Privacy Policy
Version 1.2. Effective October 22, 2026.
Memlo holds some of the most personal things you write down. Your memories are yours, not ours. This policy explains what we collect and why, who else handles it, how long we keep it, and the rights you have.
We never sell your personal information. We don't show ads. We don't use your memories to train AI models.
This policy covers:
- people who join the Memlo waitlist;
- people who have a Memlo account; and
- people who are mentioned in someone else's memories.
"We", "us" and "our" mean Starkweather Digital LLC, which runs Memlo and is responsible for your personal information (the "controller" under European data protection law). You can reach us at privacy@starkweatherdigital.com.
Contents: What we collect and why · How AI is used · Who else handles your data · When we look at or disclose your data · How long we keep it · People mentioned in memories · Your rights · Legal bases (EU and UK) · Where your data is · Security · Children · Changes · Contact
What we collect and why
We collect only what we need to run Memlo.
If you join the waitlist
- Your email address, so we can invite you when a place opens and tell you about Memlo's launch. That is all we use it for.
- The time you signed up.
- Your IP address, briefly, in our web server logs and to stop the form from being abused (for example, many sign-ups from one address).
If you have an account
Sign-in information. Your username and email address (both set by your invitation), the name you choose, your password (stored only as a one-way hash, never in readable form), and, if you set one up, your second sign-in factor (an authenticator app secret, or the public key of your passkey or security key). We use these to let you sign in and keep others out.
Sign-in records. When you sign in, we record the time, your IP address and your browser type. We use these to protect your account, for example to lock out someone who keeps guessing passwords.
Your content. Everything you save in Memlo: your memories (title, text, description, tags and other details), their earlier versions, your spaces, and the work-log entries ("experiences") your apps save. We keep it so you can use Memlo.
What Memlo makes from your content. To make your memories easy to find and use, Memlo creates:
- a short description and search data for each memory;
- search vectors (numbers that represent the meaning of your text), computed on our own servers;
- if you turn on Find names in my memories, the names of people, projects, places and other things that your memories mention, the links between them, and a short summary for each name;
- a map of your memories, computed on our servers when you open it.
This is part of your content. Only you, and anyone you choose to share a space with, can see it.
Connected apps. When you connect an AI app through MCP, we keep the app's name and identifier, what you allowed it to do, and which actions it took for you. We use this to let the app work and to let you disconnect it.
AI usage and limits. For each AI request made for you, we record the time, which feature asked, the model used, the number of words (tokens) processed and the cost. These records contain no memory text. We use them to apply your daily AI limit and show you your usage.
Technical logs. Our servers log requests (time, IP address, the address requested, the result). Our services are built to log identifiers and counts, not the text of your memories. We use logs to keep Memlo running and secure.
Visit counts for our home page. When you open our home page, our own server counts the visit: the page, the result, the domain of the website that linked to it (for example news.example.com, never the full link), and whether the browser looks like a person or an automated program. To count how many different visitors we had in a day, it combines your IP address and browser type with a random value that exists only in that server's memory and is replaced every day, and keeps only the count. Your IP address is not stored for this, and the counts cannot be used to recognize you, on the same day or later. This uses no cookies, no scripts in your browser and no outside service.
Usage statistics. We count how Memlo is used, in totals only: for example the number of waitlist sign-ups, invitations, accounts, sign-ins, active people per day, memories and their total size, names found, connected apps and AI cost. Where we look at how usage is spread across people (for example how many people have 10 to 99 memories), we keep only the spread or a rank, never who. These statistics contain no memory content, no email addresses, no IP addresses and no usernames. We use them to run, plan and pay for Memlo.
Messages you send us. If you email us, we keep the conversation so we can help you. Our email runs on Google Workspace.
