Iris privacy policy

This policy explains how Iris Studio (Jacob Foscalina, "we", "us"), 1512 Greenbriar Ave, Corona, California 92878, handles personal information in Iris, the web app at app.buildwithiris.com that builds, hosts and runs websites, in Iris Cloud (our AI service and accounts), in the Iris app for Stripe, and on our website at buildwithiris.com.

Questions or requests: [email protected].

The short version

• Iris is a hosted service. We keep your projects, briefs, photos, websites and settings on our servers so you can reach them from any browser, and we host the websites you publish. Photos and files are stored on our Google Cloud servers or on Cloudflare R2.
• Iris Cloud sends the AI work for your projects through our service to Anthropic, which runs the Claude models, and returns the results. The AI gateway does not keep the content of your prompts or of the AI's answers. It keeps your account, billing and how many credits each job used.
• The website assistant. If you turn it on, your visitors' questions pass through our service to Anthropic in the same way, and our service does not keep them.
• Store email. Your stores send and receive email through our Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES) account. We receive the emails your customers send to your store's addresses and keep them in your store's Inbox for you.
• Payments. Stripe payment notices for your store pass through our Stripe connection service, which keeps them encrypted until it hands them to your store, then deletes them.
• Services you connect to your websites receive data under your own account with them.
• We do not sell personal information or use it for targeted advertising.

This policy is about the information we handle. The visitors and customers of the websites you make are yours to look after: see section 8.

1. Our role

• For your Iris Cloud account, billing and use of our website, we decide how personal information is used, and this policy describes it.
• For the personal information of your visitors, customers and staff that passes through Iris Cloud while it does AI work for you (for example a visitor's question to your website assistant), we act only on your instructions, as your service provider. The Data processing addendum covers that.
• For the personal information of your visitors and customers that your websites, store email and Inbox keep on Iris hosting, we handle it for you, on your instructions. How our role is described for this data is part of the review of the Data processing addendum.
• For what stays in your own accounts with other companies, we do not handle the information at all.

2. What Iris keeps for you

Iris keeps these on our servers so you can use them from any browser. Only you, and the people you add to your account, can open them in Iris:

• your projects: briefs, business details, text, photos, logos, artwork, product setup and every version of every website;
• the websites' code, previews, exports, quality reports and the screenshots Iris takes while checking them;
• encrypted keys and sign-ins for the services you connect;
• if you add people (sub-accounts): each person's name, email, permissions and an activity log of what they did in Iris, kept for 18 months. Their words and the contents of what they changed are not logged;
• your AI conversations with Iris, the history of what Agent Iris did, and your settings;
• logs of what Iris did, and the record of when you accepted Iris's terms and which version.

The database runs on Google Cloud (Cloud SQL, United States). Photos and files are stored on our Google Cloud servers or on Cloudflare R2, with backup copies on Google Cloud in the United States.

Generated website code is built and checked in isolated machines with restricted network access, separate from your account's data and holding no keys.

3. When data goes to other companies

Data goes to the companies below only when you use a feature that needs it.

3.1 Iris Cloud (cloud AI)

Iris Cloud is the only way to use cloud AI in Iris, and it runs all of Iris's AI work. Iris sends the AI work for a job through our gateway to our AI provider, Anthropic, PBC (United States), and returns the result. Depending on the job, that work contains:

• your brief and business details, page text, design choices and code from your project;
• screenshots of your website's pages, for design review;
• descriptions and placement notes of your photos;
• for writing help, translation and the launch kit: the words you are working on;
• for Chat with Iris and Agent Iris: what you type, recent turns of the conversation, Iris's public help, and what your own Iris shows anyway, such as your websites' names, the names of products and your plan. Agent Iris's planning request carries no customer names, emails, addresses or messages;
• for a reply draft to an inbox message: the words the customer wrote, without their name, email or phone number fields (they may have written such details in the message itself);
• only if you turn on "Use Iris Cloud for these questions" (All stores → Ask Iris about my numbers): your stores' totals by day, product, discount code and referring website, for your question or the weekly digest, never a customer's name, email, phone or address (Iris checks for them before anything is sent); and
• any personal information you put in any of these, such as names, addresses or quotes.

