Terms of use

The short version

• Both Ends is not an emergency service, not therapy, and not a medical device.
• You must be 18 or older and in the United States.
• Helpers are ordinary people you chose. They are not professionals, and we do not check them.
• Nothing is guaranteed to arrive or be answered.
• What you write is yours. We cannot read it, and we never sell it.
• By setting up Both Ends, you agree to these terms.

Agreeing to these terms

When you set up Both Ends, you are asked to confirm that you are 18 or older and in the United States, and that you agree to these terms and the privacy policy. Ticking that box and continuing is how you accept them. If you do not agree, please do not use Both Ends. You can stop at any time and delete your data.

Not an emergency service, not therapy, not a medical device

Both Ends helps you get a few people you already know ready for a hard moment. It is not an emergency service. It is not therapy or counseling. It is not a medical device, and it does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition. Nothing in Both Ends, including its guides, examples and helper guidance, is medical or professional advice, and it is no substitute for a doctor, therapist or other professional.

Nobody at Both Ends sees your moments or reads what you write, and nobody at Both Ends can send help. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911. In crisis, call or text 988, or text HOME to 741741.

Who can use Both Ends

Both Ends is for adults. You must be at least 18 years old, and you must be in the United States. Both Ends is not offered anywhere else at launch, and the crisis lines and resources it shows are US ones. You can use Both Ends on your own device without an account. The online circle needs an email address you can receive codes at.

Helpers are ordinary people

The helpers in a circle are friends, family and other people the person chose. They are not professionals acting for Both Ends. Both Ends does not select, train, check or vouch for any helper, and it does not match anyone with strangers.

• The guidance helpers see is general. It is about listening and when to hand off. Following it does not make anyone a counselor.
• What a helper says or does is their own responsibility, not ours.
• Being a helper is voluntary. A helper can say "I can't right now", set off hours, take a break or step back at any time. A helper is never obliged to answer.
• A helper can never add themselves to a circle. An offer link only suggests. The person decides.

No guarantee that anything arrives or is answered

"I'm having a moment", notifications, check-ins, reminders and "Check on me" all depend on your device, your helpers' devices, their settings, the internet, other companies' notification services, and people. Any of these can fail or be delayed. So:

• we do not promise that a moment or any other message will be delivered, seen or answered;
• "asked" does not mean "seen", and it does not mean you are safe;
• if nobody has answered after five minutes, Both Ends tells you and shows crisis lines, but that notice also depends on your device working.

Please do not rely on Both Ends as your only way to reach help. Keep a safety plan, and know the crisis numbers above.

Your content

You own what you write in Both Ends. You give us only the permission we need to store, sync and deliver it as you direct, which mostly means keeping encrypted copies we cannot read. You are responsible for what you share with your circle or through a read-only view, and for keeping your passphrase and recovery code safe. If both are lost, nobody can recover what you wrote, including us.

Please write about yourself, not other people. Leave out details of how you or anyone might be hurt. Your safety plan and a crisis line are better places for that.

What encryption covers, and what we hold

What you write is encrypted on your device, and end-to-end encrypted if you connect a circle online. We cannot read it. Encryption does not hide everything. When a circle is online, our server holds your email address, which accounts share a circle, each person's access, and when records change. We treat that as health data. The privacy policy lists it in full and is part of these terms.

Using Both Ends fairly

Please do not:

• use Both Ends to harass, threaten, keep watch on or control another person, or add someone to a circle without their knowledge;
• try to break, overload or get around Both Ends's security, rate limits or sign-in checks, or access accounts or data that are not yours;
• send automated requests, or use the service to send spam;
• put other people's personal or health details in feature requests, which the Both Ends team can read.

We may limit or close accounts that do these things. Because we cannot read what you write, we act on what we can see, such as abuse of sign-in, and on reports sent to hello@bothends.care.

Circles and shared views

A circle's owner decides who is in the circle and what each person can see and do. Anything you share with a circle or a read-only view can be seen, saved or printed by the people who receive it, and removing access later cannot take that back. The person a circle is for can ask the owner to hand it to them.

Deleting your data

You can delete everything on a device from Settings → Delete all data. If you use the online circle, you can delete your account from the online circle screen, which removes what our server holds for it. You can also email privacy@bothends.care and we will delete it for you. Copies that people in your circle already received stay on their devices.

The service, and what happens if it closes

Both Ends is in early release (version 0.1.0) and has not yet been tested with real circles. We work hard to keep it running and your data safe, but we provide it "as is", without guarantees that it will always be available or free of errors. Please keep your own backups. We may change or stop features.

If we ever shut down the online circle, we will give at least 30 days' notice so you can download everything and make other plans with your circle. What is on your device stays there and keeps working on that device, but moments would no longer reach your helpers.

Both Ends is free. If we offer optional paid support in the future, we will explain it clearly first.

Limits on our responsibility

To the extent the law allows, Both Ends and the people who make it are not responsible for indirect or consequential losses, for what helpers or other people in a circle do or do not do, for messages that are not delivered, seen or answered, or for harm that comes from relying on the app instead of professional or emergency help. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have that cannot be limited by law.

Changes

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we will update this page and its date and tell you in the app's What's new before the change applies. If you keep using Both Ends after that, the new terms apply. If you do not agree, you can download your data and stop using Both Ends at any time.

Contact

Questions about these terms: hello@bothends.care. Privacy questions: privacy@bothends.care.