What we hold, and what we never will.

Nothing you enter is ever sent to a probation officer, parole officer, court, or any agency. There is no agency-facing view of your account. It does not exist in our software.

Photos of your documents are encrypted on your phone before anything leaves it. We store only the scrambled file, and never the key that unlocks it, so we cannot open them — on any tier.

We do not track your location. The app never asks for location permission.

We do not sell your information and we do not run ads. There are no banners, no pop-ups, no advertising networks, and no employer can pay to appear in your job results. Some companies we link to pay us a commission if you sign up, never at extra cost to you and never in exchange for your data. See the Affiliate Disclosure.

When you use an AI feature, the text is sent to an outside AI company to be processed. In interview practice on a paid plan, when you tap Listen on an interview question, the question is read by an outside voice service, ElevenLabs; nothing of yours is sent for that. Everything else is read by your phone's own voice. When you tap Say it in interview practice, and only if you have turned AI on, your recording goes to ElevenLabs to be written out, and the words are then sent to the AI company to be scored, like a typed answer. We do not keep the recording. Apart from the companies that run the app for us, listed below, these are the only times what you write leaves our systems, and each happens only when you tap a button.

If an organization gave you a code for your plan, it learns only how many of its codes have been used — never who used one.

You can delete everything, permanently, at any time.

Who we are

Free and Forward LLC is a Connecticut limited liability company. We are not a government agency, court, correctional department, or supervision authority, and we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reporting to any of them.

What you give us

Account. Your email address and a password. The password is stored only as a salted hash, so we cannot read it.

Signing in with Apple or Google. If you choose to sign in with Apple or Google instead of a password, Apple or Google tells us the email address on that account (Apple may give us a private address that forwards to yours), your name if you choose to share it, and an identifier for your account with them. We keep that identifier so we recognize you next time. If you use Apple, we also keep a token that lets us disconnect Free and Forward from your Apple account when you delete your account. We never receive your Apple or Google password.

What you enter. Checklist items and dates, calendar entries such as check-ins and court dates, resume content including work history and any narrative you write about a conviction or an employment gap, job applications you log, and notes you create.

Purchases. Our payment processor handles your card. We never see or store your card number. We receive only a record that a purchase happened and which tier.

Plans from an organization. If a program or organization gave you a code for a plan, we tell that organization only how many of its codes have been used. We never tell it who used a code, and it cannot see your account or anything in it.

What we collect automatically

Basic technical data needed to run the service: device type, operating system version, app version, and the IP address your requests come from. Error and request logs, which are processed by Sentry, our error-monitoring provider, so we can find and fix crashes — these carry the error and the app version, not your checklist, documents or resume. On our website, and in the web version of the app, Google Analytics records which pages and screens are viewed; the iPhone and Android apps do not use it. A push notification token if you turn on reminders.

We do not collect location, contacts, your photo library, microphone, your device calendar, advertising identifiers, or any cross-app tracking data.

What only your device can open

Your document photos are encrypted on your phone before they are uploaded. Photographs of your state ID, birth certificate, Social Security card, release paperwork and certifications are encrypted on the device using AES-256-GCM. We store only the encrypted file. The key that opens it is created on your device and is never sent to us — if you lose both your account password and your recovery key, no one, including us, can open those files. We hold the encrypted file so your documents can come back if you change phones. PDF conversion and document combining happen entirely on the device.

Artificial intelligence features

AI resume, cover letter and letter writing, AI job matching and typed scheduling are available on Premium, and the AI interview coach is available on Plus and Premium. When you tap a button to use one, the information needed for that request is transmitted to a third-party AI provider. Depending on what you are doing, that text can include your work history, your certifications, the job you are applying for, your practice interview answers, and any narrative you have written about your conviction, your incarceration, or a gap in your employment. AI requests are processed through Amazon Bedrock, a service of Amazon Web Services. AWS does not use this text to train AI models and does not share it with the company that made the model.