Cookies and similar storage
We use only what sign-in needs: the sign-in pages set session cookies, and the Memlo web app keeps your sign-in tokens in your browser's session storage until you close the tab or sign out. After you sign in, the app also sets a small cookie that only remembers that you use the app on this device, so our home page takes you straight to the app; it holds no sign-in token and is removed when you sign out. We don't use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies, and we don't use third-party tracking tools. The visit counts and usage statistics described above are made on our own servers and use no cookies.
How AI is used
Memlo uses AI in these places:
- writing a short description and search hints when you save or edit a memory;
- finding names in your memories, if you turned that on;
- writing a summary for each name it finds;
- writing an answer when you ask a question across your memories.
For these, the relevant text (your memory, or the memories found for your question) is sent to an AI model run by our hosting provider, DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean states that it does not store the inputs or outputs of these requests and does not use them to train models. Our own systems keep no copy of what is sent or returned, apart from the results we save for you (the description, names and summaries). We keep only the usage record described above.
Search vectors and search ranking are computed by models running on our own servers. No outside company sees that text.
AI output can be wrong. Memlo does not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.
We do not use your content to train or fine-tune AI models. If we ever want to, we will ask you first, and it will be off unless you turn it on.
Who else handles your data
We use a small number of service providers ("subprocessors") to run Memlo. They may use your data only to provide their service to us. The full, current list is on our Subprocessors page. Today it is:
- DigitalOcean (United States): hosting, storage, backups and the AI model.
- Google Workspace, run by Google (United States): our email. It handles the emails you send us and the emails we send you, including invitation links.
Memlo itself doesn't send email automatically. When your invitation is ready, a person on our team sends you the link by email.
Apps you connect. When you connect an AI app (for example Claude or ChatGPT), it receives the memories it reads for you. That app's provider is not our subprocessor: it handles that data under its own terms, at your direction.
We don't sell or rent your personal information, and we don't share it for advertising.
When we look at or disclose your data
No one at Memlo reads your content except:
- when you ask us for help and give us permission to look;
- when an automatic process fails and we have to look at a minimum of data to fix it;
- to investigate abuse or a security problem, as a last resort and in line with our Acceptable Use Policy; or
- when the law requires it. We disclose data to government authorities only when we are legally required to (for example, by a valid subpoena, court order or warrant), or in an emergency involving a risk of death or serious injury. Where the law allows, we will tell you before we disclose your data.
If Memlo or our company is acquired or merged, we will tell you before your data is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
We may publish statistics that cannot identify anyone (for example, the number of memories saved per day).
How long we keep it
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Waitlist email | Until we invite you, or until you ask us to remove it. |
| Your content | While your account is open, until you delete it. |
| A memory you delete in the app | It disappears from your memories, search and name pages right away. Its last version stays in the memory's history (so it can be restored) until you delete it permanently or delete your account. |
| Names found in your memories | Deleted when you turn off "Find names in my memories", when you delete the memory they came from, or when you delete your account. |
| Account data after you delete your account | Deleted from our live systems as soon as the deletion finishes. You can check its progress. |
| Backups | Daily database backups, plus a continuous log of changes, kept for 14 days. Deleted data leaves the backups within 14 days. |
| Sign-in records | 365 days. Failed-sign-in counters expire after 1 hour. |
| AI usage and cost records | While your account is open. After you delete your account we keep the amounts and counts, without any content, for accounting. |
| Server logs | Kept only on the servers that wrote them and overwritten as they fill up. They are not sent to a logging service. |
| Visit counts and usage statistics | Totals only, kept up to 15 days on our own monitoring server in the United States. The daily random value used to count different visitors is never stored and is replaced every day. |
| Emails with us | As long as needed to help you, then deleted. |
People mentioned in memories
Memlo users may save memories that mention you, even if you don't use Memlo. If "Find names in my memories" is on, Memlo may create a page for your name that only that user (and anyone they share the space with) can see.
- The Memlo user who saved the memory decides what to keep. For most people, Memlo is a personal notebook.
