Privacy Policy for ProudMe

Effective date: May 15, 2026
Draft updated: August 8, 2026
For: LSU review before the ages 7–17 release

ProudMe is operated by the LSU Pedagogical Kinesiology Lab. Ordinary app use is independent of research participation. The separate LSU study operates under IRB protocol IRBAM-25-0015 and uses its own eligibility, consent, and assent process.

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains how Project ProudMe ("ProudMe", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects information when you use the ProudMe mobile application (the "App"). ProudMe is developed by the Pedagogical Kinesiology Lab at Louisiana State University ("LSU"), led by Dr. Senlin Chen.

ProudMe is available for ordinary use by kids and teens. Accounts are intended for ages 7 through 17; public descriptions may use the shorthand "ages 7–13+." Ordinary App use does not require school enrollment and does not enroll anyone in an LSU research study.

By creating an account or using the App, you acknowledge that you have read this Privacy Policy. A parent or legal guardian must review the policy and provide the required consent for an account holder under 13. Account holders ages 13 through 17 provide their own account affirmation. Separate LSU research participation has its own eligibility, parental-consent, and child-assent process.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or about how we handle your information, please contact us at pklab@lsu.edu.

2. Who we are

ProudMe is operated by the Pedagogical Kinesiology Lab in the School of Kinesiology at Louisiana State University.

• Principal Investigator: Dr. Senlin Chen
• PI phone: 225-578-7995 (M-F 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Central)
• Performance site: Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
• Mailing address: School of Kinesiology, LSU, Baton Rouge, LA 70803
• Email: pklab@lsu.edu
• IRB protocol number: IRBAM-25-0015 (LSU Proposal AM241163), study title "Preventing Childhood Obesity through Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Behavioral Counseling". Initial IRB approval 2025-02-05; continuation 2026-02-04. Per 45 CFR 46, the study no longer requires continuing review.

LSU is the data controller for all personal information collected through the App. Day-to-day data processing is performed by the LSU research team and a small set of vendors listed in Section 5.

3. Information we collect

The App collects only the information necessary to operate accounts and in-app features and, for people separately enrolled in a study, the information described by that study process. We do not collect or use information for advertising or cross-app profiling.

3.1 Information you provide when you create an account

When you sign up, you provide:

3.2 Information you provide when you use the App

When you use the App's journal and goal-setting features, you provide:

• Daily behavior values (minutes of activity, hours of screen time, servings of fruits and vegetables, hours of sleep).
• Goal values for each behavior.
• Free-text reflections you write about each behavior.
• Chat messages you send to Pebble, the in-App AI health buddy.
• Voice input you speak to Pebble when you use the optional Voice mode. Your voice is converted to text on your device using Apple's native speech-recognition framework; only the resulting text, never the audio recording, is sent to our servers and to OpenAI.

3.3 Information generated by the App about you

While you use the App, we generate:

• An internal account identifier used to associate records with your account.
• AI-generated feedback on your reflections, produced by OpenAI's models (see Section 5).
• AI-generated chat replies from Pebble, also produced by OpenAI's models (see Section 5).
• Content-safety metadata. When the App's automated classifier flags one of your messages or one of Pebble's replies as potentially inappropriate, we record the flag category, the action taken (e.g. "redirected to crisis resources"), and a timestamp, but not the flagged text itself. This metadata helps the LSU research team monitor for safety events and respond to incidents. See Section 8 for retention.
• Standard server-side request logs (IP address, request path, response status, timestamp) retained for 30 days for security, abuse prevention, and operational troubleshooting.

3.4 Information we do not collect

To make this explicit:

• We do not access your device's contacts, photos, camera, location, or health data store.
• We do not record or transmit your voice audio. When you use Voice mode, your speech is processed entirely on your device by Apple's speech-recognition framework; only the resulting text is sent to our server. We do not store the audio.
• We use the microphone only while you are actively in Voice mode and only to capture speech that you intend to send to Pebble.
• We do not collect device advertising identifiers (IDFA / GAID).
• We do not embed third-party advertising or analytics SDKs.
• We do not request or collect financial information, government identifiers, or biometric data.
• We do not track you across other apps or websites.
• We do not collect browsing history or search history outside the App.

4. How we use your information

We use your information for the following purposes only:

• To operate the App's features: display your journal, save and load goals and behaviors, generate AI feedback on reflections, power the Pebble chat (text and voice), send daily reminders if you opt in, and produce daily and weekly progress reports.
• To maintain your account: verify your email address during sign-up, allow you to log in, allow you to recover access to your account, and let you permanently delete your account.
• For users separately enrolled in an LSU research study: process the study data described in the applicable consent and assent materials under the IRB-approved protocol.
• To keep the App secure and safe: detect and respond to abuse, fraud, or unauthorized access using server-side logs and rate limits; run an automated content-safety classifier on the messages you send to Pebble and on Pebble's replies, so that messages flagged for self-harm content trigger a redirect to crisis resources rather than a normal AI reply.
• To meet legal obligations: retain records as required by applicable U.S. federal and Louisiana state law and the applicable LSU records retention schedule.

We do not use your information for advertising, marketing to you about non-LSU products, or sale to any third party.

5. Who we share your information with

We share information only with the limited set of vendors needed to operate the App and, where applicable, a separate research study, and with the LSU team. Each vendor is bound by a written agreement that requires them to use the data only to provide their service to ProudMe and to maintain appropriate safeguards.

We share aggregated, de-identified data, for example, average minutes of activity per grade level, with the LSU research team and, in some cases, with academic publishers as part of peer-reviewed research output. Aggregated and de-identified data does not, on its own or in combination with other reasonably available information, identify any individual user.

We do not sell your information and we do not share your information with advertisers or data brokers.

We may disclose information when required to do so by law (for example, in response to a valid court order or subpoena) or when necessary to protect the rights, safety, or property of LSU, our users, or the public.

6. Children's privacy and COPPA

ProudMe accounts are intended for ages 7 through 17. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) applies to collection of personal information from users under age 13; it does not apply to every ProudMe account holder.

COPPA requires verifiable parental consent before personal information is collected from a child under 13. ProudMe requires a parent or legal guardian to complete the account-consent process for users ages 7 through 12. Users ages 13 through 17 complete a self-consent affirmation for ordinary App use. That affirmation does not replace any consent or assent required for research.

If you believe a child has used the App without proper parental consent, contact us at pklab@lsu.edu and we will:

1. Suspend the account.
2. Confirm the consent status with the LSU Pedagogical Kinesiology Lab.
3. If proper consent cannot be confirmed, delete the account and all associated data.

We do not knowingly retain personal information from a user under 13 when the required parental or guardian consent has not been obtained.

IRB-approved research study (separate from App usage)

A subset of users may separately enroll in an IRB-approved research study (IRBAM-25-0015, "Preventing Childhood Obesity through Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Behavioral Counseling"). The research study enrolls children ages 11 to 13 and requires its own separate parental consent and child assent, administered on paper at the LSU PK Lab and not through the App. App usage by itself does not enroll anyone in the study. Users who are not enrolled receive the same App experience and no study-specific collection. The study's in-person activities and assessment timepoints are outside ordinary App use.

7. FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act)

ProudMe is operated directly by the LSU Pedagogical Kinesiology Lab. Ordinary accounts are not run through a child's school. Any research enrollment and consent are handled separately between the LSU research team and each family. FERPA (34 CFR Part 99) applies to education records maintained by an educational agency or institution about its students; it does not extend to the lab in this context. We collect school name and grade level only as informational fields, never as education records sourced from a school, never shared back to the school, and never used to make a determination on the account holder's behalf at school.

8. Data retention

• Account information (name, email, school, grade, gender, birth month/year, password hash) is retained while your account is active.
• Behavior, goal, and reflection data is retained while your account is active. Separately collected research records follow the applicable study consent and LSU records-retention requirements.
• AI feedback responses generated by OpenAI on your reflections are retained alongside the reflection that produced them.
• Pebble chat messages (your messages and Pebble's replies, in both text and voice mode) are retained for 30 days in our database. After 30 days the database automatically deletes them. This window matches OpenAI's own 30-day retention policy for API inputs, so a single answer to "how long is my chat kept?" applies on both sides.
• Voice audio is not retained. When you use Voice mode, audio is processed on your device by Apple's speech-recognition framework and is never stored by ProudMe or transmitted to our servers.
• Content-safety metadata generated by our automated classifier (the flag category, the action taken, a timestamp, not the flagged message text) is retained for up to 1 year so the LSU research team can monitor for safety events. The flagged text itself is not stored beyond the standard 30-day chat window described above.
• Research-survey scheduling and response metadata for a separately enrolled participant may be de-identified or pseudonymized when an App account is deleted so the study's compliance record remains intact. Survey answers are held by LSU or Qualtrics under the applicable study process.
• Server logs (IP address, request path, response status) are retained for 30 days and then automatically deleted.
• Email verification codes are stored as a one-way hash and expire shortly after issuance.
• Revoked authentication tokens are retained only until their limited validity period ends and are then automatically deleted.

