Tetherhealth.io, LLC ("Tether," "we," "us") provides a perinatal and early parenthood mental-health platform consisting of our website at tetherhealth.io, the Tetherwell™ app — which includes Peri (an AI companion), private mood and screener check-ins, and support-circle coordination (including SMS) — and TetherCore™, our B2B platform that embeds Tetherwell and related clinical tools into partner care organizations such as clinics, health systems, and payers. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have.
This policy applies to visitors, account holders, members of a user's support circle, clinicians and partner organizations, staff and administrators who access Tetherwell through a TetherCore™ deployment, and people who subscribe to our SMS messaging program.
1. Quick Summary
- We collect only what we need to operate the service you asked for.
- We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share mobile information, phone numbers, or SMS opt-in / consent data with any third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. All the above categories exclude text-messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.
- Your information is protected under a written Privacy & Security Program modeled on the HIPAA Security Rule. See "Security & HIPAA Alignment" below.
- You can delete your account, export your data, or opt out of SMS at any time.
2. Information We Collect
Information you give us
- Account & profile: name, email, password (hashed), optional photo, pregnancy / postpartum stage, child name (optional).
- Contact data for support circles: name, relationship, email, and mobile phone number for people you choose to add to your support circle.
- Health-adjacent content you submit: mood ratings, check-in logs, EPDS / GAD-7 / PHQ-9 screener answers, free-text journal entries, messages to Peri, voice notes, and support requests.
- Contact form submissions (name, email, role, organization, message, optional phone and SMS consent record), sent through our contact page.
- SMS opt-in records: when, where, and how you (or a circle member) consented to receive text messages, the phone number provided, and the program enrolled.
- Newsletter email, partner-waitlist details, and anything else you send us.
Information collected automatically
- Device, browser, IP address, approximate location, pages viewed, and basic analytics events.
- Cookies and similar technologies used to keep you signed in and to measure aggregate product usage.
Information from third parties
- If you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive your basic profile (name, email, avatar).
- Aggregated, de-identified usage information from our infrastructure and AI providers (see Section 5).
3. How We Use Information
- Operate, secure, and improve Tetherwell.
- Power Peri's AI responses, the clinical-routing logic behind check-ins, and support-circle coordination and SMS features.
- Detect crisis language and, when you ask us to, notify the people you have designated in your support circle.
- Send you transactional messages (account, security, scheduled check-ins).
- Send you SMS only for the program you opted into, and only at the cadence disclosed.
- Provide customer support and respond to your requests.
- Comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms.
We do not use your private content (Peri chats, check-in logs, support requests, voice notes, screener results) to train third-party large language models, and we do not sell your data to advertisers or data brokers.
4. SMS & Mobile Information — Required Disclosures
Tether operates SMS messaging for support-circle coordination and (with your separate consent) Tether account notifications. These programs are subject to U.S. carrier rules (CTIA) and, where applicable, A2P 10DLC requirements. Tetherwell sends no marketing or promotional messages and carries no third-party, affiliate, or lead-generation messaging. How consent is collected, including screenshots of both opt-in screens, is documented at SMS consent & opt-in, and the full program terms are in our Terms & Conditions.
What we send
- Support requests: when an account holder asks for help, Tetherwell texts the people that account holder personally added to their own support circle, each of whom has separately confirmed consent (for example, "Sarah could use a meal tonight — tap to reply").
- Urgent alerts: if you choose to enable it, we may text a pre-selected support contact when our system or you flag an acute moment.
- Account & reminder texts: optional check-in nudges, screener reminders, and security codes.
We send no marketing, promotional, affiliate, or lead-generation texts, and we never send messages on behalf of another business.
Crisis-language scanning
Tetherwell runs automated scanners on text you enter (chat messages with Peri, check-in notes, and support-request headlines and bodies) to look for language suggesting self-harm, harm to a baby or child, severe intrusive thoughts, and postpartum psychosis. Scan results stay in your account: they trigger an in-app safety assessment and, if you choose to act on it, a text to a contact you select. We do not sell, share, or otherwise disclose scan results to third parties, and we do not use them to train external AI models. Tetherwell is not a medical device and bears no responsibility or liability for any health decisions or outcomes — full language lives in our Terms & Conditions.
Consent
- Account holders explicitly opt in to SMS by entering their own mobile number and checking a box agreeing to receive texts from Tetherwell.
