Privacy

The short version

Relay stores the briefings you write, the results of running them, and the account you signed in with. Your briefing description is sent to the search and language-model providers listed below, because that is how a briefing is produced. If you connect Slack or Telegram, Relay posts briefings there and keeps what it needs to do that; it does not read your conversations. We use Google Analytics to understand how the site is used. If you install the Chrome extension, Relay can read your browsing history — in your own browser, only when you press the button, and we store none of it. We do not sell your data and there is no advertising.

What we collect

• Your account. When you sign in with Google we receive and store your name, email address and profile picture. We never see your Google password.
• What you write. The name and description of each briefing you create, and its colour and schedule.
• What Relay produces. Each run and the stories it selected, including headlines, the text Relay wrote about them, the named people, places and organisations in them, and links to the original articles.
• Desks. The desks you found or join, who is in each and in what role, and the invitations sent to bring people in. Other members of a desk can see your name and picture.
• What you do with a story. When you press Save, More like this or Not interested, we store which story and which button. From these Relay writes a short statement of what you lean towards and away from, shows it to you on the briefing’s info page, and uses it to choose later stories. Start over on that page deletes them.
• Comments. What you write on a story, visible to everyone who can read that briefing.
• Messages to us. What you write on the contact page, the email address you give there, and our replies.
• Share links. When you share a briefing, we store a copy of its name and description against a random link. It stops working after 48 hours.
• Usage data. Through Google Analytics: the pages you visit, roughly where you are, and what browser and device you use.

The Chrome extension and your browsing history

Relay has an optional Chrome extension. It exists so that you can start a briefing from what you already read, instead of exporting your history from Google and uploading a file. Installing it is a choice, and nothing on Relay depends on it.

The extension never sends anything anywhere. It holds no account and has no permission to make a network request — it asks for one permission, history, and the only thing it can do with it is answer a question from a Relay page you already have open. It does nothing on a schedule, nothing in the background, and nothing on install.

When you press Read my history on the New agent page, this is what happens, in this order:

• The extension reads the last 90 days of history from Chrome and hands it to the Relay tab. It does not leave your computer at this point.
• Your browser — not our server — throws out everything that is a tool rather than a subject: webmail, banking, shopping, travel booking, sign-in pages and file storage. Anything older is weighted down to nothing.
• What is left is reduced to at most 2,000 page titles and their web addresses. Only those are sent to us, and only to work out what to suggest.
• Those titles are sent to OpenAI in the same way a briefing description is, because grouping them into subjects is what produces the suggestions. A small number of pages with unusable titles have their public page title fetched by our server.
• The suggestions come back for you to edit or discard. Nothing from this is written to our database — not the history, not the titles, not the suggestions. If you create a briefing from one, what is saved is the briefing you created, exactly as if you had typed it.

Your raw browsing history is therefore never uploaded, never stored and never seen by us. Uninstalling the extension removes its access immediately, and leaves any briefings you made with it untouched.

Slack

A desk’s owner or admin can connect it to a Slack workspace. Nothing here happens unless they do.

• What we store. The workspace’s name and ID, an access token for Relay’s bot (encrypted), the channels chosen for briefings, and a record of each message Relay posted so that it can thread comments under it. For people who comment or save from Slack: their Slack user ID, display name and picture, and the stories they saved. Slack tells us a member’s email address so that we can match them to their Relay account.
• What Relay reads. The list of channels, so you can pick one. Replies in the thread under a single story Relay posted, which become comments on that story in Relay. Relay links pasted into a message, so it can show a preview. Slack’s permission for reading replies covers whole channels; Relay keeps only the replies in those threads and stores nothing else said in a channel.
• What goes to Slack. Briefings, and the comments made on their stories, are posted to the channels the desk chose and are then held by Slack under its own terms. Deleting something in Relay does not remove a person’s own reply from Slack.
• Disconnecting. Disconnecting in Settings deletes the token and the channel choices.

Telegram

A desk can add Relay’s bot to Telegram groups, and anyone can link their own Telegram account to receive briefings directly.

• What we store. For a group: its ID and title, and a record of each message the bot posted. For a linked account: your Telegram user ID, name and username.
• What Relay reads. Nothing said in a group. The bot only posts. Stories opened from Telegram are shown by Relay’s own reader inside Telegram, which learns who you are from Telegram rather than from a cookie.
• What goes to Telegram. Briefing messages, held by Telegram under its own terms.

Email

If you ask for a briefing by email, each one is sent to the address on your account. We also email you about your account: a place on the waiting list, an invitation to a desk, a reply to a message you sent us. There is no marketing email.

What stays in your browser

Your Saved list and the time you spend reading a story are kept in your browser’s local storage. They are used to reorder your deck on that device, and they do not follow you to another device. Clearing your browser data erases them. The presses themselves (Save, More like this, Not interested) are also stored on our servers, as described above.

Cookies

• Sign-in. One cookie that keeps you signed in. Without it the app cannot know who you are.
• Your last visit. Two small cookies per briefing recording when you were last here, so Relay can show you everything since then rather than only the latest run.
• Preferences. Which desk you are on, the appearance you chose, the feed you last had open, and when you last opened your notifications.
• Contact. If you write to us without being signed in, one cookie that lets the contact page show you your own conversation. It lasts a year, or until you clear it.
• Analytics. Google Analytics sets its own cookies to tell repeat visits from new ones. You can opt out with Google’s browser add-on, and Google’s own privacy policy governs what it does with the data.

Who else sees your data

Producing a briefing means sending parts of it to other companies. Each handles that data under its own terms.

• OpenAI. Your briefing description, the search queries derived from it, and the text of candidate articles are sent to OpenAI’s models, which decide what is relevant to you and write what you read. If you use the Chrome extension or upload a history export, the filtered page titles described above are sent there too.
• Exa. The search queries are sent to Exa, which returns the candidate articles.
• Google. Sign-in and analytics.
• Resend. Sends our email, so it receives the recipient’s address and the content of each message.
• Slack and Telegram. Only if connected, and only what is posted there, as described above.
• Vercel and Neon. Hosting for the application and the database respectively.

We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with anyone else except where the law requires it.

How long we keep it

Briefings and their history are kept until you delete them. Deleting a briefing permanently deletes its runs, its stories and any share links made from it. Share links expire on their own after 48 hours. Messages you sent us are kept until we delete the conversation, which we will do if you ask.

You can delete your account in Settings. That permanently deletes everything it owns: your briefings and their history, the desks you founded, your memberships, and your Slack and Telegram links. If other people are in a desk you own, delete the desk first. What was already posted to Slack or Telegram stays there.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. If you are in the UK or the EU you also have the right to object to processing and to complain to your data protection authority. Write to peterpelles@gmail.com.

Children

Relay is not intended for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes and we will say so in the app. Continuing to use Relay after a change means you accept it. See also our terms.