What our gateway does with it: it checks your account and credits, passes the request to Anthropic, counts the credits used and passes the answer back. The content goes through its memory and is not written to its database or its logs. With each request it records the labels listed in section 4 (ids and short labels such as "build" or "edit"), never the content.

What Anthropic does with it: Anthropic processes it to provide the AI model to us, under its Commercial Terms and Data Processing Addendum, which do not allow it to train its models on this content. Anthropic's published policy (updated 1 July 2026) is to delete API inputs and outputs within 30 days, with longer retention where it needs that to enforce its Usage Policy or the law requires it. If its systems flag a request as a possible violation, it says it keeps the inputs and outputs for up to 2 years and safety scores for up to 7 years. We send Anthropic a random-looking id instead of your name or email, so abuse can be traced to one account without telling Anthropic who you are.

3.2 The website assistant on your published sites

If you turn on the AI assistant for visitors, each question goes from your site's own server through our gateway to Anthropic, on your Iris Cloud credits, and the answer comes back the same way. The request holds the visitor's messages in that chat, the page and its language, the facts of your site, and a reference your site's server makes from the visitor's connection, which we hash again before Anthropic sees it. Our gateway does not keep the messages, and uses the reference only in memory to limit how often one visitor can ask. It records the time, tokens, credits and which site.

The same happens on a Test site, up to 20 questions a day, even though the rest of a Test site sends no real email and takes no real money. The website's own privacy page says so.

Anthropic handles these messages as in section 3.1. Your site's own server also keeps the chats for you (30 days on the site, and copies in your inbox for up to 90 days), in your website's own database, which Iris hosts.

3.3 Services you connect to your websites

When you connect a service to a website, you use your own account with that service, and Iris or your published site talks to it directly. That service receives what the feature needs, such as your key, product or price details, the files of the site you publish, or a customer's details. Those services are not our subprocessors: your agreement and their privacy policies apply, and we do not receive that data. They include:

• payments and stores: Stripe;
• shipping: Shippo receives the recipient's name, address and, for carriers that need it, phone number when you buy a label or check an address;
• forms, newsletters and contacts: Web3Forms, Formspree, webhooks you set (for example Zapier), HubSpot, Mailchimp, Kit, Buttondown, Klaviyo;
• analytics and advertising: Plausible, Umami, Google Analytics, PostHog, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, and your own ad spend figures from Google Ads and Meta;
• chat and booking: Crisp, Tawk.to, Intercom, WhatsApp, Messenger, Calendly, Cal.com;
• price compare: the product names or barcodes you look up, to the market sources you connect;
• publishing: GitHub and other Git hosts, and your domain's DNS provider.

3.4 Your Stripe data, and the Iris app for Stripe

When you connect your own Stripe account through the Iris app for Stripe, Stripe gives Iris access to that account. Our Stripe connection service, which runs on Cloudflare's network, keeps the tokens Stripe issues for your account encrypted (a refresh token that lasts up to a year and access tokens that last an hour) and gives your store's server only an access token for your own account, one hour at a time; your store never sees the refresh token. Iris and your site use it to create checkouts, read and refund your orders, run memberships and hear about payments.

Stripe sends notices of payments and other events for your account to our Stripe connection service. Those notices can include your customers' names, emails and addresses. The service keeps each one encrypted only until it has handed it to your store's server (for up to 3 days if your store can't be reached, the time Stripe itself retries for), then deletes it; it keeps the notice's id for 30 days so the same notice is not handled twice. Iris Cloud's own servers do not receive your tokens, and we do not look at your Stripe data, unless you choose to put some of it in a problem report or in a question to Iris Cloud (section 3.1).

