Privacy Policy

Birth Partner · Last updated 1 September 2026

1. Who we are

Birth Partner is a product of YG Creative Digital Ltd (trading as YG Studio), a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17261678, whose registered office is 4th Floor, 14 Museum Place, City Centre, Cardiff, CF10 3BH GB. In this policy "we", "us" and "our" mean YG Creative Digital Ltd. We are the controller of the personal information described here, which means we decide how and why it is used.

For any privacy question or request, contact us at birthpartner@ygstudio.co.uk.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, and pay the annual data protection fee.

2. What we collect

You do not need to sign up to use Birth Partner. The first time you open it we create an anonymous account for you in the background — it holds an ID number and nothing else, no name and no email address — so your details are saved and can be picked up again. The whole app works this way. Adding an email address later, or signing in with Google, gives you a named account and your saved details come with you, which is what lets them reach your other devices and survive a lost phone.

• Information you enter: your name, the mother's first name, her due date, your maternity triage number, details about the hospital or unit you are going to, the times you record with the contraction timer, journal entries, notes, birth preferences, and your progress through the app's content.
• Account details: your email address, and, if you sign in with Google, the basic profile information Google provides. If you buy Birth Ready, we also record that you own it, when you bought it, and the payment reference printed on your receipt.
• Feedback you send us: anything you write in the in-app feedback form, so we can act on it and reply.
• Updates by email, if you ask for them: the address you give us, the fact that you ticked the box, and when — so we can always show why you are on the list. We email you straight away to confirm you are on it, and every update we send after that has an unsubscribe link. You can also reply to any of our emails to come off the list.
• Crash reports: when something breaks, the technical details of the error and where in the app it happened, with none of what you have written attached.
• Usage analytics, only if you turn them on: which features you use and in what order, tied to your account ID. This is off unless you switch it on in Settings.

We do not ask for or store medical records. Anything you type is for your own rehearsal and reference.

3. Details about the mother

Some of what you save is about her rather than you: her first name, her due date, the birth preferences you put together, and anything you write about her in your journal and notes. We store it for two reasons. It is what makes the app yours — the content is written around her name and how far along she is — and your copy has to be able to reach your other devices.

We keep it to the minimum. We ask for a first name only, never a surname, contact details or date of birth. She has no account and no record of her own: it all sits inside your data, on our server in the EU. Nothing about her is used for analytics or marketing, and none of it is passed to anyone else.

Please make sure she is happy for you to record it — our Terms of Use ask you to. You can change or clear any of it in the app, and "Delete my account" in Settings removes all of it at once. If she wants it removed and you cannot do it yourself, email us at birthpartner@ygstudio.co.uk and we will help.

4. Health and sensitive information

Parts of the app invite you to record things that touch on health. The birth preferences builder asks about pain relief, feeding and what should happen if there is a caesarean, and your journal and notes are yours to write whatever you like in. That is what those features are for, and we would rather say so than warn you off them.

We do not ask for medical records, and we are not connected to the NHS or any care provider. Nothing you write is read, analysed or used to profile you — it is stored so that you can get it back, and it is protected the same way as everything else here. Where what you record counts as health information, it is there because you chose to put it there. You can edit or delete any of it at any time, and deleting it is how you take that back.

5. Why we can use it (lawful bases)

• Contract / your request: to provide the app, run your account, and sync your data across devices.
• Consent: for usage analytics inside the app, and for emailing you updates if you asked for them. Both are off unless you turn them on, and you can withdraw either at any time — analytics with the switch in Settings, updates with the unsubscribe link in any update we send, or by replying to any of our emails.
• Explicit consent: for anything you enter that counts as health information. We hold it only because you chose to enter it, and only to show it back to you.
• Legitimate interests: to count visits to our website so we know whether anyone is finding it, in a way that cannot identify you or follow you anywhere; to keep the app secure and stop paid access being shared or abused; to receive crash reports so we can fix what breaks; and to act on the feedback you send us.

We do not make automated decisions about you that have a legal or similarly significant effect, and we do not sell your data.