- Our Terms and Acceptable Use Policy require users to only store information about others that they have a right to keep, and forbid using Memlo to track, profile or expose anyone.
- If you think a Memlo user holds information about you, email privacy@starkweatherdigital.com. We can't search other people's private memories on request, but we will pass your request to the account holder where we can identify them, act on content that breaks our Acceptable Use Policy or the law, and tell you what we did.
Your rights
We give everyone the same rights, wherever you live:
- Know and access. Learn what we hold about you and get a copy.
- Portability. Download your data in a machine-readable form. Use "Export my data" in the web app for all your spaces and memories.
- Correct. Fix what's wrong. You can edit your memories yourself; email us for other data.
- Delete. Delete memories in the app, or ask us to delete your whole account. Deleting your account removes your spaces, memories and their history, search data, names and summaries, consents and sharing. Email us to delete your sign-in account as well.
- Object or restrict. Ask us to stop or limit some processing. You can turn off "Find names in my memories" at any time; turning it off deletes the names it found.
- Withdraw consent. Where we rely on your consent (the waitlist, finding names), you can withdraw it at any time.
- Opt out of sale or sharing for advertising. We don't do either, so there is nothing to opt out of.
- No discrimination. We won't treat you differently for using these rights.
- Appeal and complain. If we turn down your request, you can appeal by replying to our answer. You can also complain to your local data protection authority or state attorney general.
To use a right, email privacy@starkweatherdigital.com from the email address on your account (or the one you used for the waitlist). We may need to confirm it's you before we act. If someone is asking for you as your authorized agent, we will need your signed permission. We answer within 30 days, or sooner if the law requires.
US state privacy laws (for example California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia and others) give residents the rights above. We don't sell personal information, don't share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and don't use sensitive personal information to infer things about you.
Legal bases (EU and UK)
If you are in the European Union, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we rely on these legal bases:
- Contract: to create and run your account, store and search your content, and provide the features you use.
- Consent: to keep your waitlist email and contact you about Memlo's launch, and to find names in your memories (which you turn on yourself). You can withdraw consent at any time.
- Legitimate interests: to keep Memlo secure, prevent abuse, apply usage limits and fix problems. These interests don't override your rights; you can object.
- Legal obligation: when the law requires us to keep or disclose data.
Where your data is
Memlo runs in DigitalOcean's San Francisco region in the United States. Your data, its backups and the AI model all stay in the United States. If you use Memlo from outside the United States, your data is transferred to and processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from yours.
Security
- Sign-in is by invitation only. Two-factor sign-in is available (an authenticator app, passkey or security key); once you set it up, every sign-in asks for it. Repeated failed sign-ins are locked out.
- All connections to Memlo use HTTPS.
- Each person's data is kept separate: every request is checked against who is asking, and the database itself enforces that you see only your own spaces and the ones shared with you.
- Inside our systems, each service can reach only the other services it needs. Services that hold your data can reach the internet only at a short list of named destinations, such as our AI model provider.
- Our databases and backups are stored on DigitalOcean volumes, which DigitalOcean encrypts at rest.
- We back up the databases daily, and we have tested restoring them.
No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a breach that affects your personal information, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires. To report a security problem, email privacy@starkweatherdigital.com.
Children
Memlo is not for children. You must be at least 13 (or older where your country requires it) to use Memlo. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have, we delete it. If you think a child has given us their information, email privacy@starkweatherdigital.com.
Changes to this policy
Every version of this policy has a version number and an effective date. We keep every past version available on our website: version 1.0 (October 22, 2026), version 1.1 (October 22, 2026). For a change that matters (for example, a new use of your data or a new kind of data shared with a provider), we will email you and show a notice in the app at least 30 days before it takes effect, and ask for your consent where the law requires it.
Contact
Questions, requests or complaints: privacy@starkweatherdigital.com.
Portions of this document are adapted from the Basecamp's published policies by 37signals LLC, licensed under CC BY 4.0. We changed and added to that text.