Privacy Policy

Jozu helps you read the Japanese letters and documents that arrive in your mailbox. To do that it has to see them, so this page explains, in plain language, what we collect, what we do with it, who else handles it, and how to delete it.

Jozu is run by Michael Sewell, a sole proprietor (“we”, “us”). We handle personal information in line with Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI). Questions about this policy go to support@getjozu.com.

What we collect

Your account

Your email address, and your name (and its katakana spelling, if you add it) and profile picture if you give them to us.
How you sign in: a password (stored only as a hash by our authentication provider), an email link, or your Google account. If you use Google, Google shares your name, email address and account ID with us.

Your documents

The files you upload or photograph, and any text you paste in.
What Jozu produces from them: the Japanese text it reads, the translation, the summary, and details such as dates, amounts and deadlines.
The questions you ask about a document and Jozu’s answers.
Your alerts (title, due date and optional note) and the dates you enter during setup, such as a visa expiry date, which Jozu turns into reminders.

Billing

Stripe collects and holds your card details; we never see or store your card number. We keep your Stripe customer and subscription IDs, your subscription status, the dates of your current billing period, and how many documents you have created.

Usage

Product analytics events and page views (described under Analytics), and the technical logs our hosting providers keep, such as IP addresses and browser types. If you email us, we keep the conversation.

How we use it

To run Jozu: translate and summarize your documents, organize and search them, track deadlines, and answer your questions about them.
To bill your subscription and apply the free trial limits.
To email you about your account: sign-in links, a welcome message, notes during your free trial, reminders for your alerts, and a security notice when your account is signed into from a new browser (with the time and the type of browser).
To answer support requests, and to keep Jozu secure and prevent abuse.
To understand, in aggregate, how Jozu is used so we can improve it.

We do not sell your personal information, we do not show ads, and we do not use your documents to train AI models.

How your documents are protected

Whenever Jozu saves the text of a document, its translation, the details it extracted, or an alert note, it first encrypts them (AES-256-GCM) with a key unique to your account. Someone reading our database directly sees those fields only as ciphertext. Document titles and categories, alert titles, descriptions and dates, and documents saved before February 2026 are stored without this extra encryption.
Uploaded files are kept in private storage. Other users cannot reach them, and only your account and Jozu’s own servers can read them.
Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS), and our providers encrypt stored data at rest.

Who processes your data

We use these service providers to run Jozu. Each handles only what it needs for its job.

Supabase: sign-in, our database, and file storage.
Anthropic: the AI that reads, translates and summarizes your documents and answers your questions. The document (its images or text) and your questions are sent to Anthropic’s API for processing. Under Anthropic’s commercial terms, this data is not used to train its models. Anthropic keeps this data for up to 30 days, longer only if flagged for trust and safety review or required by law.
Stripe: payments and subscription billing.
Vercel: hosts the Jozu website and app, and counts page views with Vercel Web Analytics, which does not use cookies.
PostHog: product analytics (see below).
Resend: delivers our emails. Alert reminder emails include the alert’s title, due date and, when set, its description.
Google: its sign-in button loads on our sign-in and sign-up pages. Google receives your name, email address and account ID only if you sign in with Google.
Cloudflare: the bot check (Turnstile) on sign-up and sign-in, which sees your IP address and browser.

Analytics

We use PostHog to see which features are used and where people sign up from. Once you are signed in, PostHog knows you only by a random account ID. It never receives your email address, your name, your documents or their text, document titles or file names, translations, alert text, or what you search for. Our code removes these before any event is sent, and if session recording is ever used, every piece of text and every input on the screen is masked.

PostHog also records how you first found Jozu (for example the referring site or campaign link) and a few account facts: when the account was created, how you sign in, your browser’s language, and your plan.

Cookies and local storage

Sign-in cookies keep you signed in. Jozu cannot work without them.
A security cookie holds a random ID for your browser, so we can tell you when your account is signed into from a browser you haven’t used before. We store only a scrambled (hashed) form of that ID with your account.
PostHog stores an analytics ID in a cookie and in your browser’s storage.
Your browser also keeps some preferences (such as theme and sidebar layout) and, until you sign up, how you first arrived at Jozu.
Your conversations with Jozu’s assistant about each document, and your recent searches, are saved in your browser, not on our servers, so you can pick them up again. They are not encrypted there and stay after you sign out; clearing Jozu’s site data in your browser removes them.

Data outside Japan

Some of our providers store or process data outside Japan, including in the United States. We use providers that protect personal information with safeguards that meet the standards the APPI requires for such transfers. If you would like details about a particular provider, ask us.

How long we keep it, and deleting it

We keep your data while your account is open. You can delete any document at any time from the app; its file and any alerts saved from it are deleted with it.
You can delete your account and everything in it yourself, from Settings. You confirm it is you with a current two-factor code if you use two-factor authentication; otherwise with your password, or by having signed in (with a password, an email link or Google) within the last 10 minutes. We then cancel any subscription straight away, so you are not charged again (the rest of the month you paid for is not refunded), delete your documents, their files, your alerts and reminders, your profile and your login, ask PostHog to delete your analytics profile, and email you a confirmation. This can’t be undone. Chats with the assistant and recent searches saved in the browser you delete from are cleared too; in any other browser, clearing Jozu’s site data removes them.
If you can’t use Settings, email support@getjozu.com from the address you signed up with and we delete your account and everything in it within 30 days.
Stripe and our accounting records keep billing details for as long as tax and accounting law requires. Provider backups and logs expire on their own schedules.

Your rights

You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it, delete it, or stop using it. You can also ask us to stop sending reminder or trial emails. Email support@getjozu.com and we will reply without undue delay, and within the time the APPI allows.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your information, we will email you before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions or requests about your data: support@getjozu.com. See also our Terms of Service.