Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

ParenThing is operated by Cyops Limited, a company incorporated in Ireland. Cyops Limited is registered under company number 737339, and its registered office is at Friarstown, Bohernabreena, Tallaght, Dublin, D24 R292. ParenThing is a trading name of Cyops Limited.

The ParenThing iOS app is distributed on the App Store under the developer account of Noel Crabbe. Cyops Limited remains the data controller for the personal data described in this policy, and is the entity you should contact to exercise any of the rights set out in Section 7.

For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Irish Data Protection Acts, ParenThing is the data controller in respect of the personal data we process about you and your family.

Contact us: support@parenthing.ie

2. The data we collect

Account and identity data

• Your name and email address (used to create and maintain your account)
• A password (stored in hashed, irreversible form, so we never see your actual password)
• Your role (primary parent, co-parent, professional adviser)

Family and co-parenting data

• Children's names and dates of birth (so both parents share the same view)
• Messages exchanged between co-parents within the app
• Calendar events, handover schedules and appointments
• Shared documents (school reports, medical letters, legal correspondence)
• Expense records and payment requests
• Task and packing-list items
• Children's health information you choose to record, such as allergies, medical notes, a GP's name and phone number, and a health service number
• School and emergency contact details you choose to record, such as a school name and address, a teacher's name, and an emergency contact name and phone number
• Photographs and files you attach to a record, such as receipts, school letters and medical notes

Children's wellbeing data

If you enable the child wellbeing feature, children may record a daily mood check-in. This data is treated with extra care. It is never used for advertising, profiling, or any purpose beyond the child's own wellbeing experience and the parents' private dashboard. See Section 6 for more detail.

Handover location

If you choose to check in at a handover, ParenThing records the exact location of your device at that moment, together with the time. This is the only place the app records precise location, it happens only when you tap to check in, and it is never collected in the background or while the app is closed. The record is visible to the parents in your family, so that both of you have the same account of where and when a handover took place.

Technical and usage data

• IP address and approximate location (country or city level, for security)
• Device type and operating system
• Browser type and version
• Pages visited and features used (aggregated, not linked to individual messages)
• Error and crash logs
• A device identifier used only to deliver push notifications to your phone
• Your subscription status and billing history. Card details are handled by our payment provider and are never stored by ParenThing

Communications data

If you email us or contact us through the app, we retain that correspondence to respond to you and to improve our service.

3. How we use your data

To deliver and maintain ParenThing

We use your data to run the app: creating your account, syncing the shared calendar, delivering messages between co-parents, storing your documents, and processing expense records. Without this we simply cannot provide the service. Our legal basis is performance of a contract with you.

To keep the service secure

We use technical data (IP addresses, login events, error logs) to detect fraud, prevent unauthorised access, and protect the safety of families on our platform. Our legal basis is legitimate interests, specifically the security and integrity of the service.

To improve and develop the product

We use aggregated, anonymised usage data to understand how ParenThing is used and to make it better. We do not use the content of your messages, documents or children's wellbeing entries for this purpose. Our legal basis is legitimate interests.

To communicate with you

We send transactional messages (account notifications, security alerts, service updates). We may also send you product updates or early-access news if you have signed up for those. You can unsubscribe from non-essential communications at any time. Our legal basis is legitimate interests or consent, depending on the type of message.

To comply with legal obligations

We may process your data where required by Irish or EU law, for example to respond to a court order or a request from the Data Protection Commission. Our legal basis is legal obligation.

4. Children's data

ParenThing is designed for use by adults (parents and professional advisers). Children may interact with the child-facing wellbeing feature with their parent's knowledge. We treat any data relating to children with a higher standard of care.

• Children's personal data and mood check-in entries are never used for advertising, profiling, or machine learning training.
• Children's content is visible only to the parents within that family, not to other users, and not to ParenThing staff except for essential support or legal obligations.
• We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13 without parental consent. If you believe a child under 13 has provided data without consent, please contact us immediately.
• Where children's data constitutes sensitive personal data under GDPR (for example, health or wellbeing information), our legal basis is explicit consent provided by the parent at the point of enabling the feature.

Where you record a child's health information in the family Info Bank, such as allergies, medical notes or a health service number, that information is special category data under GDPR. It is stored so that both parents, and anyone you have asked to care for the child, can see the same accurate details. It is visible only to your family and to any professional you have expressly given access to, and it is never used for advertising, profiling or training. Our legal basis is your explicit consent, given at the point you choose to enter it, and you can delete it at any time.

5. Who we share your data with

We never sell your data. We never share your data with advertisers.

We use a small number of carefully selected sub-processors to operate the service:

• Cloud hosting and infrastructure: servers located in the EU / Ireland where possible
• Email delivery: for transactional notifications (e.g. account alerts)
• Error logging, kept within our own infrastructure, to help us find and fix faults

All sub-processors are bound by data processing agreements and are required to handle data in accordance with GDPR. We do not transfer personal data outside the European Economic Area except under appropriate safeguards (Standard Contractual Clauses where applicable).

We may also disclose data to law enforcement or courts where required by Irish or EU law, or to protect the safety of a child or other person.

6. How long we keep your data

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active. If you close your account, we delete your personal data within 30 days, except where we are required to retain it longer by law (for example, financial records required under Irish tax law, which we may keep for up to 7 years).

Backups are purged on a rolling cycle within 90 days of account closure.

7. Your rights

Under GDPR and the Irish Data Protection Acts 2018, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

• Access: to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectification: to correct inaccurate or incomplete data
• Erasure: to request deletion of your data ("right to be forgotten")
• Restriction: to ask us to pause processing in certain circumstances
• Portability: to receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format
• Objection: to object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Withdraw consent: where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing

To exercise any of these rights, email us at support@parenthing.ie. We will respond within one month (extendable to three months for complex requests, with notice to you).

8. Security

We take security seriously because we handle sensitive family information. Our measures include:

• Encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest
• Passwords stored using a one-way hashing algorithm, so we never see your password
• Access controls limiting which staff can access personal data
• Regular security reviews

No system is completely secure. If you discover a vulnerability, please contact us immediately at support@parenthing.ie.

9. Cookies

The ParenThing app uses strictly necessary cookies only, to keep you logged in and to keep your session secure. The app contains no analytics, no advertising and no tracking of any kind.

This website uses Google Tag Manager to understand how people find and use our pages. Analytics cookies stay switched off until you accept them, and you can decline without losing any functionality. We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not track you across other websites.

Session analytics (Microsoft Clarity)

We use Microsoft Clarity on this website to understand how visitors use our pages, through heatmaps and session replays that show interactions such as scrolling and clicking. This helps us improve the site. Text is masked, and we do not use Clarity to collect names, email addresses or anything you type into forms. Microsoft processes this data on our behalf; you can read more in the Microsoft Privacy Statement. Like our other website analytics, it is covered by your cookie choices on this site and runs under the same consent.

10. Supervisory authority

If you are not satisfied with how we handle a data protection concern, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commission (DPC), Ireland's national supervisory authority.

Data Protection Commission
21 Fitzwilliam Square South
Dublin 2, D02 RD28, Ireland
www.dataprotection.ie

We would, however, always welcome the opportunity to address your concern directly first. Please contact us at support@parenthing.ie.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or in applicable law. When we make material changes, we will notify you by email and update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Continued use of the service after the effective date of any change constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.