Privacy Policy

We understand that the documents you upload—your vehicle owner's manuals—are important to you. We expressly promise that we do not use your User Documents, User Input (chat prompts), Chat History, or Maintenance Records to train, fine-tune, or improve our artificial intelligence models (Large Language Models) or those of our third-party AI providers.

Your data is processed strictly for the purpose of retrieving relevant information and generating responses for you. It is stored in a private, isolated environment associated with your account and is not aggregated into a shared dataset for model learning.

We collect information from and about users of our App:

• Directly from you when you provide it to us.
• Automatically when you use the App.
• From third parties, such as authentication providers.

2.1 Information You Provide Directly

• Account Registration: When you register via AWS Cognito or Social Login (Apple/Google), we collect your email address and, if provided by the social provider, your name.
• User Documents: We collect the PDF files (Owner's Manuals) you upload to the Service.
• Vehicle Configuration: We collect the Year, Make, Model, and Trim of the vehicles you configure in the App.
• User Input (Prompts): We collect the text or voice queries you submit to the AI assistant.
• Maintenance Records: We collect the vehicle maintenance information you record in the App, including completed service items, service dates, odometer readings, and notes, so your service history can be synchronized and restored across devices and app installations.
• Customer Support: Records and copies of your correspondence if you contact us for support.

2.2 Information Created via Technical Processing (Vector Embeddings)

To enable the AI to "read" your manuals, we process your User Documents into Vector Embeddings. These are mathematical representations of the text within your documents. We treat these Vector Embeddings as Personal Data because they are derived from your content and can be linked to your account. These embeddings are stored in our secure cloud database providers and are permanently deleted when you delete the corresponding document or account.

2.3 Information Collected Automatically

• Usage Details: Traffic data, logs, the resources that you access and use on the App, and the frequency of your interactions.
• Device Information: Information about your mobile device and internet connection, including the device's unique device identifier, IP address, operating system, browser type, and mobile network information.
• Crash and Performance Data: We use performance and crash reporting tools to detect and diagnose app crashes. This data includes stack traces, device state at the time of the crash, and pseudonymous identifiers.

2.4 Information Collected on Our Website

When you visit vehiclebuddyai.com, our hosting and content-delivery providers keep standard server logs: IP address, browser type, the pages requested, and the time of each request. If you arrive through a link shared by a creator in our referral program, or later enter a creator's code, our affiliate-tracking provider, Rewardful, sets a first-party cookie in your browser containing a pseudonymous referral identifier, so that a purchase you make can be credited to that creator. The cookie lasts up to 60 days. Rewardful also records the referring page, your browser and device type, and your IP address, which it uses to detect fraudulent referrals. If you are in the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we ask you first: Rewardful's script does not load, and the cookie is not set, unless you accept. We work out whether to ask from your browser's time zone, which is not sent anywhere. Your choice is stored in your browser, and you can change it at any time with the "Cookie settings" link at the foot of every page. If you decline, or block cookies in your browser, a creator's link will not credit them or apply their discount automatically; entering the creator's promotion code at checkout still does both. Nothing else about the site changes. We never give a creator your name, email address, or any other personal information.

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

Purpose	Description	Legal Basis
Service Delivery (RAG)	To process your PDF manuals, index them into vector embeddings (via OpenAI), and generate AI responses to your questions using Anthropic Claude, with AWS Bedrock available as a fallback provider.	Performance of Contract
Account Management	To create and manage your account, authenticate your identity, and maintain your vehicle garage.	Performance of Contract
Subscription Processing	To manage your subscription status, process payments, and handle renewals via our subscription management infrastructure.	Performance of Contract
Maintenance Scheduling & Tracking	To generate AI-powered maintenance schedules for your configured vehicles (only the vehicle Year, Make, and Model are sent to our AI provider) and to store the service history and odometer readings you record.	Performance of Contract
Security & Safety	To scan uploaded files for malware using automated security scanning and prevent fraudulent activity.	Legitimate Interest
App Improvement	To analyze aggregated usage trends and crash reports to improve the App's performance and stability.	Legitimate Interest
Communication	To notify you about changes to our App, terms, or policies, and to send subscription reminders.	Legitimate Interest

Automated Decision-Making Technology (ADMT): We utilize Generative AI to analyze your documents. This technology functions as an advanced search and retrieval tool. It does not make "Significant Decisions" that produce legal effects or similarly significant effects concerning your financial status, housing, employment, or healthcare.