When a successful in-app account deletion is processed (Section 9), linked live account data, including chat messages and content-safety metadata, is removed as part of the request. Pseudonymized or de-identified research-compliance records described above may remain when required by the applicable study or LSU policy. De-identified, aggregated research outputs cannot be recalled, but those outputs do not contain information that identifies you.

9. Your rights and choices

9.1 Access and correction

You can review and update most of your account information at any time from inside the App. To request a copy of all data we hold about you, email pklab@lsu.edu with the subject "Data access request." We will respond within 30 days.

9.2 Account deletion

You can permanently delete your account at any time:

Settings → Delete Account → confirm

A successful in-app deletion removes the account and linked live account data as part of the request. This action cannot be undone. Pseudonymized or de-identified research-compliance records may remain as described in Section 8.

You may also request deletion by emailing pklab@lsu.edu with the subject "Delete my account." We do not promise a response time for emailed deletion requests.

9.3 Notification preferences

If you have opted in to daily reminders, you can turn them off at any time from Settings → Daily Reminders.

9.4 Withdrawing from the research study

Ordinary use of ProudMe does not enroll anyone in a research study. If you are separately enrolled in an LSU study, use the withdrawal instructions in that study's consent materials or contact the LSU research team at pklab@lsu.edu. Deleting an App account does not by itself replace the study-withdrawal process.

9.5 California residents (CCPA)

If you or your child reside in California, you have the same access, correction, and deletion rights described in Sections 9.1 and 9.2 under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). You also have the right to know what personal information is collected (described in Section 3), to know whether personal information is sold or shared (we do not sell or share personal information for advertising; see Section 5), and to non-discrimination for exercising these rights. To exercise any of these rights, email pklab@lsu.edu with the subject "CCPA request" and we will respond within 45 days as required by California law.

10. Data security

We use a combination of platform-level and application-level controls to protect your information:

• All network traffic between the App and the ProudMe server is encrypted using HTTPS.
• Passwords are stored as bcrypt hashes; we never store the plaintext password.
• Email verification codes are stored as bcrypt hashes; the plaintext code is never written to disk.
• Authentication tokens and Pebble chat content are stored on your device using the platform's secure storage (Apple Keychain on iOS, EncryptedSharedPreferences on Android), not in general-purpose preferences.
• Authentication tokens have a limited lifetime and can be revoked server-side on logout. Logging out of the App also clears the locally cached chat content.
• Application traffic is rate-limited to mitigate brute-force attempts on login, email verification, and AI feedback endpoints, and to bound the volume of chat messages a single account can send per hour.
• Pebble chat is filtered by an automated content-safety classifier in two directions: messages you send are screened before they reach the AI model, and the AI model's replies are screened before they reach you. Messages flagged as crisis-related (for example, mentions of self-harm) are short-circuited to a response that points you to crisis resources rather than a generic AI reply.
• Database access is restricted to the LSU research team and authorized service accounts, with credentials rotated periodically.

No system can guarantee perfect security. If we discover a breach affecting your information, we will notify you and the appropriate authorities as required by applicable U.S. and Louisiana law.

11. International users

ProudMe is operated from the United States and is intended for users in the United States. If you access the App from outside the United States, you understand that your information will be processed and stored on servers located in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those of your country.

12. Changes to this Privacy Policy

If we change this Privacy Policy in a material way, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of the policy and, if appropriate, notify you through the App or by email. Continued use of the App after a change indicates your acceptance of the updated policy. If a change requires fresh parental or guardian consent under COPPA, we will obtain that consent before applying the change. Users ages 13 through 17 may also be asked to renew their own account affirmation.

13. Contact us

For any question, request, or concern about this Privacy Policy or your information, contact:

Project ProudMe, Pedagogical Kinesiology Lab
Louisiana State University
School of Kinesiology, LSU, Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Email: pklab@lsu.edu
PI phone: 225-578-7995 (Dr. Senlin Chen, M-F 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Central)

For App-specific support questions, you can also use Settings → Contact Us inside the App.

For questions about your rights as a research participant or any other research-subject concerns, contact the LSU Institutional Review Board:

Alex Cohen, Chair, LSU Institutional Review Board
Email: irb@lsu.edu
Phone: 225-578-8692
Web: www.lsu.edu/research