How This Works
Your conversation is yours. Here is what that means in practice.
What this is
Need to Talk? is a private, reflective conversation space. It is here to give you room to think something through in your own words, and to come back to it days or weeks later if you wish. It is not a therapy service, and it is not a replacement for a person you trust or for professional care.
What is stored
To let you return and continue, we store the text of your conversation and a short, factual summary used only to carry context forward within that same conversation. We do not build a psychological profile of you, we do not combine your conversation with community, donation, or advertising systems, and we do not use it to target advertising.
Who can read it
Only you. There is no view for administrators or moderators to browse conversation content, and nothing you write is shown to the community. Access is tied to your account or, if you are using this anonymously, to a private access key stored in your own browser.
How the conversation is generated
Your messages are sent to a third-party AI provider so that it can generate a reply. We send only the current conversation context, the system instructions, any summary of this conversation, and recent messages, and never your name, email address, account details, or the content of any other conversation. That provider is a separate service with its own data practices; we keep what we send to it as limited as we can and make it easy to switch providers.
Encryption
Your conversation is protected in transit with TLS and stored on our servers at rest. We do not claim end-to-end encryption: while your conversation is being generated, it passes through the AI provider in a form that provider can read.
Anonymous use and your access key
You can start a conversation without an account. A private access key is stored in this browser so you can return later. Keep in mind that this key is stored on your device: if you clear your browser data or use a different device, you may not be able to reopen an anonymous conversation. Creating an account and choosing to keep your conversations makes them recoverable with your account.
Crisis support
If a message suggests you might be in immediate danger, the space will gently point you toward crisis resources. This is a one-time signal on that message only, we do not keep a permanent risk label or profile about you.
Deleting your conversations
You can delete a single conversation or all of them at any time. Deleting removes it from normal view. As with most services, deleted data may remain in secure backups for a limited retention period before it is permanently gone.
Need to Talk? is a reflective space, not a crisis service or a substitute for professional care. If you need immediate support, visit our Support Resources.