We are being direct about this because it is the most sensitive information in the app. This transmission happens only when you choose to use an AI feature. If you never tap generate, none of your resume content is sent anywhere. You can write your resume yourself on any paid tier and nothing is transmitted. When you do use an AI feature, the request includes the name and location on your profile, because a resume or a letter has to be addressed and signed. It does not include your email address or your account identifier.

If you would rather no part of your history be processed by an outside company, do not use the AI features. Everything else in the app works without them.

Who else receives information

We use a small number of service providers, each receiving only what it needs: Amazon Web Services (AWS), which hosts our servers, database and file storage, sends our account and reminder emails through Amazon Simple Email Service, and processes AI feature requests through Amazon Bedrock; our payment processor; the Apple and Google app stores for in-app purchases; our subscription management provider; the push notification service; Sentry for error monitoring; Google Analytics on the website and web app; and ElevenLabs, the voice service that reads interview questions aloud when you tap Listen and writes out a spoken interview answer when you tap Say it.

AWS may use what it holds only to provide those services to us, in the United States. Your document photos stay encrypted there too: AWS stores the same scrambled files, without the key. While the move to AWS is under way, the providers we are moving from may still hold or process the same information; when it is finished, we close our accounts with them.

We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Affiliate links

We link to outside companies for credit building, car insurance, and sobriety support. Some pay us a commission if you sign up. Following such a link may pass a referral identifier telling that company the visit came from us. We keep a record that your account tapped the link, so we can match a partner's report of sign-ups to our own records; that record stays with us. We do not send partners your name, email, checklist, calendar, resume, conviction history, or any other account information. No employer pays for placement in the job board and we are not paid for job clicks, applications or hires. Once you are on a partner's site, their privacy policy applies, not ours. See our Affiliate Disclosure.

If you came to us through a partner's link. If you found Free and Forward through a partner's referral link, we tell that partner's tracking service when you sign up or buy a plan: the referral code, an account number that means nothing outside our systems, the plan, and the amount paid. We do not send your name, your email, or anything you have entered.

Law enforcement, courts, and supervision agencies

If we receive a valid subpoena, court order, or warrant from a court with jurisdiction over us, we may be legally required to produce what we hold. If that happens, we will notify you unless we are legally prohibited from doing so, so you have the opportunity to respond. We will not hand over information based on an informal request, a phone call, or an assertion of authority without valid legal process.

Remember what this actually covers: we do not hold location data, because we never collect it. Your document vault is different. Your document photos are encrypted on your phone before they are uploaded, we store only the encrypted file, and the key that opens it is created on your device and is never sent to us — so we hold those files but cannot open them, and a request to see or delete them reaches the encrypted file, not readable images.

How long we keep it

Account and content for as long as your account is open. After you delete your account, removal begins immediately and completes across our systems and backups within 30 days. Purchase and tax records are retained as long as the law requires; those show that a transaction occurred and do not contain your checklist, calendar, or resume content.

Deleting your account

In the app: Settings, then Delete Account. On the web: freeandforward.com/delete-account. Or email us from your account address. If you signed in with Apple, deleting your account also disconnects Free and Forward from your Apple account. Deletion is permanent and we cannot restore a deleted account.

Your rights

Depending on where you live you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information, and to appeal a refusal. If you live in California you have rights under the CCPA and CPRA including the right to know, delete, correct, and opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising any right. Residents of other states with comprehensive privacy laws have comparable rights. Email us to exercise any right and we will respond within the time your law requires.

Children

Free and Forward is intended for adults 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If we learn we have, we will delete it.

Security

We protect your information with encryption in transit, encrypted storage of credentials, and access controls limiting who at Free and Forward can reach production data. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your information we will notify you as required by law.

Changes

If we make a material change we will update the date above and notify you in the app or by email before it takes effect. We will not retroactively reduce the protections described here for information we already hold without your consent.

Contact

privacy@freeandforward.com · Free and Forward LLC · 89 Moody Road, Enfield, CT 06082