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your Personally Identifiable Information to outside parties for their marketing purposes.

We disclose personal information to our trusted Service Providers (Subprocessors) who assist us in operating the App, strictly under confidentiality agreements:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): Cloud hosting, data storage, and fallback AI inference (AWS Bedrock). Located in the USA.
• OpenAI, L.L.C. (OpenAI API): Generation of vector embeddings from your User Documents and search queries so the AI can retrieve relevant passages. OpenAI does not use data submitted via its API to train its models. Located in the USA.
• Anthropic, PBC (Claude API): AI inference for generating chat responses to your queries using retrieved passages from your manuals. Anthropic does not use data submitted via its API to train its models. Located in the USA.
• Google LLC (Gemini API): AI inference for generating vehicle maintenance schedules. Only the vehicle Year, Make, and Model are shared — no personal identifiers, documents, or chat history. Located in the USA.
• Pinecone Systems, Inc.: Vector database services for storing document embeddings. Located in the USA.
• Stripe, Inc. and its affiliates (including the Link service): Payment processing for purchases made on our website. For those purchases Stripe is the seller of record: it collects your payment details, issues your receipt, and we never receive or store your full card number. Located in the USA and, for European customers, Ireland.
• RevenueCat, Inc.: Subscription status across the Apple App Store, Google Play, and our website, so that a subscription you bought in one place works in the others. Receives a pseudonymous app user identifier and store receipt data. Located in the USA.
• Functional Software, Inc. (Sentry): Crash and performance reporting, as described in Section 2.3. Located in the USA.
• Rewardful (Rewardful Inc.): Referral attribution for our creator program, as described in Section 2.4. Receives the referral identifier and, from Stripe, the email address on a referred purchase so that the purchase can be credited to the right creator. Creators never receive it. Located in Canada.

Legal Disclosure: We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others' rights, property, or safety.

We retain your personal information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

• Hard Deletion Policy: If you delete a document from your account, or if you delete your account entirely, all associated data—including the original PDF, the Vector Embeddings, and metadata—is permanently removed from our production systems.
• Subscription Cancellation: If you cancel your subscription but do not delete your account, we retain your documents and vector embeddings for 90 days to allow you to easily resubscribe. After 90 days following a cancellation, your documents and associated data are permanently deleted.
• Maintenance Records: Service history, odometer readings, and related notes you record are retained while your account is active and are permanently deleted when you delete your account.
• Backups: Deleted information may persist in encrypted backup copies for a limited period (up to 90 days) for disaster recovery purposes, but it will not be available to others.

We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure.

• Encryption: All User Documents and Vector Embeddings are encrypted at rest using AES-256 encryption and in transit using Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 or higher.
• Isolation: Your data is stored in a namespace logically isolated from other users' data.
• Malware Scanning: All file uploads are automatically scanned for security threats.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our App, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential.

Depending on where you reside, you may have specific rights regarding your personal information.

7.1 California Residents (CCPA/CPRA 2026)

• Right to Know: You have the right to request that we disclose certain information about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months.
• Right to Delete: You have the right to request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.
• Right to Correct: You have the right to request correction of inaccurate personal information.
• Right to Opt-Out of Sale/Sharing: We do not "sell" or "share" your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• ADMT Rights: Our use of ADMT is limited to informational retrieval and does not result in significant decisions affecting your civil rights or economic status.

To exercise your rights, contact us at: support@vehiclebuddyai.com

7.2 European Economic Area (EEA) and United Kingdom (GDPR)

• Legal Basis: We process your personal data based on Contractual Necessity and Legitimate Interests.
• Your Rights: You have the right to access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, objection to processing, and data portability.
• International Transfers: Your data is transferred to and processed in the United States. We rely on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs).

Our App is not intended for children under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on this App. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information.

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes to how we treat our users' personal information, we will notify you by email to the email address specified in your account or through an in-app alert. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page.

To ask questions or comment about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at:

Bellz Development LLC
2775 Orchard Run Rd, PMB 153
Dayton, OH 45449
United States
Email: support@vehiclebuddyai.com
Telephone: (614) 285-5104