We use data from your Stripe account only to run these features for you, as you direct. We do not sell it, and we do not use it to decide anyone's eligibility for credit, insurance or anything similar. To remove it, disconnect Stripe in Iris or remove the app in Stripe, then delete the project; your Stripe account keeps its own records.

3.5 Store email and the Inbox

Each store has its own email addresses (such as contact@ and support@) on our mail domain, and on your own domain if you add it. Your store's emails, such as receipts, shipping notices, sign-in codes and your replies from the Inbox, are sent through Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES) under our account, in the United States. While Amazon reviews our account, the same emails may be sent through Resend instead.

When someone emails one of your store's addresses, Amazon SES receives the message, scans it for spam and viruses and stores it in our storage at Amazon until Iris has read it. Iris then puts it in your store's Inbox, which is kept in your website's own database on Iris hosting, and, if you asked for it and confirmed the address, sends a copy to your own email. Iris then deletes the message from Amazon's storage. A message for a store that no longer exists is kept there for 30 days, then deleted. The Inbox keeps conversations until you delete them.

3.6 Alerts

Iris emails you about your account and your websites, such as a build that finished or needs you, usage alerts and bills. They say what happened, with the project name and, for store alerts, totals and product names.

3.7 Report a problem

Report a problem shows you the whole report before anything is sent. It holds what you wrote, the Iris version and, if you leave them ticked, recent technical details of what went wrong. Keys, tokens and passwords are always removed. Personal details and your website's content are left out unless you tick to include them.

3.8 Hosting

Iris runs on Google Cloud in the United States. The websites you publish run on Cloudflare's network, each with its own database, at a free address on our domain or on your own domain. Like any website host, Google and Cloudflare receive visitors' IP addresses and browser details when a page loads.

3.9 When you contact us

If you email us, we receive your email address, your message and anything you attach. We use it to answer you. Our mail reaches us through Cloudflare Email Routing and Google's Gmail.

3.10 Our website and the Iris app

buildwithiris.com sets no cookies and has no analytics, advertising or tracking. The Iris app at app.buildwithiris.com sets only the cookies it needs to work, such as the one that keeps you signed in; our Cookie notice lists them. Like any website, the hosts of these sites (Cloudflare and Google Cloud) receive your IP address and browser details when a page loads.

4. What Iris Cloud keeps

We do not keep passwords (there are none: you sign in with a code sent to your email). We do not keep your card number. We do not store your billing address. The AI gateway does not keep the content of your prompts or the AI's answers.

5. Payments

Payments for Iris Cloud are handled by Stripe, which collects your card or other payment details directly under its own privacy policy. It holds your name, email, billing details and payment history. We receive what we need to manage your subscription: the payment status, amounts, and references to Stripe's records. Stripe also uses data for its own purposes such as fraud prevention, as its policy explains.

6. How long we keep it

• Projects, websites, files and Inbox: while your account is open. If you cancel, your websites stay live to the end of the period you paid for, then stay offline and restorable for 30 days so you can export what you need, then are deleted after we tell you. If you close your account, your websites go offline at once and are deleted 30 days later. Deleting a project deletes its files.
• Account: while your account is open. When you close it, your name and email are removed from the account record straight away and every sign-in ends. We keep your email address only until your websites and data have been deleted, to tell you it is done.
• Sign-in and email-change codes: deleted 7 days after they expire, and when you close your account.
• Sign-in sessions: end after 14 days without use, 30 days after you signed in, or when you sign out.
• Usage records for each AI request: 24 months.
• Activity log of people you add to your account: 18 months.
• Billing, invoices and credit records: 7 years, for tax, accounting, refunds and disputes, without your name or email on the account record after you close it. Stripe keeps its own copy of your customer record under its policy.
• Proof of what you agreed to, including renewal consent: at least 3 years, or 1 year after the subscription ends, whichever is longer.
• Hosting logs: Google Cloud Logging keeps ordinary logs for 30 days and some administrative logs for about 400 days.
• Support emails and abuse reports: up to 3 years.
• Anthropic: as in section 3.1.

