company provides one. If you use Apple’s ‘Hide My Email’, we receive the relay address Apple creates.
• Counselling-related records — your conversations with the AI, assessment answers and results, mood records, and whatever you write in the app yourself: thought records, safety plans, values notes, and daily wrap-ups (last night’s sleep, a line about your day, a worry you leave with us). These are information about your health (sensitive information), so we ask for your consent to them separately when you sign up.
• Answers about counselling and medical-care experiences, diagnosis names heard at a hospital, physical health, alcohol and caffeine, people you live with, and family.
• Messages with your counselor — conversations with a counselor you are connected to, and your appointments.
• A device identifier for notifications — a push token. It is deleted when you turn notifications off.
• Maeumi notification usage — app opens, permission choices, send and open times, and identifiers linking to an unfinished conversation or follow-up, and assessment types and completion dates. These notification records contain no conversation text or assessment results.
• App settings — your display language, the country you chose, and your device’s time zone (for example, Asia/Seoul). We use them only to open your conversations at the times you set, to show text in your language, and to show the crisis contacts for where you are (if you have not chosen a country, we work out which country from your time zone). We do not collect your location.
• Service usage records — only what kind of thing you tapped: opening the app, opening the plans screen, tapping a purchase button and how it ended (completed or cancelled). Nothing you said and no payment details are included. We use them only to improve the service, and delete app-open records after 35 days and plans-screen records after 180 days.
• How you found us — one line on your account saying which link, search or app (for example an Instagram profile link) you came through. On the web we remember the first address you opened in a cookie for 30 days (we do not set this cookie when you visit from the EU, the EEA or the UK); when you tap the app download link we turn your IP address into an irreversible value (a hash), keep it for 7 days and match it with an app sign-up. We never store the IP address itself. We use this only to see which outreach helped, and delete it when you delete your account.
• Questionnaires inside other AI services — when you use CareOps Maeumi questionnaires through an AI service such as ChatGPT or Claude, we score the answers that service sends and return the result. We do not store the answers or the results. We do not receive your account or your conversation; we keep only a count of which questionnaire was used. How that AI service handles your conversation is governed by its own policy.
• Instagram comment auto-replies — if you comment on a CareOps Instagram post with the word we mention, we send you the link you asked for once, by Instagram direct message. To do this, our messaging automation provider ManyChat processes your Instagram account ID and username, your comment, and a record that the message was sent (this applies even if you have not signed up for the app). The message contains only the link and a short note, never counselling content, and we do not use this record to send you other news.
• Partner verification (optional) — if you join a partner discount (during the partnership period set for each school or partner), we send a code to the university email you enter. We do not store the address; we keep only an irreversible value (a hash) that stops several accounts from using the same email, the university domain (for example, snu.ac.kr), and when you verified. If you verify with a partner code, we do not ask for an email and keep only which partner the code belonged to and when you verified. If you ask to verify with a student ID, we use the student ID image you upload only to confirm that you are a current student and delete it as soon as the check is done (approved or declined); images from requests we could not check are deleted after 7 days. We strip location and device information from the image as soon as we receive it, and we do not separately store the name, student number or photo on the ID — only an irreversible value (a hash) that stops several accounts from using the same student ID, the school name, and when you asked and were verified. Please cover anything we don't need, such as a national ID number, before uploading. We use these records only to check discount eligibility and delete them 6 months after that partnership ends, or right away if you delete your account.
• iOS install ad measurement — we start the Meta SDK only if you allow app tracking on your device. App-open events, device identifiers and SDK diagnostic or crash information may be sent to Meta. We do not send counselling conversations, assessment answers or results, names or email addresses as Meta ad measurement events.

2. How we handle voice

Client app — we do not collect your voice

When you speak with the app, your voice never leaves your device. Turning speech into text and producing the AI’s voice both happen on your phone; only the resulting text is sent to our servers. No recording is created and none is kept.

Where a device cannot do this on its own, the voice feature does not start. It does not quietly fall back to sending your voice somewhere else.

Exception — live voice sessions

The separate live voice session works differently. During the call, your voice is sent as it is to Google (Gemini) to create Maeumi’s replies, together with the context needed to continue your counselling (intake summary, memories and recent messages, with names, contact details and other identifiers masked). We ask for your consent to this as part of the health-information consent at sign-up (if you joined earlier, once before your first call); without it, live voice sessions do not open (text counselling stays available). What you both say is kept as text in your chat history; audio files are not stored.

3. Why we collect it

• To provide the service — AI counselling conversations, assessments and so on
• To carry your counselling through with a counselor you are connected to
• To send reminders about appointments and assessments — if app notifications are off, we send the same reminders (the day you planned to meet Maeumi, a message Maeumi left you, your weekly report) to the email you signed up with, at most once a day. The email never includes what you talked about, and you can turn it off in notification settings under My.
• To provide safety guidance when signs of crisis are detected
• To measure CareOps install ads on iOS only if you separately allow app tracking
• When app notifications are allowed, to time invitations using conversation completion, follow-up timing, assessment history, when you open the app, your Maeumi appointment time and your intake answers (concerns, better time of day, occupation), to suggest conversations or assessments and measure whether invitations help you return. Push text contains no names or specific counselling details. You can turn these off under notification settings in My (check-ins and assessment reminders) or in your device settings for CareOps.