6. Where your data is stored, and who processes it

Your app data is hosted in the European Union (Ireland). We use a small number of trusted service providers ("processors"), who only act on our instructions:

• Supabase: database, authentication and sync (EU region).
• Netlify: hosting for the website and the app, and storing the email addresses left on our website. Those addresses are added to the same mailing list as the ones given in the app, so there is one list and one way off it.
• Our own YG Studio dashboard: counting visits to our website, anonymously. It is ours rather than an analytics company's, and it writes to the same Supabase database in the EU, on a shared table where each YG Studio project's rows are tagged with its own key.
• PostHog: product analytics (EU region) — only if you have turned analytics on.
• Sentry: crash and error reporting.
• Resend: sending you emails about the app.
• Google: only if you choose to sign in with Google.

Some of these providers process data outside the UK, including in the United States. Where they do, we rely on UK adequacy mechanisms — the UK–US Data Bridge for US providers certified under the Data Privacy Framework, or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses where they are not — so your data stays protected.

A small internal dashboard lets us see how the beta is going. It shows the email address on each account, whether Birth Ready has been bought and the payment reference for it, roughly how far along the pregnancy is, counts of what has been practised, and the feedback people have sent in. It never shows your journal, your notes, your birth preferences, or anything you have written about the mother. Only the accounts we have named can open it.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing.

7. Cookies and similar technologies

Birth Partner stores your details on your own device so the app works offline and remembers where you were. If you are signed in — including as a guest — a session token is kept in your browser so you stay signed in. Both are strictly necessary for the app to work, so we do not ask for consent for them.

Usage analytics are off to begin with. Until you turn them on in Settings, our analytics provider never starts: it stores nothing on your device, sets no cookie, and sends us nothing. (Its code is part of the app you download, but it sits dormant until you switch it on.) When you do turn it on, we remember that choice and PostHog stores an identifier on your device so your visits can be joined up. Turning it back off stops collection immediately and discards that identifier, so nothing you do afterwards can be joined to what came before. All that stays on your device is a note that you have said no, which is what makes the refusal stick.

Crash reporting stays on. It sends us the technical details of an error, with none of what you have written attached — the setting that would include personal details is switched off — and it sets no cookie or identifier on your device.

The website is separate from the app, and works differently. It stores nothing at all on your device — no cookie, no identifier, nothing — which is why it does not ask you for anything. We simply count the visit: that the page was opened and which page it was, roughly how long you stayed, where you arrived from (the site that linked you, or the campaign tags in the link you followed), whether you are on a phone, tablet or desktop, and whether you left an email address. Never what you typed. Because nothing is saved on your device, we cannot tell that two visits came from the same person, and we do not try to. Our server sees your IP address, as every website's does; it is used only to stop the page being flooded with fake visits, and it is never recorded. These counts go to our own dashboard, not to an advertising network.

We do not use advertising cookies or trackers.

8. How long we keep it

• Your account and app data — for as long as you use the app. If you delete your account in Settings, we remove it from our systems. Two things sit outside that, because they are records of something separate: feedback you have sent us, and your email address if you asked for updates. Both are kept for the periods below, and we will delete either of them if you ask.
• Feedback and correspondence — up to 2 years, so we can follow up and track what we fixed.
• Your email address on the updates list — whether you gave it in the app or on our website, until you unsubscribe. We keep a note of the consent itself so we can always show why you were emailed. Netlify keeps its own copy of anything sent through the website form; we clear those out when you unsubscribe or ask us to.
• Records we must keep by law (such as accounting records, if you ever pay us) — 6 years, as UK tax law requires.

After those periods we delete your information or anonymise it so it can no longer identify you.

9. Your rights

Under UK and EU data protection law you can:

• Access a copy of your data: use "Export my data" in Settings, or email us.
• Correct or update it: edit it in the app, or email us.
• Delete it: use "Delete my account" in Settings, which clears your account and everything you have saved in the app. Email us if you also want feedback you have sent, or your address on the updates list, removed.
• Restrict or object to how we use it, or ask for a portable copy.
• Withdraw consent for analytics: toggle it off in Settings.
• Stop the update emails: use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of them, or reply to the confirmation email we sent you.

These work the same whether you have created a named account or are still using the app as a guest.

To use any of these, email birthpartner@ygstudio.co.uk and we will respond within one month.

10. How to complain

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, please tell us first at birthpartner@ygstudio.co.uk so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or 0303 123 1113.

11. Children

Birth Partner is intended for adults preparing to support a birth. It is not directed at children.

12. Not medical advice

Birth Partner is for information and rehearsal only. It is not a medical device and does not provide medical advice. For anything about the mother's or baby's health, always speak to your midwife, GP, or maternity triage.

13. Changes

If we change this policy we will update the date above and, for significant changes, let you know in the app.