- Support-circle members are added one at a time by the account holder — never from a purchased, rented, or imported list. Each contact receives a single invitation text with a unique confirmation link and gets no further messages unless they tap through and affirmatively agree. Anyone can reply STOP at any time.
- Consent is per-program, consent is never a condition of purchase, and agreeing to our Terms does not by itself enroll you in SMS.
Frequency, cost, help, and opt-out
- Message frequency varies based on circle activity and the programs you enable.
- Message and data rates may apply.
- Reply HELP for help, or email ash@tetherhealth.io.
- Reply STOP to any message to unsubscribe. We will send one confirmation text and no further messages from that program.
- Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
Mobile information sharing
No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Information sharing to subcontractors in support services, such as customer service or messaging delivery (e.g., our SMS provider), is permitted. All other categories exclude text-messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.
5. How We Share Information
We share personal information only with the categories of recipients below, and only for the purposes described.
- Service providers (sub-processors) that run our infrastructure: our database, authentication, and storage provider; our hosting/CDN provider; our AI gateway and model providers (used to power Peri responses on a per-request basis); Twilio (SMS delivery); and our email provider for transactional mail. These providers may process mobile numbers only to deliver the messages you asked for, never for their own marketing.
- People you direct us to message: the support-circle members you add, and clinicians or partners you explicitly choose to share with.
- Legal & safety: to comply with the law, respond to lawful requests, or protect the safety of you or others (including in response to imminent risk).
- Business transfers: in connection with a merger, acquisition, or asset sale, subject to this Policy.
We do not sell personal information and do not engage in cross-context behavioral advertising.
6. Security & HIPAA Alignment
Tetherhealth.io maintains a written Privacy & Security Program modeled on the administrative, physical, and technical safeguards standards of the HIPAA Security Rule, and administered by a designated Privacy & Security Officer. The governing policies are published in full: administrative safeguards, workforce training, and our breach-notification procedure.
Safeguards operating today include:
- TLS encryption in transit and encryption at rest at the database and storage layer.
- Row-level access rules so an account can only reach its own records.
- Least-privilege access, isolated secret credentials, and no elevated keys in the browser.
- An append-only audit trail for contact changes, consent decisions, and every message you send from your account.
- Server-side crisis-language handling, workforce training, and a designated Privacy & Security Officer.
- Continuous dependency and configuration security scanning.
Tetherwell is a direct-to-consumer service and is not a health-care provider or a substitute for medical care. When we work with clinics, practices, or health plans, we act as a business associate and execute a Business Associate Agreement — together with the matching agreements with our own sub-processors — before any protected health information flows through Tether. Until those agreements are in place for a given partner deployment, information you share with us is protected by this Policy and the safeguards above rather than by HIPAA itself.
7. Your Choices & Rights
- Access & export: request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Correction: update inaccurate information from your account settings or by writing to us.
- Deletion: delete your account at any time. We will delete or de-identify your data within 30 days, subject to legal retention requirements.
- SMS opt-out: reply STOP to any message, or remove the number from your support circle in the app.
- Marketing email opt-out: use the unsubscribe link in any newsletter.
- State-specific rights (California, Colorado, Virginia, Connecticut, Utah, and similar): you may have additional rights, including the right to opt out of certain processing. Email us to exercise these rights.
8. Data Retention
We retain personal information for as long as your account is active and for a limited period afterward to satisfy legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Crisis-event logs may be retained longer in de-identified form for safety auditing.
9. Security
No system is perfectly secure. We work hard to protect your information and ask that you help us by using a strong, unique password, enabling any available multi-factor protection, and notifying us immediately if you believe your account has been compromised.
10. Children
Tetherwell is intended for adults (18+). We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.
11. International Users
Tether operates from the United States. If you use the service from outside the U.S., you consent to the transfer and processing of your information in the U.S., where data protection laws may differ from those in your country.
12. Changes to This Policy
We will update this Policy as Tether evolves — particularly as we cross HIPAA, SOC 2, and additional regulatory milestones. Material changes will be announced in-app or by email.
13. Contact Us
Tetherhealth.io, LLC · Seattle, WA
Email: ash@tetherhealth.io
Contact: tetherhealth.io/contact
SMS support: ash@tetherhealth.io
See also our Terms & Conditions, which include the specific SMS program disclosures required by U.S. carriers.