If you use a counselor plan, a summary of your conversations with Maeumi and the full conversations themselves are passed to your counselor so they can write their feedback. If you applied before 2 October 2026, only the summary and a few of the sentences you wrote (up to five) are passed, as described when you applied. This stops when the plan ends.

The app displays no ads from other companies. iOS install ad measurement takes place only with the separate app tracking permission described above; declining it does not limit any app feature. Only if you agree to news and offers (optional) when you sign up or in notification settings do we send you CareOps news about new features, discounts and events, by app notification and email — never between 9 pm and 8 am. You can use every feature without agreeing, withdraw at any time in notification settings under My, and we email you the result each time you agree or withdraw. We never use what you talk about to choose what to send.

4. Where it is kept

Personal information is stored in data centres in the Republic of Korea, and everything in transit is encrypted (HTTPS). Every case where information is transferred outside Korea during processing is listed under “Transfers outside Korea” below.

Transfers outside Korea

To provide the service we entrust some processing to the companies below, which means personal information is transferred outside Korea (Personal Information Protection Act, Article 28-8). Transfers happen when you use the service, over encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS).

If you do not want your information transferred outside Korea, contact us at thomaskim104@safeops.kr. Refusing transfers needed for a service feature may prevent you from using that feature (for example, AI conversations or notifications). Meta measurement is optional: declining or revoking app tracking in iPhone settings does not limit service features.

5. Processors we use

We entrust processing to the companies below, only as far as providing the service requires. They may not use it for any other purpose.

Meta receives the install ad measurement information above only if you allow iOS app tracking. The Meta SDK does not receive counselling content or assessment results. We do not sell or otherwise provide personal information to any other third party.

6. How long we keep it

When you close your account, the data you created in the app is deleted immediately. If you signed up with Apple, we also end the link with your Apple account when you close your account. You can also disconnect Kakao or Google sign-in from that company’s own account settings.

Counselling records written by a counselor — session notes, transcripts, assessment response sheets, appointment and payment records — remain. These are documents a counselor must retain under law and professional ethics. Their link to your account is severed, so they can no longer be retrieved through your account, and the retention period follows the policy of the organisation that provided the counselling. See the account deletion guide for details.

7. Your rights

You may at any time ask to access, correct or delete your personal information, or to have its processing stopped. You can do this yourself under You → Settings in the app, or write to thomaskim104@safeops.kr and we will act on it and tell you the outcome within 7 business days.

8. Safeguards

• Encryption in transit (HTTPS)
• Encryption at rest (encrypted server storage)
• Separate access rights per user — counselling records open to your counselor and, if they belong to a centre, that centre’s director
• Identifying information masked before anything is sent out for AI processing
• Counselling conversations are never written to server logs in the original

Access by our staff — We limit access to stored information to the smallest number of people needed to run the service. Counselling records, including your conversations with the AI, are viewed only (1) when you ask or agree, (2) when strictly necessary to recover from an outage or respond to a security incident, or (3) when required by law — and only to the extent needed.

9. Children’s personal information

Only people aged 14 or over may sign up for this service themselves. Under Article 22-2 of Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act, we process the personal information of a child under 14 only with the consent of their legal guardian, as follows.

• Guardian’s email — if you indicate at sign-up that you are under 14, we also collect your guardian’s email address to request consent. We use it only to request and confirm consent, never for marketing. It cannot be the same as the child’s own email.
• How consent is given — we email your guardian a consent request. Your guardian opens the link, reviews the notices on the terms, personal information and health information, and chooses “I agree” or “I do not agree”. The link works for 7 days, and the email can be resent from the child’s app screen. The email and link contain no personal information about the child.
• Before consent — the app stays locked until your guardian agrees, and we collect nothing beyond the minimum given at sign-up (name, username or sign-in member ID, email and guardian’s email).
• If consent is refused or not given — if your guardian declines, or does not agree within 30 days of the request, we promptly delete the sign-up information.
• Guardian’s rights — after agreeing, your guardian may still ask to access, correct, delete or stop processing the child’s information, or withdraw consent. Write to thomaskim104@safeops.kr; we will confirm the guardian’s identity and act promptly.
• We do not ask children under 14 to consent to marketing messages.

10. What this service does not do

This service is not a medical device. In an emergency in Korea, call 119, or the suicide prevention line on 109. Outside Korea, use your local emergency number — the app shows crisis contacts for the country you are in where we have them, and a helpline finder otherwise.

11. Contact

Chief privacy officer — Taehyung Kim (CEO), thomaskim104@safeops.kr

Send any question, complaint or request for redress about your personal information to the contact above.

When this policy changes, we post the change here together with its effective date.