Privacy policy

1. Who we are

Bennu is run by the owner of Bennu. Our registered office is available on request from help@heybennu.com. You can reach us at help@heybennu.com.

For your account, billing and how we run Bennu, we are the controller of your personal data. That means we decide how it is used and we are responsible for it.

Some of what you give us is about other people, such as customers or staff who appear in your photos, or your clients if you are an agency. For that data, your business is the controller and we act as your processor, following your instructions. Our data processing agreement covers this.

We have not appointed a data protection officer, because the law does not require one for a business of our size and kind. Email help@heybennu.com with any question about your data.

2. What we collect

Before you make an account

• The website address you paste, and what we read from that public website (your services, area, tone and offers).
• Your set-up choices, such as the look and tone of your posts. These stay in your browser until you sign up (see our cookies page).
• Your network address (IP address) and a check from our bot protection service, to stop bots and limit how many free reads one network can ask for.

Your account

• Your email address, and your first name if you give it.
• If you sign in with Google, the name, email address and profile picture Google shares with us. We never see your Google password.
• Sign-in records, such as when you last signed in.

Your business and your posts

• Your business card: services, area, opening hours, prices, offers, tone, goals, the line that ends your posts and the businesses whose posts you like.
• Your answers to Bennu’s questions about your customers and your trade.
• The photos and clips you upload, and the posts we make with them, including captions, images, carousels and reels.
• If you choose “You as a character”, the photo of you that you upload, your permission and the character we make from it.
• If you record your voice for your reels, or invite someone on your team to record theirs, the recording and its consent record (see your voice in section 5).
• Your decisions and feedback: approvals, skips, edits, notes, ratings and the changes you ask Bennu to make.
• Research we gather for your posts from public sources about your industry, your area and the accounts you name.
• If you use “Job done”, the line you write about the job, any note you add and which of your photos you picked (the photos themselves are in your library, as above).
• If you add your Google review link in Account, that link.
• If you ask a customer for a review, Bennu writes the message and you send it from your own phone. We keep only that a request was sent, how (share, text, WhatsApp or copy) and when. We never see or keep the customer’s name or number.
• If you paste a review to turn into a post, the review’s words, the customer’s first name and initial, where the review came from, and your tick to say the customer is happy to be quoted, with the time you ticked it.
• Your year: the busy times, sales, launches, events and closures you add, and which bank holidays apply to you.
• If you use “Tell Bennu more”, your typed note or voice note, the text of a voice note, and the facts Bennu found in it until you decide what to keep (see voice notes in section 5).
• In your monthly Wrapped, your own rough estimate of how many enquiries came from social, if you answer, and any “beat it” goal you set.
• Only if you turn on “Let Bennu show my best posts as examples” in Account (it’s off unless you do): a few of your published posts that did well, with their captions, your business name and your town, shown on Bennu’s website as examples. Their photos and videos are copied to public storage while they’re shown. We save when you turned it on and the wording you agreed to. Turn it off in Account at any time and they come down straight away.

Your social accounts

• You connect Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and the other networks through our publishing partner’s secure page. We never see or store your social media passwords.
• We store a random profile name for each brand, the account handles and profile pictures the networks return, and how your posts perform (views, likes, saves, shares, profile visits and link clicks).

Payments

• Your plan, billing history, payment status and billing address. Card payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your full card number.
• Stripe gives us a card “fingerprint”, which lets us tell whether two accounts use the same card without seeing the number. We use it to stop people referring themselves.
• If you cancel, the reason you choose and any comment you add.

Rewards and referrals

• Your seeds, eggs, quests and badges, your referral code, who you invited and whether they joined.
• To stop the welcome rewards and referrals being collected more than once, scrambled codes (keyed hashes) of your email address, card fingerprint and Stripe customer, and of the network and browser your account was used from. The browser code comes from our bennu_dev cookie. We can’t turn these codes back into your details.

