Terms of Service

About these Terms

HomeQuest handles deeply personal, legally sensitive family data. Because of that, our Terms of Service are not a single “Accept All” checkbox. Each numbered section below stands on its own — you agree or decline to each independently, and we version them separately. Updating one section never affects your standing on the others.

Two sections (§1 and §2) are required for the app to function at all. §4 is opt-in only and is never default-on. The rest sit in the middle — default-on but revocable any time.

§1. Core communication

HomeQuest stores and routes the messages you send through channels (Household, Daily Chatter, Safe Harbor, Attorney…) so the other members of your household can receive them and so we can present them back to you across devices.

This includes message content, timestamps, channel membership, and the keys needed to decrypt end-to-end encrypted channels (attorney and Safe Harbor) on your trusted devices.

This is required for the app to function. If you do not agree to §1 the app will sign you out.

§2. Legal Ledger hashing

Entries in your Legal Ledger are sealed with a cryptographic hash chain. Each entry’s hash incorporates the prior entry’s hash, making any tampering with sealed history detectable.

Hashes are computed server-side. The plaintext of each entry is encrypted client-side before transmission — we never store unencrypted ledger entries.

Hashing is required for the forensic guarantees of the Legal Ledger to hold. You can choose to not create ledger entries at all, but if you do, they will be hashed.

In plain terms: sealed entries cannot be altered or deleted — by anyone, including us. That’s the property that makes the Legal Ledger defensible as evidence.

§3. Metadata & product analytics

We collect minimal metadata about how the app is used — page load times, error rates, which features are tapped — to keep the product working. We do not analyze message content under this section.

This is the default-on lane. You can turn it off any time in Settings → Privacy. Turning it off does not affect any other feature of the app.

§4. Content-aware AI

For Grace to coach you on tone, suggest message rewrites, or detect patterns in your channels, our cloud AI lane needs to read your message content. This is a different lane from §1 (which only stores and routes).

This is opt-in only. It is never default-on. You can grant or revoke this consent in Settings → AI → Content-Aware Lane.

Grace runs in our cloud AI lane. There is no on-device version of her, so there is no reduced Grace that keeps working while §4 is off.

If you decline §4, Grace does not process anything you send — not in shared channels, and not in your direct conversation with her. In place of a reply you get a prompt to enable this section in Settings. Nothing you typed is sent anywhere.

§5. Capture Shield — mobile app only

While you are on a screen that sends your words to the cloud AI lane (§4), the HomeQuest mobile app asks Android or iOS to block screenshots and screen recording of that screen. If a screen capture happens anyway, the app switches the cloud AI lane off on that device for the rest of the session and tells you it has done so. Anything you had typed is not sent.

You cannot turn this off, and there is no button to re-enable the lane before you close and reopen the app. That is deliberate: a protection someone can pressure you into switching off is not a protection.

What this does not do. It is a best-effort control on the mobile app only. Browsers give a website no way to detect or block screen recording, so it does not apply to HomeQuest on the web. It cannot see remote-access, screen-sharing, or mirroring software on any platform. On Android 13 and older the after-the-fact detection is unavailable, because enabling it would require granting HomeQuest access to your photo library, which we will not ask for. Please do not treat this section as an assurance that nobody is watching your screen.

§6. Your data, your rights

• Export. You can download a full copy of your account data any time.
• Deletion. You can delete your account. Ledger entries you authored remain in the household for the legally required retention period (typically 7 years), then are purged.
• Portability. Exports use open formats (JSON + Markdown + media files).
• Court-ready export. Certified records with a cryptographic chain of custody are available now — sufficient for most court purposes. Third-party notarization (Sectigo/Vault) is in procurement; this section will be updated when it ships.
• Visibility.Anything visible to you under your current consent state is also listable in a single audit view. Nothing is collected we won’t show you.

§7. Limits & liability

HomeQuest provides tools — including the Legal Ledger — that are designed to be presented as evidence. We make best-effort guarantees about the integrity of those records. We are not your attorney, and we make no warranty about the legal admissibility of any specific entry in any specific jurisdiction.

Grace is not a therapist, mediator, or legal advisor. Grace’s coaching is best-effort communication assistance, not professional services.

§8. Changes to these terms

When we change a section, only the sections that changed are re-presented for consent. Sections you have already agreed to remain agreed unless their version changes. You can review the full version history of each section in Settings → Legal.

§9. Subscriptions and addons

HomeQuest offers a free tier and paid addons (Expenses, Calendar, Quests, Games, and future bundles). Pricing, billing terms, and cancellation policy are being finalized and will appear here before any paid features are made available. No payment information is collected until this section is complete and you have explicitly agreed to it.