Privacy Policy

Periodwise is built to need as little of your data as possible. There are no accounts, no sign-ups, and nothing on the site asks for your name, email address, or contact details. Most of what you enter — quiz answers, your plan, your chat history — lives in your own browser, not on our servers.

This policy explains exactly what information is collected when you use the site, where it goes, and the choices you have. Periodwise is operated from Ontario, Canada, and we handle personal information in accordance with Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA).

Information you give us. Your answers in the quizzes and the pain and relief plan, the messages you send to Sarah (our AI chat), your tone preferences for Sarah, your region choice, and anything you include if you email us. Quiz answers and chat messages can reveal information about your health — see the sections below for exactly how each is handled.

Information collected automatically. Standard technical data that comes with any web request (IP address, browser and device type), used to serve the site, guess your country so we can show region-appropriate brand names, and measure how the site is used (see Analytics). We do not store your IP address.

The following is stored only on your device, using your browser's local storage. It is never uploaded to our servers, and clearing your browser's site data removes it completely:

• Quiz and plan answers — your pain and relief plan answers and results are saved locally so you can come back to them;
• Sarah chat history — kept only for your current browser tab session and deleted when the tab closes;
• Tone preferences — how you asked Sarah to talk to you;
• Region choice — Canada, United States, or elsewhere, so pages show the right brand names.

When you message Sarah, your conversation and tone preferences are sent to our server and forwarded to our AI provider (Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service) to generate a reply. We do not store your conversations on our servers — your chat history exists only in your browser and disappears when you close the tab.

Microsoft may retain requests for a short period for abuse monitoring under its own policies, and does not use them to train AI models. Our analytics record that a message was sent, but never what it said.

A practical tip: Sarah does not need your name, address, or any identifying details to help you, so we suggest leaving them out of the conversation.

We use PostHog, a product analytics service, to understand how the site is used: which pages are viewed, which links and buttons are clicked, whether quizzes are started, completed, or abandoned, and which affiliate links are followed. PostHog assigns your browser a random identifier so repeat visits count as one visitor — it is not connected to your name or email, which we never have.

For quizzes and the pain and relief plan, analytics events include summary answers and results — for example the severity level you selected, your goals, and which options you were shown — so we can see whether the tools are genuinely helping. For Sarah, we count messages sent and tone adjustments; the content of your conversation is never sent to analytics.

Analytics data is processed on PostHog's US cloud. We have turned off PostHog's automatic capture, so only the specific events described here are recorded.

To show birth-control brand names sold where you live, we guess your country from your web request — either from a country header our hosting infrastructure provides, or, if that is unavailable, by checking your IP address against a geolocation service (ipapi.co). We keep only the resulting region (Canada, United States, or elsewhere), stored in your browser, and you can change it at any time from the footer. We do not store your IP address or your precise location.

We use the information described above to:

• Run the site's features — quizzes, the plan, and Sarah;
• Show region-appropriate brand names and product links;
• Understand which content and tools help people, so we can improve them;
• Keep the site secure and working;
• Respond when you email us.

• We never sell your personal information;
• We never show ads or use advertising trackers;
• We never use your data to train AI models;
• We never connect your quiz answers or chat messages to your identity — we have no accounts and no way to know who you are;
• We never share health information with advertisers or brokers.

A small number of service providers process data on our behalf, each only for the purpose described:

• Our hosting provider — serves the site and processes web requests, including IP addresses, as any host must;
• PostHog (US) — product analytics, as described above;
• Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service— generates Sarah's replies;
• ipapi.co — country lookup for region detection when needed.

Product links on the site may take you to third-party stores such as Amazon, sometimes through affiliate links that earn us a small commission. Once you leave Periodwise, those sites' own privacy policies apply.

Data stored in your browser stays until you clear it (or, for chat history, until you close the tab). Analytics events are retained in PostHog under its standard retention policy. Emails you send us are kept as long as needed to handle your request. We have no user database of our own to retain.

Periodwise is operated from Ontario, Canada. Our service providers — including our hosting provider, PostHog, and Microsoft — process data in the United States and other jurisdictions, where it is subject to local law. We choose providers that offer contractual privacy commitments consistent with this policy.

Because there are no accounts, the most direct control is your own: clearing your browser's site data for periodwise.org removes everything the site stored on your device, and analytics identifiers with it.

Under Canadian privacy law (and similar laws elsewhere, such as the GDPR), you can also ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, or withdraw consent — email legal@periodwise.org and we will respond. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or your local data-protection authority.

Periodwise is written to be useful from the first period onward, but the site is not intended for children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us personal information, email legal@periodwise.org and we will delete it.

We may update this policy as the site evolves. When we do, we will update the “last updated” date at the top of this page, and for significant changes we will make the update prominent on the site.

Questions about this policy or your data? Email us at legal@periodwise.org.