Privacy notice for shoppers

1. What we keep

• The words of your question (as typed, or as heard if you asked by voice), whether we found it, the language, and which QR sign you scanned.
• If you rate a conversation: your rating and that conversation.
• If you report a wrong answer: the conversation and any note you add. Please don't put your name in a note.

2. If you ask by voice

• It only listens after you tap the microphone, and stops when you stop talking (or tap again). Your phone asks you first before it can use the microphone.
• Your recording goes to Google Cloud's speech-to-text service in the EU, which turns it into words for us. Google doesn't keep the recording or use it to train its systems.
• We never store the recording. Only the words are kept, like a typed question. Your voice isn't used to recognise you.
• If you leave the voice on, Shelvi's answer (never your question) goes to Google Cloud's text-to-speech service in the EU to be read aloud. The sound is kept in London for up to 90 days, so the next person who gets the same answer hears it straight away.

3. If search can't match your question word for word

• For a question like “something for a barbecue”, the words of your question go to an AI language model (Google's Gemini, run for us by Google Cloud in London, or in Belgium when London is busy), which suggests products from the shop's list. It isn't used to train Google's systems. Google may hold it in memory for up to 24 hours, in the same place, to answer faster.
• If no product in the shop has the words you used (“bevvies”, say), the words of your question also go to Google Cloud in London to be turned into numbers that stand for their meaning, so similar products can be found. Those numbers are used once and never kept.
• If Google's automatic safety checks flag a question as possible misuse, Google may keep it for up to 90 days, where it was answered (London or Belgium), only to check it.
• Nothing else goes with it: not who you are, where you are, or anything from your phone. We keep the question like any other (see above).

4. What we don't keep

• Your name, an account, or anything that says who you are.
• Recordings of your voice.
• Your IP address: it isn't in our logs or our database.
• Your location. "Use my location" sends it once to find nearby shops, and it isn't stored.
• No advertising or tracking cookies (see cookies and storage ).

This phone remembers the last shop you used, your language, whether you turned the voice off, and a copy of the shop's product list and map so answers still work with a weak signal. That stays on the phone.

5. How long we keep it

• Questions: 12 months, then deleted.
• Ratings: 12 months.
• Reports of a wrong answer: 12 months after they're dealt with. One nobody deals with is closed after 12 months.
• Backups: something deleted can stay in our backups for up to 30 days more, then it goes too.

Before anything you write is kept (questions, rated conversations, notes on a report), anything that looks like an email address or a phone number is taken out.

6. Who's responsible

The shop decides how its assistant is used, and Shelvi runs it for them. Google Cloud hosts it for us in London, where your data is stored and where it also runs the language model that helps with questions that don't name a product (in Belgium when London is busy). It turns voice questions into words, and answers into speech, in the EU. We don't sell anything you ask, or use it to advertise to you.

7. Questions and complaints

Because we don't know who asked what, we usually can't find one person's questions. Ask a colleague in the shop, or email admin@shelvi.ai . You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk .