Privacy

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-09-21

Who we are

HomePhone is a family phone line that protects older people from scam calls. It is operated from Ottawa, Canada. For anything about personal information, email [email protected]. We handle personal information under Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

Whose information this covers

• Family members who create the account and join the household.
• The person whose line is protected, who uses the phone but may never sign in. The family member who sets up the line is responsible for telling them how it works and getting their agreement.
• People who call the line, including people who have never heard of HomePhone.

What we collect

• Account and household.Each member’s name, phone number, email address (stored encrypted), role and alert settings, and a device token if you allow notifications. For the household: its name, the HomePhone number, any number being moved to us, the time zone, and the emergency address you enter.
• The contact list of the protected person: names, phone numbers, relationships, and who is blocked.
• Call records.For each call: the caller’s number and name as shown by caller ID, the direction, time and length, a scam-risk score with the signals that produced it, and a short summary.
• Voicemail. Voicemail messages are recorded and transcribed. The audio is held by our phone carrier and played to household members through HomePhone.
• Live screening of unknown callers. When a number that is not in the contact list calls, both sides of the conversation are transcribed as it happens, so family members can follow along and step in, and so the call can be scored for scam risk. Calls from saved contacts are not transcribed. Apart from voicemail, calls are not recorded.
• Check-ins and schedules: wellness check-ins and scheduled calls, with the contact names and numbers involved.
• Emergency address.The street address you register for the line, with the resident’s name, is sent to our phone carrier, which checks it against emergency-address databases and provides it to emergency services for 911 calls from the HomePhone number.
• Number transfers.If you bring an existing number, the account holder’s name, the account number and PIN with the current provider, the service address, the signed authorization letter and a recent bill are sent to our phone carrier and your current provider to carry out the transfer. We pass the documents straight to the carrier and do not keep copies.
• Payment. Subscriptions are paid through Stripe. We keep only the Stripe customer and subscription identifiers; card details stay with Stripe.

How we use it

To run the phone line: route and screen calls, score scam risk, alert family members by text message and notification, deliver voicemail, run check-ins and the emergency button (which calls and texts the family), bill the subscription, and keep the service secure. We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.

Who processes it for us

• Twilio or Telnyx carry calls and text messages, and record and transcribe voicemail and screened calls.
• Anthropic receives call and voicemail transcripts to score them for scam risk and write summaries.
• Stripe processes payments.
• Supabase handles sign-in; our database stores the records described above.
• Vercel hosts the service.
• Google and PostHog provide website analytics, only with your consent (below).

These companies are based in the United States, and your information may be processed there.

Cookies and analytics

We use essential cookies and browser storage to keep you signed in and to remember your cookie choice. These cannot be turned off.

With your consent, we also use two analytics services on the website. Neither loads until you choose “Accept All” in the cookie banner. If you choose “Essential Only”, they do not run and set no cookies. Neither receives call content, transcripts or contact details.

• Google Analytics 4 (Google LLC) records the pages you view, the site that referred you, your device and browser type, and your approximate location. It sets cookies named _ga and _ga_*, which last up to two years. We keep this data in Google Analytics for two months. Google signals and advertising features are turned off.
• PostHog (PostHog, Inc.) records the pages you view, your device and browser type, and your IP address, which it uses to estimate your approximate location. Automatic capture of clicks is turned off. It sets a cookie and a browser-storage entry whose names begin with ph_. We keep this data for one year.

You can withdraw or change your choice at any time: Change cookie choice clears your choice and these analytics cookies, and shows the cookie banner again.

How long we keep it

Household records, call records, voicemails and transcripts are kept while the household account is open. There is no automatic deletion schedule yet: to have records deleted, including when you close the account, email us and we will delete them, except anything we must keep to meet a legal obligation. Analytics data is kept for the periods above.

Your rights

Anyone whose information we hold, including a caller or the protected person, can ask to see it, correct it, withdraw consent, or have it deleted. Email [email protected] and we will respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.