Privacy Policy

Briefd (“Briefd”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) is a service available at bebriefd.com that connects to your YouTube account, summarizes new videos from channels you follow using artificial intelligence, and delivers those summaries to you as email digests.

The service is operated by HEAVITREE DEVELOPMENTS. This Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, how we use and share it, and the choices and rights you have. It applies to the Briefd website, application, and emails we send.

If you do not agree with this policy, please do not use Briefd. Questions can be sent to support@bebriefd.com.

Account data

When you create an account we collect your email address, your name (if provided), and an authentication identity managed by our authentication provider, Supabase Auth. If you sign in with Google, we receive basic profile information (such as your name, email address, and profile picture) from your Google account.

YouTube data

When you connect your YouTube account, we access — with your permission, via the read-only youtube.readonly OAuth scope — the list of channels you are subscribed to and metadata about videos published by channels you follow (such as titles, descriptions, thumbnails, durations, and publish dates). We also retrieve transcripts (captions) of those videos so that we can generate summaries for you; transcripts are obtained from publicly available caption data — directly from YouTube or via our transcript provider, Supadata — not through the YouTube Data API. We never receive your YouTube password, and we cannot post, comment, change your subscriptions, or take any other action on your YouTube account.

Preferences and settings

We store the settings you choose in the app: digest frequency and delivery time, timezone, interest keywords, preferred brief length, playlist organization, and notification settings.

Content interactions

When you give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on an AI-generated summary, we record that feedback linked to your account so we can improve the quality of your digests.

Billing data

If you subscribe to a paid plan, payment is processed by Stripe. We store your subscription tier and status, and Stripe provides us with limited billing information (such as the outcome of a payment). We never see or store your full card number — that information goes directly to Stripe.

Referral and invite data

If you use or generate an invite code, we record the code and the resulting referral relationship (who invited whom) so that we can grant referral rewards.

Technical data

Like most web services, our hosting infrastructure automatically records basic technical information when you use Briefd, such as IP addresses, browser type, and request logs. This data is used for security, debugging, and keeping the service running — not for advertising or profiling.

Briefd uses YouTube API Services to provide its core features. By connecting your YouTube account to Briefd, you agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. Google’s handling of your data is described in the Google Privacy Policy.

You can revoke Briefd’s access to your YouTube and Google data at any time via the Google security settings page. You can also disconnect YouTube from within Briefd’s settings, or delete your Briefd account entirely (see Data retention and account deletion).

Our access, use, storage, and sharing of data received from YouTube API Services complies with the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements. In practice, this means:

• We only use data obtained from YouTube API Services to provide and improve the user-facing features you see in Briefd — importing your subscriptions, identifying new videos, and building your digests.
• We do not sell this data, use it for advertising, or use it to build profiles for purposes unrelated to Briefd’s features.
• We do not allow humans to read this data except with your consent, for security purposes, to comply with the law, or where the data has been aggregated and anonymized.
• We do not use data obtained from YouTube API Services to train, develop, or improve generalized artificial intelligence or machine learning models.

Data we obtain from YouTube API Services is refreshed regularly and stored only as long as needed to provide the service. When you disconnect your YouTube account or delete your Briefd account, we delete the stored YouTube data associated with your account.

We use the data described above to:

• Create and maintain your account and authenticate you.
• Import your subscribed channels, detect new videos, and generate AI summaries of their transcripts.
• Build and deliver your email digests according to the schedule, timezone, and preferences you choose.
• Operate features like playlists, saved content, and channel browsing.
• Use your thumbs-up/down feedback to tune summary quality and relevance for your account.
• Process subscription payments and manage your plan and usage quotas.
• Operate the referral program and grant referral rewards.
• Send transactional and lifecycle emails (see Emails).
• Keep the service secure, prevent abuse, debug problems, and comply with the law.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use it for third-party advertising.

Summaries in Briefd are generated by sending video transcript text to the OpenAI API. Only the transcript text (and, where relevant, basic video context such as the title) is sent — we do not send OpenAI your subscription list, your email address, or other personal account data from your YouTube or Briefd account.

Under our API arrangement with OpenAI, data we submit is not used to train OpenAI’s models. OpenAI processes it solely to return the requested summaries to us.

Summaries are generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions. They are provided for convenience and are not endorsed by, affiliated with, or reviewed by the original video creators, YouTube, or Google.

We share personal data only with the service providers below, each of which processes data on our behalf to run Briefd. We do not sell personal data to anyone.

