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Private Journal terms

Version journal-v1 · Effective 1 November 2026. These terms add to the BrightChapters Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

1. What Private Journal is, and is not

Private Journal is a personal journaling tool. It helps you put your thoughts and feelings into words and look back on them. It is not therapy, counselling, medical care, or a crisis service. No therapist, doctor or counsellor is involved, and nothing in Private Journal, including the weekly reflection, is professional advice or a diagnosis.

2. Not for emergencies

Nobody watches your journal, so we cannot see if you are in danger and cannot respond. If you are thinking about harming yourself or someone else, or you are in danger, please reach out to someone you trust right away, or contact emergency help: in India, call 112 or Tele-MANAS on 14416 (free, 24x7); elsewhere, call your local emergency number or find a free helpline at findahelpline.com.

3. Your words, your responsibility

  • Everything you write or record belongs to you.
  • You alone are responsible for what you write and record, and for any decisions you make based on your journal or the weekly reflections.
  • BrightChapters does not monitor, review or moderate journal content, and is not responsible for it or for any outcome connected to it.
  • Please avoid writing other people's private details (such as phone numbers or addresses) into your journal.

4. Privacy: no one reads your journal

  • No person at BrightChapters reads your entries or reflections.
  • Entries and reflections are encrypted before they are stored in our database. They are decrypted only by our software, to show them to you when you are logged in and to create your weekly reflection.
  • We would only access or disclose journal content if we are legally required to (for example, a valid court order), and we will tell you if the law allows us to.
  • We never sell your journal, use it for advertising, or use it to train AI models.

5. Voice input

When you use the microphone, your browser's own speech recognition turns your voice into text. BrightChapters never receives or stores your audio, only the text you choose to save. Your browser provider (for example Google for Chrome, Microsoft for Edge, Apple for Safari) may process the audio to do this under its own privacy policy. Speech-to-text can make mistakes, so please read and edit the text before saving.

6. The weekly reflection is AI-generated

  • Once a week, on the day you choose, your entries from the past 7 days are sent securely to an AI service (currently Google Gemini) to write a short reflection on how you have been feeling, what you are doing well, signs of growth, and one or two gentle suggestions. To notice change over time, last week's reflection is included too.
  • Your entries are sent only to create the reflection. Your name and email are not sent. Under the provider's paid API terms, this content is not used to train its models.
  • The reflection is created automatically. No person reads it. It can misunderstand your tone or get things wrong, and it is not advice or a diagnosis.
  • The reflection is written in the language you journal in, or the same mix of languages.
  • If you wrote nothing that week, you get a short reminder instead of a reflection.

7. Notifications

  • By default the full reflection is emailed to your account email address on your chosen day. You can switch to a notification-only email (the reflection stays behind your login) or turn emails off.
  • Anyone with access to your inbox or phone lock screen may see these emails, so choose the setting that suits you.
  • If you add a WhatsApp number and opt in, we send only a short "your reflection is ready" alert on WhatsApp, never any journal content. You can remove your number at any time.
  • We also email you about your plan (before your free month or plan ends, and when it has ended).

8. Pricing and billing

  • First month free: your free trial lasts 30 days from the day you accept these terms. One free trial per account.
  • After that, choose a plan, paid with BrightChapters coins: 1 month for 300 coins (30 days); 3 months for 850 coins (91 days); 6 months for 1,600 coins (182 days); 1 year for 3,000 coins (365 days). In India, ₹1 buys 2 coins; outside India, coins are bought with PayPal at the rates shown on your profile page.
  • No automatic charges. Coins are deducted only when you choose a plan and confirm the deduction. A new plan starts when your current free month or plan ends.
  • We email you about 3 days before your free month or plan ends, and when it has ended.
  • If you do not choose a plan, your journal is paused: you can still read, export and delete your entries, but you cannot add new ones and weekly reflections stop until you choose a plan.
  • Coins used for the journal are not refundable, including for partly used plans, except where the law requires a refund.
  • If we change the price, we will tell you at least 30 days in advance.

9. You stay in control

  • While you write, your unsaved draft is automatically saved (encrypted) every 10 minutes so you do not lose it. It is replaced by the entry when you save, or removed when you clear it.
  • You can edit or delete any entry, download all your entries and reflections, or permanently delete all your journal data from the journal page.
  • Deleted data is removed from our live database immediately and may remain in encrypted server backups for up to 30 days before it is overwritten.
  • If you ask us to delete your BrightChapters account, your journal data is deleted with it.

10. Who can use it

You must be 18 or older to use Private Journal.

11. Changes to these terms

If we change these terms, we will show you the new version and ask you to accept it before you save your next entry.

12. Contact

Questions? Email contact@brightchapters.com. Private Journal is operated by NPOWS (OPC) Private Limited, India, and these terms are governed by the laws of India.