Privacy policy

Who we are

Ernie AI (ABN 25 348 351 054) runs Ernie, an AI assistant that businesses add to their websites. This policy explains what information Ernie handles, why, and what you can do about it. We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles.

Ernie handles information about two kinds of people: the businesses that use Ernie and their team, and the visitors who chat with Ernie on those businesses’ websites and chat pages. When you chat with Ernie for a business, Ernie is working for that business. The business decides how it uses your chat and enquiry, under its own privacy policy, and we look after your information on its behalf.

What we collect

From businesses and their team:

• Your name, email address, password and, if you add them, a profile photo and passkeys.
• Your business’s name, website address, logo and colours; the details Ernie gives visitors, such as your contact details and service area; and the email address and mobile number enquiries are sent to.
• Billing details. Stripe collects and stores your card details; we only see the card type and last four digits.
• Messages you send us for support.

From visitors who chat with Ernie:

• What you type or say in the chat, and Ernie’s replies. The business can read this chat.
• Photos you choose to send, which the business can see.
• The details you give when you ask the business to get back to you, such as your name, phone number, email address and what you need. When you press Send, these go to the business as an enquiry.

Ernie also reads the public pages and documents of each business’s website so it can answer questions from them, and takes screenshots of the website so the business can preview Ernie on it. Like any website, our servers record technical details such as IP addresses and browser types to keep the service running and secure.

When you visit our website or use an Ernie account, Google Analytics and PostHog record how you use them: the pages you view, what you click, how you arrived (for example from a search), and your device, browser and approximate location. When you’re signed in, PostHog links this to your account by your user ID, name and email address.

PostHog also records visits to our website and Ernie accounts so we can replay how pages were used. Recordings include what’s shown and typed on each page, except passwords.

Ernie’s chat on businesses’ websites and hosted chat pages sends PostHog usage events, such as when the chat opens or an enquiry is sent.

How we use it

• To answer visitors’ questions from the business’s website.
• To send enquiries to the business by email and text, and show them in the business’s Ernie account.
• To email visitors who give an email address a confirmation that their enquiry was passed on.
• To run accounts, take payments, and tell you about your account, such as when your chats are running low.
• To limit how many chats each visitor can start in a day, using their IP address.
• To keep Ernie working, fix problems and improve its answers. We may read chats to do this.
• To understand how people find our website and use Ernie, find confusing screens and errors, and measure whether chats lead to enquiries, so we can improve the service.

We don’t sell personal information, we don’t use it for advertising, and we don’t use it to train AI models.

Voice input

If you use the microphone button in the chat, your web browser’s built-in speech recognition turns your speech into text. Depending on your browser, the recording may be sent to the browser’s maker to be transcribed and handled under their privacy policy; Google Chrome, for example, sends it to Google. Ernie never receives your recording, only the text, and only once you choose to send it.

Who we share it with

The business you’re chatting with can read your chat with Ernie and see any photos you send. Enquiries also go to them by email and text. Otherwise, we share information only with the service providers Ernie relies on, and only what each one needs:

• Laravel Cloud hosts Ernie and stores its data in Sydney, Australia.
• OpenAI, with Anthropic as a backup, writes Ernie’s replies. They receive the chat, including any photos, and the parts of the business’s website needed to answer. They don’t keep a copy to work from, delete what they receive within 30 days unless they need it to stop misuse or the law requires otherwise, and don’t use it to train their models.
• Cloudflare helps Ernie read businesses’ public website pages and documents, and takes screenshots of them.
• Resend sends our emails and Twilio sends our texts, including enquiries to businesses.
• TypeSafe helps Ernie decide which pages of a business’s website to read, from their titles and headings.
• Stripe handles payments.
• Laravel Nightwatch monitors Ernie for errors, which can include technical details of a request.
• Google Analytics measures how our website and Ernie accounts are used. PostHog also provides session recordings on those surfaces and counts usage events from Ernie’s chats. PostHog processes this data in the United States.
• Bunny Fonts supplies the font in our emails, and may supply the business’s font to the chat.

Apart from our hosting, most of these providers are based in the United States and may handle information there or in other countries. We may also disclose information when the law requires it.

How long we keep it and how we protect it

Chats that don’t lead to an enquiry are deleted, with their photos, 12 months after their last message. Enquiries, and the chats and photos that go with them, are kept until the business is deleted. When it is, its chats, enquiries, photos, and copy and screenshots of its website are all deleted. We keep only the business’s name, website address and billing reference, so each website gets only one free trial and our billing records stay complete.

You can delete your own account from your settings once you’ve left or deleted your businesses; an owner can hand a business to another member first. Deleting your account deletes your profile, photo, passkeys and the chats you had with Ernie while previewing it. We keep billing records for as long as Australian tax law requires, and copies in backups are removed as those backups expire.

PostHog session recordings are kept for 30 days. Access is restricted to people who need them to improve or support Ernie. You can ask us to access or delete analytics information linked to your account using the contact details below.

Information is encrypted on its way to and from Ernie, access to it is restricted, and accounts can be protected with passkeys and two-factor authentication. If a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm, we will tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as the law requires.

Cookies and browser storage

Ernie uses cookies and browser storage to keep you signed in, to remember your light or dark preference, and to keep a chat going while you move between pages of a business’s website.

On our own website and in Ernie accounts, Google Analytics and PostHog also use cookies and browser storage to tell visits apart and measure how the site is used. Chat usage events use a random identifier for each page visit, with no analytics cookies or stored analytics identifier. We don’t use advertising cookies anywhere. You can block or clear cookies in your browser settings, or opt out of Google Analytics with Google’s opt-out add-on.

Your choices

You can ask to see or correct the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to delete it, by emailing [email protected]. We’ll reply within 30 days. If you chatted with Ernie for a business, you can also ask that business directly, since it holds your enquiry.

If you have a complaint about how we’ve handled your information, email us first and we’ll respond within 30 days. If you’re not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Contact

Questions about this policy go to [email protected].

Changes to this policy

We’ll update this page when our practices change, and the date at the top shows the latest version. If a change is significant, we’ll email businesses that use Ernie before it takes effect.