How you use the app

• Which screens you open and which buttons, switches and tabs you use, when, and roughly how long you stay, so we can make Bennu easier and so Bennu can fit itself to you (for example putting the parts of the Nest you use first). Buttons are recorded by their fixed name, such as “Edit post”. We never record what you type, your captions, your email address or your phone number.
• Errors you see and whether the app’s requests worked, so we can fix what goes wrong.
• What people search for in our help centre and whether an answer helped. Emails, phone numbers and web addresses are taken out of the search before it’s saved, with how many answers it found. Nothing about who searched is kept, and nothing is stored on your device for it.
• How many visits and website pastes each of our public pages gets each day, as totals only. No cookie and no code for you or your browser is used. Your network address is only used, as a scrambled code, to limit how often one network can be counted.
• Whether you opened our emails and notifications, from a tag on their links and from our email delivery service.
• If you’re on a paid plan, the small offer for an extra (such as 5 extra image posts) that can show next to a free reward: when it was shown to you, and whether you closed it, tapped it or bought the extra from it. It holds no amounts and no card details.
• When you’re signed in this is on unless you turn off “Help improve Bennu with how you use the app” in Account. Before you have an account, it only happens if you say yes to “which ad or link brought you here, and how you use our site” in the cookie banner. Nothing extra is stored on your device for it.

When you arrive from one of our ads (only if you say yes)

• If you say yes to “which ad or link brought you here”: the campaign tags (such as utm_source and utm_campaign) and ad click ID (fbclid, ttclid or gclid) in the link you first arrived by, the page you landed on and the name of the site you came from. When you make an account, these are saved with it.
• If you say yes to Meta and TikTok ad cookies: their pixel cookies, a random code for your browser, and the events we send them, such as pasting your website, signing up or paying. If you paste your website but don’t sign up, we keep a short record so we can send one “didn’t sign up” event a day later.
• Your cookie choice and when you made it. Our cookies page lists every cookie by name.

When you contact us

• Your emails to us and our replies.

Your device

• Your IP address, browser type and the country your connection comes from. We use the country to show prices in pounds, euros or dollars.
• If you turn on notifications, a push address for your device.

We don’t ask for sensitive information such as health, religion or ethnicity, and we don’t use your photos to identify anyone or to work out anything like that about them. If you choose “You as a character”, an AI model from one of our AI model providers finds the face in the photo of you so it can be cropped for your character, and checks the quality of images. It doesn’t work out who anyone is.

3. How we use it and why we’re allowed to

Data protection law says we need a lawful basis for each use. These are ours.

Where we rely on legitimate interests you can object at any time (see your rights).

4. How we improve Bennu

We look at anonymised, aggregated patterns in how the service is used across all customers. For example, how often a type of post is approved or skipped, the kinds of changes people ask for, and how post formats perform compared with each business’s own typical results. We use these patterns to improve the service for everyone.

• The patterns contain no captions, photos, videos, business names, towns or contact details. A check in our database refuses anything except short labels and numbers.
• Each business is counted using a scrambled code (a keyed hash), so we can count how many businesses share a pattern without knowing which ones. The law still treats this code as personal data, so we delete these records after 180 days.
• Location is kept at region level only, such as “North West”.
• A pattern is only used once at least five businesses share it.
• When you ask Bennu to change a post, an AI model sorts your request into a fixed category, such as “shorter”. Only the category is kept, never your words.
• Requests for new features are counted the same way, by category only, and kept for a year.

Your content is never shared with, shown to or used in posts for any other customer.

This work is done by us, using the kinds of company listed in section 6. None of the personal data in it goes anywhere else.

5. AI and automated decisions

Bennu uses AI to plan, write and make posts. Your website text, profile, photos and clips are sent to our AI model providers (see section 6) so they can do this. Under their terms with us, they don’t use this data to train their models. Our AI and your content page explains more.

Nothing Bennu makes goes out without your approval, unless you turn on automatic posting.