• Supabase (hosted in Ireland, AWS eu-west-1) — our database and authentication provider. Stores your account data, preferences, YouTube data, and content interactions.
• Google / YouTube Data API — the source of your subscription and video data, accessed with your authorization.
• OpenAI — receives video transcript text to generate summaries, as described in section 5. Not used to train models.
• Stripe — processes subscription payments. Stripe handles your card details directly under its own privacy policy.
• Resend — delivers our transactional, digest, and lifecycle emails to your email address.
• Trigger.dev — runs our scheduled background jobs (such as generating your digests on time).
• Vercel — hosts the Briefd application and processes request logs.
• Supadata — retrieves video transcripts when captions are not directly accessible from YouTube. Receives only public video identifiers, not your personal data.

We may also disclose data if required by law, to protect the rights and safety of Briefd or others, or as part of a business transfer (such as a merger or acquisition), in which case this policy will continue to apply to your data.

Where the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation applies, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Performance of a contract — most of our processing (accounts, digests, summaries, billing) is necessary to provide the service you signed up for.
• Consent — your connection of your YouTube account via Google OAuth, and your receipt of digest and lifecycle emails, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Legitimate interests — securing the service, preventing abuse, and improving features, balanced against your rights.
• Legal obligation — retaining certain billing records where tax or accounting law requires it.

We keep your data for as long as your account is active. You can delete your account at any time from the settings page — deletion is fully self-service and requires email confirmation to protect your account.

What deletion removes

• Your account record and authentication identity.
• Your imported YouTube data (subscriptions, video metadata, stored transcripts).
• Your preferences, playlists, saved content, feedback, and referral relationships.

What deletion does not remove

• Billing records held by Stripe — payment processors and tax law require certain transaction records to be retained. These are kept by Stripe under its own retention obligations.
• Anonymized or aggregated data — statistics that can no longer be linked to you (for example, overall summary-quality metrics) may be retained.
• Backups — deleted data may persist in encrypted database backups for a limited period (typically up to 30 days) before being purged on the normal backup rotation.

Account deletion takes effect immediately in the live application; residual copies are purged from backups within the window above. You can also revoke our YouTube access separately at any time via your Google security settings.

We send two categories of email:

• Transactional emails — messages needed to operate your account, such as sign-in links, account deletion confirmations, and billing notices. These cannot be opted out of while you hold an account, because the service cannot function without them.
• Digest and lifecycle emails — your scheduled content digests, plus occasional onboarding and product-lifecycle messages. Every one of these includes a working one-click unsubscribe link (a signed link unique to you — no login required). You can also manage digest frequency or turn digests off entirely in your notification settings.

Unsubscribing from digests and lifecycle emails does not affect transactional emails, and vice versa.

Depending on where you live, you have some or all of the following rights. We honor them for all users regardless of location wherever practical.

If you are in the EEA, UK, or a similar jurisdiction (GDPR)

• Access — ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction — ask us to fix inaccurate data.
• Deletion — delete your account yourself in settings, or ask us to delete your data.
• Portability — receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Objection and restriction — object to or restrict processing based on legitimate interests.
• Withdraw consent — for example by disconnecting YouTube or unsubscribing from emails.
• Complain — lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

If you are a California resident (CCPA/CPRA)

• Right to know — what categories of personal information we collect and how we use them (described in this policy).
• Right to delete — via self-service account deletion or by contacting us.
• Right to correct — ask us to correct inaccurate information.
• Right to opt out of sale or sharing — we do not sell your personal data and do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of.
• Non-discrimination — we will not treat you differently for exercising your rights.

To exercise any of these rights, email support@bebriefd.com. We will verify your identity (usually by confirming control of your account email) and respond within the timeframe required by applicable law (30 days under GDPR, 45 days under CCPA, extendable where the law allows).

Your account data is stored with Supabase in Ireland (EU). Some of our service providers (including OpenAI, Stripe, Resend, Vercel, Trigger.dev, and Supadata) process data in the United States or other countries. Where personal data is transferred out of the EEA or UK, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses and, where applicable, the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework certifications of our providers.

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data, including encryption in transit (TLS), encrypted storage with our database provider, OAuth-based access to YouTube (we never see your Google password), scoped API credentials, and signed tokens for email links. No online service can guarantee perfect security, but we design Briefd to hold the minimum data needed to provide the service.

If we become aware of a data breach affecting your personal data, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as required by applicable law.

Briefd uses only essential cookies — the authentication cookies required to keep you signed in. We do not use third-party analytics, advertising trackers, or social media pixels. If that ever changes, we will update this policy and, where required, ask for your consent first.

Briefd is not directed at children. You must be at least 13 years old (or 16 where GDPR applies and your country has not set a lower age) to use the service. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children below these ages. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us at support@bebriefd.com and we will delete it.

We may update this policy as the service evolves. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or with a prominent notice in the app before the changes take effect. The effective date at the top of this page shows when the current version came into force.

For any privacy question or request: support@bebriefd.com