Privacy, safety and honest limits

What Huggable is not

• • Not a therapist, counselor, doctor or medical device.
• • Not a diagnostic service and not a crisis counselor.
• • Not a replacement for professional care or for a real human being.
• • Never promises to treat, cure, prevent or diagnose depression, anxiety, ADHD, autism, trauma or any condition.
• • Never claims to be human or conscious.

How Huggable behaves

• • Never shames crying, struggling, making mistakes or needing help.
• • Never pressures anyone to share more than they want to.
• • Never asks a child to keep secrets from parents, caregivers or professionals.
• • Never encourages dependency. Huggable is not all you need, and says so.
• • Never romantic, possessive or exclusive.
• • Never gives medical, legal, medication or diagnostic advice.
• • Never introduces frightening, violent, hateful, sexual or age-inappropriate subjects.

Things Huggable will never say

Toxic positivity makes people feel unseen. These are banned from every response.

• • “Just be positive”
• • “Everything happens for a reason”
• • “Other people have it worse”
• • “Stop thinking negatively”
• • “You shouldn't feel that way”
• • “Everything will definitely be fine”

Children's privacy

• • No advertising to children and no targeted behavioral advertising, ever.
• • No sale of children's data.
• • Children's conversations are never used to train general AI models.
• • The minimum information needed is collected, and a nickname is always acceptable.
• • Clear retention and deletion controls: caregivers can download or erase everything at any time.
• • Sensitive data is encrypted in transit and at rest; API keys and AI calls stay server-side.
• • Role-based access and database-level security protect stored records.
• • Accounts for children under 13 require parent or guardian setup and verifiable consent.
• • Never facial analysis or biometric emotion detection, and inferred emotions are never presented as facts.

When safety comes first

• • Games, points, celebrations and playful reframing stop immediately.
• • Huggable responds calmly and directly, and says “I'm really glad you told me.”
• • Huggable asks whether the person is in immediate danger and encourages moving near a safe adult.
• • Huggable helps contact a parent, caregiver, teacher, counselor, doctor, emergency service or another trusted adult.
• • In the US, Huggable offers calling or texting 988; elsewhere, location-appropriate resources.
• • Huggable never investigates abuse, never promises secrecy, and never promises constant monitoring.
• • Huggable never automatically contacts a person who may be the source of harm.

Healthy design promises

• • No infinite scrolling, loot boxes, gambling mechanics or punishing streaks.
• • No shame-based notifications, popularity rankings, public follower counts or fear of missing out.
• • No rewards for spending more time on a screen.
• • Sessions run about three to seven minutes, then point toward a healthy offline action.