How we protect your family
School messages carry your children's names, classes, health notes and plans. This page explains, in plain English, what YellowBag does with them.
The short version
- We never ask for access to your email inbox. We only see what you share with us or send to your family's YellowBag address.
- Your family's plan is stored in London. Only people you invite can see it.
- The text of school messages, and the screenshots and PDFs you upload, are deleted after 30 days.
- OpenAI reads messages to find dates and tasks. It doesn't use this data to train its models.
- No ads. We never sell your data.
Why we don't ask for your inbox
Reading your inbox would give us far more than school mail. So each family gets its own YellowBag address instead.
Our first plan was to connect to Gmail or Outlook and look for emails from school. We dropped it before launch, because it meant holding more of your life than we need.
Connecting your inbox would mean
- Access to every email you've ever received, not just school mail. Gmail has no narrower option.
- Long-lived keys to your inbox, stored on our servers. A breach could expose your whole mailbox.
- Far more personal data passing through us than we need.
A family address means
- We only see email sent or forwarded to your family's address.
- Nothing else in your inbox is ever seen, and there are no inbox keys to steal.
- You can replace the address at any time if it ends up in the wrong hands.
We may one day offer an optional connection for families who want it. It would be opt-in, read-only, limited to school senders, and would never be required.
How your family address works
Give the address to school, or forward emails to it. Nothing reaches your plan from a sender you haven't trusted.
- Email from your child's school, or from senders you've trusted, goes on your plan.
- Email from anyone new waits for you to trust or block the sender. We never add it to your plan on our own.
- Email that fails standard sender checks is held with a warning and never forwarded to you.
- Password reset and login code emails, for example from ParentPay or Arbor, are passed straight to you and never stored or read by our AI.
- You can turn on a copy of every school email to your own inbox.
How we use AI
AI finds the dates and tasks in a message. When it isn't sure, it asks you instead of guessing.
- Our AI only reads messages you share with YellowBag or that arrive from senders you trust.
- It adds clear, dated items for you automatically, and asks you to check anything it isn't sure about.
- We use OpenAI. OpenAI doesn't use this data to train its models.
Who can see your family's plan
Only the people you invite, and only with the role you give them.
- Owner
- Everything, including removing people and changing settings.
- Parent
- Manage the plan, approve what YellowBag found and invite carers.
- Carer
- See the plan, tick things off and mark tasks done. Carers can't add or change items, invite people or change settings.
- Invite links are single-use, expire after 7 days and can be cancelled. We store only a scrambled (hashed) version of the link.
- When someone leaves or is removed, they lose access straight away. Their notifications and Ask chats for your family are deleted, and tasks assigned to them go back to unassigned.
How long we keep things
The messages themselves go after 30 days. What you need from them stays until you delete it.
- Text of school messages, screenshots and PDFs
- 30 days, or sooner once everything in them is done
- Dates, tasks and reminders taken from them
- Until you delete them
- Your questions to Ask
- 30 days, and private to you, not shared with your family
- Password reset and login code emails (for example from ParentPay or Arbor)
- Passed straight to you. Never stored or read by our AI
How we keep it secure
Your family's data is encrypted, private to your family, and kept out of our logs.
- Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by our hosting and email providers.
- Every family's data is walled off at the database level, so one family can never read another's. We check this with automated tests on every change.
- Screenshots and school PDFs are stored privately and are only available to members of your family.
- Our system logs record what happened (IDs, counts and errors), not the content of your messages.
Companies that help run YellowBag
Your family's plan is stored in London. Trusted providers that deliver email and power our AI process some data in the US.
| Company | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Hosts our database, files and serversLondon, UK | London, UK |
| OpenAI | Reads messages to find dates, tasks and reminders, and answers Ask questionsUnited States | United States |
| Resend | Receives school email at your family address, and sends copies and account emailsUnited States | United States |
| Expo, Apple and Google | Deliver push notifications. A notification can include an item's name and a child's first nameUnited States | United States |
Where a provider handles data outside the UK, the transfer is protected by the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or EU Standard Contractual Clauses and, where applicable, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (UK Extension).
Deleting your data
It's your family's information. You can ask us to delete it at any time.
Contact us to have your data deleted.