Clear boundaries, plain English

Your memory is yours.

Merlin keeps customer accounts, customer bots, approved chats, and private company operations in separate access scopes. This policy explains that boundary and the service providers involved in delivering features.

Effective date: August 20, 2026

01

Account scoped

Another Merlin user cannot request or recall your saved account memory.

02

Customer bots isolated

Each bot is bound to its owner and the exact chats that owner approves.

03

Private systems separate

Private company and internal team memory never enters customer accounts or customer bots.

1. Introduction

We care about your privacy. This policy explains what we collect, why we process it, how access is limited, and the choices available to you. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Data we process

  • Account data: email, authentication and session identifiers, plan, and status.
  • Usage data: message counts, token usage, model selections, and timestamps.
  • Content data: chat text, prompts, files, and images you choose to provide.
  • Signed-in regular chat history is stored with your account so it can be restored across signed-in devices. Device-only encrypted chats and incognito chats are excluded from that account history.
  • Payment data: obtained through processors such as Stripe. Merlin does not store full card details.
  • Technical data: IP address, user agent, cookies, and local-storage identifiers.

Meet Nearby details

  • Meet is for adults aged 18 or older. Your public handle, optional age, gender, photo, selected intent, approximate area, and recent activity may be shown to nearby people who select the same intent.
  • Location sharing begins only after you choose it. GPS coordinates or an IP-derived estimate reach our server, where they are rounded into a multi-kilometer privacy area before matching or storage. Meet returns a coarse distance, not another person's exact position.
  • IP geolocation may use external location providers. Merlin does not return your IP address to the Meet interface or include it in the location API response.
  • Direct messages pass through our delivery service. Undelivered messages may remain queued for up to 24 hours and then expire. A local copy may remain in browser storage until you clear it.
  • A secure Meet session cookie lasts up to 30 days. Nearby presence normally expires about 90 seconds after heartbeats stop, and closing Meet requests immediate removal.
  • Blocking stops further messages between the Meet identities involved. Reporting also records a limited safety event containing pseudonymous participant IDs, a reason, and a timestamp. It does not guarantee real-time review.

3. Purposes of processing

  • Provide and improve the Service, including AI chat, media generation, bots, and billing.
  • Security, fraud prevention, abuse detection, and rate limiting.
  • Usage analytics, aggregate reporting, and cost optimization.
  • Legal compliance, enforcement of our Terms, and dispute handling.
  • Customer support and operational communications.

4. Legal bases

Where applicable, including under GDPR and UK GDPR, we rely on contract performance, legitimate interests such as security and product improvement, consent where required, and compliance with legal obligations.

5. Data security

  • TLS for data in transit, hardened infrastructure, access controls, and logging.
  • Least-privilege access for production systems.
  • Device-bound storage for features described as local only.
  • Authenticated account checks before account chat history or saved memory can be read or changed.

Key product boundary

6. Memory isolation

Merlin does not share your saved memory with other Merlin customers, unrelated groups, customer bots owned by someone else, public memory, or Merlin's private company operations. Private internal team memory is not part of the customer product and cannot be recalled through customer accounts.

  • Account memory: requests must be authenticated and the requested account ID must match the signed-in account.
  • Customer bots: each bot and its memory are bound to one owner. A WhatsApp or Telegram group enters that scope only after the owner approves the exact group request.
  • No identity widening: changing a persona, supplying another user ID, or presenting a browser, group, team, or public identifier does not grant access to another memory scope.
  • Private company systems: private company, family, operational, and internal team memory remain outside customer web chat, customer bots, and customer meeting scopes.

Authorized service providers may process content when needed to deliver a feature. Their role is explained in section 9 and is different from sharing memory with other Merlin users.

7. Retention

We retain data as long as necessary for the purposes described or as required by law. Signed-in regular chat history remains in your account until you delete individual conversations or clear the account history. We may retain minimal records for fraud prevention, safety, accounting, and legal compliance.

8. International transfers

Data may be processed outside your country. Where required, we use appropriate safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses, to protect personal data in cross-border transfers.

9. Service providers

We use service providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Replicate, ElevenLabs, and Stripe to deliver selected features. They process data under their terms and privacy policies. Their privacy terms apply to their processing.

10. Your rights

  • Access, correction, deletion, restriction, and portability where applicable.
  • Object to processing based on legitimate interests and withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.
  • California residents may have CCPA and CPRA rights to know, delete, correct, and opt out of sale or sharing of personal information.

11. Children

The Service is not directed to children under 13, or under 16 where applicable. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child provided data, contact us to request removal.

12. Cookies and Do Not Track

We may use cookies or local storage for functionality and analytics. Do Not Track signals may not be honored because there is no consistent industry standard.

13. Contact

For privacy requests, use the in-app contact form or email contact@merlintheai.com. You may have the right to lodge a complaint with your supervisory authority.

14. Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be posted here with a new effective date. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.