Your voice, if you record one

You can record your own voice in the app, so Bennu can read your reels in it. You can also invite people on your team to record theirs, each through their own private one-time link, where each of them says their own consent line. Nobody can record for someone else, and nothing can be uploaded from another video. It only happens if the person speaking chooses it.

• What we keep. The recording (about a minute of reading our script), a cleaned copy of it, a short sample made from it, and a consent record: who recorded it, when, which version of the script they read, the consent line they said, and whether our check heard that line. For a team member we keep their first name and a hint of their email address, not the address itself.
• Why. To read your reels in that voice, and to show the person agreed. We treat a voice as sensitive, so we only use it with the explicit consent the person gives by ticking a box and saying the consent line out loud at the start of the recording.
• Where. The files are stored privately in our file storage in London, in their own storage area with no public access. A speech-to-text provider (United States) works for us as our processor. It turns the recording into text once, so we can check the consent line was said, and it also makes the AI copy of the voice. It only gets the cleaned recording while a reel or the sample is being made, and we delete the AI copy from the provider straight after each use.
• Labels. Every reel read in a recorded voice is labelled as made with AI on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, even if you’ve switched the AI label off for pictures. A copied voice sounds real, so people should know.
• How long. Until the voice is deleted, the account is deleted, or 90 days after your plan ends, whichever comes first. A recording that fails our check is deleted straight away. The consent record, without the recording, stays with your account until the account is deleted, so we can show the voice was used with permission.
• Withdrawing. Delete the voice in Account at any time. That deletes the recording, the cleaned copy, the sample and any AI copy at the speech-to-text provider, and new reels go back to a house voice. Reels already made keep their sound, and you can delete those from your social accounts. A team member can withdraw by asking the business, or by emailing help@heybennu.com, and we’ll delete it.

Voice notes and typed notes

• What happens. A voice note is sent once to a speech-to-text provider (United States), working for us as our processor, to turn it into text. The recording is deleted straight after, usually within a minute, and any left behind are deleted within the hour. The text is then read by an AI model (see section 6) to find facts for your business card and dates for Your year.
• What we keep. Only the facts you choose to keep. The text and the facts Bennu found are deleted as soon as you decide, or after 30 days if you don’t. After that we keep only that a note was sent, when, and how many facts were kept.

Some protections work automatically. For example, we refuse a second free preview for a website that has already had one, or a sign-up from a throwaway email address. These decisions don’t have a legal or similarly significant effect on you, but if you think one is wrong, email help@heybennu.com and a person will look at it.

6. Who we share it with

We never sell your personal data. We only share it for advertising if you say yes to marketing cookies, and only as described below.

• Companies that help us run Bennu (our subprocessors), such as hosting, payments, email and AI. Each one only gets what it needs, under a contract. The table below shows each kind, what it gets and where it is.
• The social networks you connect. When we publish a post, it goes to your account on that network. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and Threads then use it under their own terms and privacy policies.
• Stripe also uses some payment data for its own purposes, such as preventing fraud and meeting financial rules. For that, Stripe is a separate controller under its own privacy policy.
• Google, if you sign in with Google, under Google’s own privacy policy.
• Meta and TikTok, for our advertising, only with your permission. If you accept marketing cookies, their pixels collect information in your browser, and our server sends them events (such as pasting your website, signing up or paying) with your email address and a Bennu account or browser code, both hashed first, their cookies, the TikTok click ID, your IP address, browser type and the page address. We never send anything from inside the app. For collecting and sending this, we and each of them are joint controllers. We are responsible for asking your permission and telling you about it, and they are responsible for how they use it after they receive it, which they do as independent controllers under their own privacy policies (Meta, TikTok). You can use your rights with us or with them. For people in the UK and EU these services are provided by Meta Platforms Ireland Limited and by TikTok Technology Limited (Ireland) with TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited.
• Professional advisers, such as our accountant or solicitor, when needed.
• Authorities, such as HMRC, the police or a court, when the law requires it.
• A buyer, if Bennu or our business is ever sold. They would have to treat your data as this policy says, and we would tell you first.

