VA connected-records privacy policy

Information you give us

We collect your name, email, phone number, account settings, and the information you enter to use VIPCall. This can include your relationship to a person you help care for, your contact list, and details about people you invite. You must have permission to give us someone else's information.

Your care record can contain medical information, medications, allergies, appointments, care tasks, documents, photos, notes, messages, and family or personal history. Calls can contain recordings, transcripts, summaries, and information about symptoms, mood, plans, and daily activities. We also keep your choices about consent, sharing, and call schedules.

When you pay for VIPCall, we receive payment status, plan details, and billing records. Stripe processes payment information. Do not put medical information in payment fields.

Connected health records

When you authorize a health connection, we receive the records covered by the access you grant. These can include patient identifiers, documents, prescriptions, medications, and appointments. We keep the imported information in VIPCall so you can use your care record after the connection session ends.

You choose whether to connect a source. You can disconnect it or request deletion of its imported information. Disconnecting stops future access; it does not by itself erase previously imported records. Imported records have separate controls for permanent deletion.

We use access credentials to reach the source you authorized. We store those credentials on the server in encrypted form. Your browser does not receive the stored source credentials. Access depends on the source's rules, the scope you grant, and your authority to act for the person whose records you connect.

Information collected during use

We collect device and browser information, IP addresses, page and feature activity, service errors, and security information. An IP address can indicate an approximate location. You may also give us a location for weather, scheduling, or care coordination. We do not need a device's precise location to import VA records.

We use cookies or similar tools for sign-in, preferences, security, and service operation. Analytics and marketing tools can also receive browser identifiers and activity when they are enabled. We describe the relevant providers below. A browser identifier can be personal information even when it does not contain your name.

How we use information

We use your information to provide the features you request. These include organizing records, planning calls, recording updates, summarizing conversations, managing medication and appointment information, and sharing updates with people you authorize.

We also use information to operate accounts, take payments, deliver messages, provide support, prevent misuse, protect the service, and fix faults. We use service activity to understand whether features work and where they need improvement.

An AI feature may process information you provide for that feature. This can include call transcripts, messages, photos, or document text. AI output can be wrong. Imported-record AI is currently disabled while we resolve provider retention compatibility. We will obtain the consent needed before introducing a new use of health information.

Service is for educational and informational purposes, not clinical decisions.

People you authorize

You can share information with caregivers, family members, or other people through the features you choose. Those people may see or receive care records, appointments, medication details, tasks, and call updates within the access you grant them.

Check who has access before sharing. Genetic or family history may reveal information about relatives as well as you. A message sent to an authorized person may contain information about others who appear in the record.

Do not share another person's health information without authority to do so. A recipient may make a separate copy outside VIPCall. We can delete copies controlled by VIPCall and its providers; we cannot remotely erase a recipient's own device or an independent hospital record.

Service providers

The following providers support VIPCall. The information each receives depends on the feature and configuration in use. Our use of a provider does not authorize that provider to use your information for its own unrelated purposes.

Some providers use subprocessors to perform their services. Providers and contractors must follow the same commitments to you about use and disclosure of your information. We require them to handle information for the agreed service and to help carry out deletion and security duties.

Third-party use or disclosure of your information for any reason requires your consent. This includes information described as de-identified, anonymized, or pseudonymized. Removing a name does not give a provider permission for another use.

We do not sell user data for profit or other payment. We do not monetize Veteran health data through targeted advertising. Website marketing tools may measure visits or campaign activity, including activity that could support advertising without a payment for your data. Health records, document contents, and clinical details must not be used for that purpose.

Other disclosures

We may need to disclose particular information when a valid law, court order, or other legal duty requires it. We review the request and limit any disclosure to the information the duty covers. We may also need to respond to an immediate threat to a person's safety as permitted by law.

We do not treat a general business interest as permission to disclose medical records. A disclosure that requires your authorization must have that authorization before it occurs.

Links to independent websites have their own privacy practices. Read their policies before giving them information. A link does not mean VIPCall controls that website.