7. Who we share it with

• Subprocessors that run Iris Cloud and our website for us, listed on the Subprocessors page, under contracts that limit their use of the data.
• Authorities, when the law requires it, or to protect people from harm, including reporting child sexual abuse material.
• A buyer or successor of our business, including a company we form to run it, under this policy.

We do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

8. Your websites' visitors and customers

When your published website runs, its visitors' data (orders, accounts, form messages, emails to your store, assistant chats, return requests) goes to the services you chose and to your website's own database, which Iris hosts on Cloudflare's network. It is your data and your responsibility: you are the business that decides how it is used, and privacy laws that apply to your business apply to you.

Iris helps in these ways, and you should check all of them:

• Iris's own visitor numbers are on by default for a site published through Iris until you turn them off. They keep totals on your site's own server, use no cookies and keep no visitor id. Your privacy page says so.
• Iris can write a draft privacy policy and terms for your website from its real setup. They are drafts, not legal advice. They do not make your website comply with any law. Iris does not add them unless you turn on Privacy & legal, so turn it on. If your site collects anything, you probably need a privacy policy.
• If you download records or backups, you are responsible for protecting and deleting your copies.
• If you add people as sub-accounts, you are responsible for telling them about the activity log. Some states, such as New York and Connecticut, require employers to give written notice of electronic monitoring.

9. Your rights

9.1 Everyone

Wherever you live in the United States, you can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask for a copy, ask us to correct it or delete it, and close your account at any time. Under Account in Iris you can download your data and close your account yourself. Deleting a project in Iris removes it and its files.

We may ask you to confirm you control the account email first. We answer within 45 days. We may keep what the law requires or what we need for tax, fraud, security or disputes, and we will tell you if so. We will not treat you differently for asking.

9.2 California and other US states

California's privacy law (CCPA/CPRA) and similar laws in other states apply to businesses above certain sizes. We may be below them today. We offer the rights in section 9.1 anyway, and if a law applies to us you also have the rights it gives, including to use an authorized agent, to limit the use of sensitive personal information (we use it only to run the service, such as your account sign-in) and to appeal a refusal by replying to it.

In the last 12 months we collected these categories, from you and your use of Iris Cloud, for the purposes in section 4: identifiers (name, email, IP address, account id); commercial information (plan, purchases, credit history); internet or other network activity (usage records, hosting logs); approximate location (from your IP address, and your confirmation that you are in the United States); and account sign-in data. We disclosed them only to the subprocessors listed, for business purposes. We do not sell or share them, and we have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing information about anyone under 16.

California residents can also ask once a year whether we shared personal information with others for their direct marketing; we do not. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control: our website and the Iris app use no tracking across websites, so these signals change nothing about what they do.

9.3 How to ask

Email [email protected], or use the Privacy section of Account in Iris.

10. Security, and if something goes wrong

Iris uses encrypted connections, keeps each account's data separate, keeps keys for the services you connect encrypted, keeps only hashes of sign-in codes, session tokens and site keys, and builds generated code in isolated machines. No system is perfectly secure: keep your email account safe, because that is how you sign in.

If we learn of a breach affecting your personal information, we notify you and any authority as the law requires, without unreasonable delay.

11. Children

Iris and Iris Cloud are for adults and businesses. They are not meant for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you think a child has given us personal information, contact [email protected] and we will delete it. If you build a website directed at children or for a child's use, you are responsible for the laws that protect them, such as COPPA in the United States. Iris's drafts and checks do not provide parental consent.

12. Outside the United States

Iris Cloud is offered only in the United States, and our providers process data mainly there. We do not offer Iris Cloud to people in other countries or aim it at them.

13. Changes to this policy

We update this policy when our practices change. The version and date are at the top. For material changes we tell you in the app or by email before they apply. We will not use information we already hold in a materially different way without telling you first.

14. Contact

Iris Studio (Jacob Foscalina), 1512 Greenbriar Ave, Corona, California 92878, [email protected], (951) 545-0636.

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