Privacy policy

Postward is in private testing. This policy will be reviewed by counsel before Postward opens to the public.

This policy explains what Postward collects, why, who can see it, and what you can do about it. Postward is run by SBROS Holdings LLC, a New York company (“Postward”, “we”, “us”). Questions go to hello@sbros.com.

Health information gets extra protection. Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy covers it in detail, including the rights that Washington, Nevada and Connecticut law give you. We give those rights to everyone who uses Postward, wherever you live.

The short version

• We collect what you and your recovery circle type into Postward, so the app can run the recovery plan.
• We ask for your consent before we collect health information, and again before it is shared with anyone.
• We never sell your personal data or your health data, and we never use health data for advertising.
• There are no advertising pixels or third-party ad trackers anywhere on Postward.
• You can see, correct, export or delete your information at any time.

What Postward is, and is not

Postward helps a patient recovering from surgery, and the family members or friends they invite, keep the recovery plan, medications and daily check-ins in one place.

Postward is not a medical service. It does not give medical advice, it does not diagnose or triage symptoms, and it is not for emergencies. In an emergency, call 911.

Postward is in private testing. Accounts are by invitation only.

Who this policy covers

• Patients who use Postward for their own recovery.
• Family members and friends who join a patient’s recovery circle.
• People who join our waitlist.
• Visitors to the Postward website.

What we collect

Account information

Your name and email address. Your password is handled by our sign-in provider, which stores only a one-way hash of it, never the password itself.

Recovery information you enter

The person who starts a recovery, and the people in its circle who can edit it, may enter:

• The patient’s name, the type of procedure, and the surgery and discharge dates.
• The surgeon’s name and office phone number.
• The recovery plan and its tasks, who a task is assigned to, and who completed it.
• Medications: name, strength, instructions and times, plus a log of who marked each dose given or skipped, and when.
• Daily check-ins, such as pain score, temperature, incision status, swelling, bowel movements and notes, and who logged them.
• Questions to bring to the next visit.

Your recovery circle

Who is in each circle, their role (patient, caregiver or viewer), their relationship to the patient if given, and the invite links used to join. Invite links expire after 14 days and can be revoked before anyone uses them.

Payment status

If someone buys a Recovery Pass, Stripe handles the card details. We never see or store card numbers. We keep whether a pass was bought for a recovery, when, and Stripe’s reference for the purchase.

Usage events

We record a short, fixed list of events so we can see which parts of Postward get used. Each event is a name, a time, and the account and recovery it relates to. The current list is: signup completed, recovery created, invite created, invite accepted, task completed, dose logged, medication added, check-in logged, checkout started, pass purchased, waitlist joined, and account deleted.

Events never contain the content of a task, medication or check-in. We record that a dose was logged, never which medication it was. Events are stored in our own database and are not sent to any analytics company.

Technical logs

Our hosting providers keep standard technical logs, such as IP address, browser type and the time of each request, to run the service and protect it from abuse.

Waitlist

If you join the waitlist, we keep your email address, whether you are a family or a care team, the organization name if a care team gives one, and the time you agreed to be contacted.

What we do not collect or do

• No advertising pixels or third-party ad trackers, anywhere on Postward.
• No third-party analytics on app pages.
• No precise location, and no geofencing.
• We never sell personal data or health data.
• We do not use health data for advertising, and we do not share any data with data brokers.

Cookies

We use cookies or similar browser storage to keep you signed in and to make the app work. We do not use advertising cookies. Because we do not track you across other websites, browser signals such as Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control have nothing to switch off on Postward.

How we use information

• To run Postward: show the plan, tasks, medication log and check-ins to the people in the recovery circle.
• To create your account, keep it secure, and let you sign in.
• To process a Recovery Pass purchase and turn on its features.
• To keep Postward secure, prevent abuse and fix problems.
• To understand which features get used, from the usage events above and nothing else.
• To contact you about your account or this policy, and, if you joined the waitlist, when a place opens.
• To meet our legal obligations.

Consent for health information

Most of what goes into a recovery is health information. Before we collect it, we ask for your separate, opt-in consent. We ask for separate consent again before it is shared with anyone.

Inside a recovery circle, sharing happens only when you invite someone and they accept the invite link. Sending the invite is your consent to share that recovery with that person. To take it back, remove them from the circle.