You can ask us for the names of the companies we use at help@heybennu.com, and we’ll tell you.

7. Data outside the UK

Our database and file storage are in London. Some of our subprocessors are based in the United States or elsewhere, and may access or process your data there. When that happens we make sure one of these safeguards is in place:

• the country has been approved by the UK government as giving adequate protection (for example, the UK-US “data bridge” for US companies certified under it)
• the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA), or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses
• for data about people in the EU, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework

The table in section 6 shows where each kind of company is. Email us for a copy of the safeguards that apply.

Meta and TikTok may move the information they get from their pixels and from our server to other countries, including the United States, under their own safeguards. Their privacy policies explain how.

8. How long we keep it

Published posts stay on your social accounts until you delete them there. We can’t delete posts from your social accounts once you have disconnected them.

What we keep after you delete your account. So the free week and the free posts can’t be claimed twice, we keep your website address, a one-way scrambled code (a hash) of your email address and your card’s fingerprint from Stripe, which is a code for the card and not the card number. We can’t turn the email code back into your address. These are kept for 3 years and then deleted. The welcome reward codes in the table above are kept the same way, for the same 3 years.

9. Keeping it safe

• Everything travels encrypted (HTTPS).
• Secret keys are only kept on our servers, never in your browser.
• Each business can only read its own data. Every change goes through a server check that you own it.
• Photos and videos are kept in private storage and shown through links that stop working after an hour.
• Only the people who need to, at the moment the founder, can see customer accounts, for support and quality checks. That access needs a second sign-in step (a code from an app), and every change made through it is logged.

If something goes wrong that puts your data at risk, we will tell you and, where the law requires, the ICO within 72 hours of finding out.

10. Your rights

You have the right to:

• see the personal data we hold about you and get a copy
• correct anything that’s wrong
• delete your data, where we don’t need to keep it for a legal reason
• restrict how we use it while a concern is looked at
• take it with you in a common format (data portability)
• object to uses based on legitimate interests, and to any direct marketing at any time
• withdraw consent where we rely on it, such as for marketing cookies (tap Cookie settings at the bottom of any page), your character, a recorded voice or notifications. This stops future use but doesn’t affect what happened before
• ask for a person to review an automated decision

In Account you can download a copy of your data and delete your account yourself. You can also email help@heybennu.com to use any of these rights. It’s free. We may ask you to prove who you are. We will reply within one month, or tell you within that month if we need up to two more months for a complicated request.

If your request is about data in your posts that belongs to someone else’s business, such as a client of an agency, we may pass it to that business, because they are in charge of it.

11. Children

Bennu is for businesses and you must be 18 or over to use it. We don’t knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you think a child has made an account, email us and we will delete it.

If you upload photos or clips that show children, you must have permission from a parent or guardian first. Our terms explain this.

12. Emails and notifications

We send emails you need to use Bennu, such as sign-in links, receipts, renewal reminders, failed payment notices and alerts about your posts. These can’t be turned off while you have an account.

Other emails, such as your weekly “ready” note, monthly results, and the welcome, invite and voice emails, can be turned off in Account. Each kind has its own switch, so turning one off leaves the others as they are.

We will only send you marketing emails if you have agreed, or if you are a customer and they are about our similar services. Every one has a one-click way to stop them. This follows the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).

13. If you’re in the EU

If you are in the European Union or the European Economic Area, the EU GDPR also protects your data and you have the same rights described above.

The European Commission recognises the UK as giving adequate protection, so your data can come to us in the UK without extra paperwork.

You can also complain to the data protection authority in your own country.

14. Complaints

Please talk to us first at help@heybennu.com, and we will do our best to put things right.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by phone on 0303 123 1113.

15. Changes to this policy

If we make an important change, we will email you before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when this policy last changed.