How long we keep information

We keep account and care information while your account remains open and you have not requested deletion. The same rule applies if you stop signing in or your account is dormant. There is no fixed inactivity purge date. A scheduled call or caregiver action may still use an account even if you do not visit the website.

You do not have to wait for an inactivity period to request deletion. We do not impose a three-year or six-year waiting period for deleting imported medical records. A subscription cancellation, a disconnected source, and a reversible archive are different from a permanent-deletion request.

We keep only the information needed for the stated purposes. Operational logs and backup copies have their own limited retention periods. Those periods must allow us to meet the deletion deadline below; a backup does not extend that deadline.

Permanent deletion

To request permanent deletion of your user data, open Account settings, choose Profile settings, and find Permanent data deletion. Enter DELETE and select Request permanent deletion. You can also email support@vipcall.ai if you cannot sign in. We verify your identity before acting on an email request.

We will permanently delete 100% of your user data held by VIPCall and its service providers, including VA and non-VA data, within 45 days of your request. The deadline runs from the original request. Retrying a request does not restart it.

Deletion covers live records, archived records, files, versions, notes, derived content, processor-held copies, caches, and backups within our responsibility. We do not mark a request complete until removal of our retained copies and authenticated absence from provider accounts are verified. A restored backup must respect prior deletion requests before service resumes.

Information independently owned by another member requires careful handling. We will delete your information while protecting the other member's own records. Shared ownership does not create permission to keep your information indefinitely or to erase someone else's information.

If a specific legal duty prevents deletion of a particular record, we will identify that record and duty, keep only what it requires, and tell you what applies unless the law prevents us from doing so. We will not use a blanket medical-record retention claim to keep unrelated information. A conflict with the stated deletion commitment must be resolved before accepting data under that commitment.

Security and backups

We use access controls, encrypted connections, encrypted source credentials, and measures to limit access to your information. Access depends on your role and the person or account involved. No service can guarantee that every security risk is eliminated.

We use backups to protect information such as notes, edits, uploads, and other work that may be hard to recreate. We aim to avoid extra backup archives of unchanged hospital document originals. Database backups can still contain medical rows, so they must follow the same deletion deadline. Encryption does not remove a copy from the deletion scope.

If a breach affects your information, we will notify you and provide instructions for steps you can take. We will investigate, contain the incident, assess affected information and people, and make the notices required by applicable law and our commitments.

Your choices and rights

You can review your records, update available account details, manage sharing, change call preferences, disconnect sources, and request deletion. A correction you make in VIPCall does not necessarily change the hospital's original record.

Your rights can also depend on where you live. You may have rights to access, correct, receive a copy of, or delete information, limit a use or disclosure, withdraw consent, or appeal a decision. Contact support@vipcall.ai to make a request. We will explain the process and verify the request without asking for more information than needed.

Withdrawal of consent stops the use covered by that consent, subject to any lawful limits. It does not make a prior authorized use unlawful. We do not deny you a legal privacy right because you ask to use it.

Children and people acting for others

VIPCall is not intended for children under 13, or under 16 in the European Union. A person below the age of majority needs the consent required from a parent or legal guardian. A person who acts for someone else must have authority to do so.

Contact us if you believe a child supplied information without the required consent. We will review the report and take the action required for the information involved.

Ownership changes and service closure

We will notify users if ownership of VIPCall changes. A new owner that continues the service must follow privacy commitments consistent with this policy. You may close your account and request permanent deletion if you do not want to continue.

If we end the service without a successor, we will notify you and provide a way to request secure disposal of your information. We will stop new collection and close external connections as part of the closure. Data must not remain indefinitely in a company archive after the service ends.

Changes to this policy

We will post changes with an updated date and notify users of changes to this policy and the terms of service. We will give clear notice of a material change before it takes effect when practicable. A new use that requires consent will not begin until we obtain it.

Continued use does not replace a consent that the law requires. If you do not agree to a change, you can close your account and request permanent deletion under this policy.