You can withdraw consent at any time by emailing hello@sbros.com or by deleting your account in the app under Account. When you withdraw consent, we stop collecting your health information. To have what we hold deleted as well, ask us to delete it or delete your account.

Who we share information with

Your recovery circle

Everyone in a recovery circle can see that recovery’s information. Patients and caregivers can add to it. Viewers can see it but cannot change anything.

People join a circle only by accepting an invite link themselves. The person who started the recovery, or the patient, can remove anyone, and anyone can leave.

Service providers

These companies run parts of Postward for us and process information only to provide their service to us.

• Vercel hosts the Postward website and app, in the United States.
• Supabase stores our database and handles sign-in, in a United States region.
• Stripe processes Recovery Pass payments. It receives what you enter at checkout, not your recovery information.

Planned, not active

Text message and email reminders are planned but not turned on. We will update this policy, and name the provider, before we turn them on.

In the future we may offer to read a photo of your discharge papers using Anthropic’s API, to draft a plan and medication list for you to check. This is not active today. If we offer it, it will only run with your separate consent.

When the law requires it

We disclose information if the law requires it, such as under a valid court order. We disclose only what is required and, where the law allows, we tell you first.

If Postward changes hands

If Postward is sold or merged, your information would move only with the protections in this policy, and we would tell you before any different policy applied to it.

That is the full list. We do not share information with advertisers or data brokers.

Your rights

Everyone who uses Postward has these rights, whatever state you live in:

• Access: see the information we hold about you.
• Correct: fix anything that is wrong. You can edit most recovery information yourself in the app.
• Delete: ask us to delete your information, or delete your account yourself.
• Export: get a copy of your information that you can take elsewhere.
• Withdraw consent: stop us collecting or sharing your health information.
• Appeal: ask us to reconsider if we turn down a request.

To use any of these rights, email hello@sbros.com from the address on your account. We may ask you to confirm the request from that address. We respond within 45 days.

To appeal a decision, email hello@sbros.com with “Appeal” in the subject line. If we deny your appeal, you can contact the attorney general in your state.

We will not treat you differently for using any of these rights.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app under Account. This deletes your account and removes you from every recovery circle you belong to.

A recovery, and everything in it, is deleted when its last member leaves or when the person who started it deletes it. If other people are still in a circle when you delete your account, that recovery stays for them. Entries you made there, such as a dose you logged, stay in the recovery without your name attached.

If you want information deleted that you cannot delete yourself in the app, email hello@sbros.com.

When an account or recovery is deleted, its usage events lose the link to it. What remains is an event name and a time.

How long we keep information

• Account and recovery information: while your account is active.
• After a deletion request: recovery data is deleted within 30 days, and backups roll off within 30 days after that.
• Payment records: kept by Stripe and by us for as long as tax law requires.
• Waitlist entries: until you ask us to remove yours.

How we protect information

Our providers encrypt information in transit and at rest. Access to stored information is limited to the people who need it to run Postward.

If a breach affects your information, we will notify you, and regulators where required, as the FTC Health Breach Notification Rule and state law require, and within 60 days of discovering it.

No system is perfectly secure, so please use a password you do not use anywhere else.

HIPAA and the laws that apply

HIPAA is the federal law that covers hospitals, doctors’ offices, health plans and the companies that work for them. Postward is a consumer app that you and your family choose to use, so it is generally not covered by HIPAA today.

That does not leave your health information unprotected. The FTC Act, the FTC Health Breach Notification Rule, and state health privacy laws such as Washington’s My Health My Data Act and California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) apply, and we follow them.

If a hospital or practice ever provides Postward to its patients under a contract, a separate agreement and notice will apply to that use.

Children

Postward is not for anyone under 18. In this version, a parent cannot create an account for a child. If we learn that someone under 18 has an account, we will close it.

California

Under California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, we get your authorization before we disclose medical information about you, except where the law requires disclosure, as described above.

California law lets you opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of and we do not show a “Do not sell or share” link. If that ever changed, we would update this policy and add the link first.

California residents also have every right listed under Your rights above.

Washington, Nevada and Connecticut

These states have laws written specifically for consumer health data. Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy explains what we collect, why, who it is shared with, and how to use your rights.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect. We will ask for your consent before using or sharing health information in a new way.

Contact

SBROS Holdings LLC, New York. Email hello@sbros.com.