Privacy policy
Last updated 2 November 2026
Birdhouse helps families and care organisations look after older people who live alone in Singapore. Motion and door sensors in the home tell a hub when there is movement; Birdhouse turns that into the daily routine, alerts when something looks wrong, and reports. This policy explains what personal data Birdhouse collects, why, who it is shared with, how long it is kept and what you can do about it. It follows the Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (PDPA).
Who we are
Birdhouse is a service of OLANO AI PTE. LTD. (UEN 202442387K), 160 Robinson Road, #14-04, Singapore 068914 ("we", "us"). We run the Birdhouse app, the dashboard at app.birdhouse.sg, the Birdhouse Telegram bots and this website, and we are the organisation responsible for your personal data under the PDPA.
Our Data Protection Officer can be reached at info@birdhouse.sg, +65 8905 1632, or by post at the address above.
Whose data this covers
- Residents: the older people living in a home with a Birdhouse hub. Most residents have no account; a family member or care organisation sets Birdhouse up for them.
- Family members and caregivers with a Birdhouse account who look after a home.
- Staff of care organisations (Active Ageing Centres, home-care companies) that use Birdhouse.
- Visitors to this website.
What we collect
| Kind of data | Examples | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Activity in the home | Motion detected in a room, a door opened or closed, an SOS button pressed, with the time. Sensor battery, signal and hub online status. | The sensors and hub in the home |
| Resident details | Name, age, gender, address, preferred language, living situation, and any health notes or emergency contacts that the family or care organisation chooses to add | The person who sets up the home |
| Account details | Name, email address, phone number, password (stored only as a one-way hash), language, Telegram account if you link it | You, when you sign up |
| Alerts and reports | Alerts raised for a home, who was notified and how, who acknowledged them, daily and weekly reports | Birdhouse |
| Assistant conversations | Questions you ask the Birdhouse assistant and its answers | You |
| Device and usage data | Push notification tokens for your phone, sign-in times, which homes you opened, and a log of when Birdhouse staff viewed activity in a home | Your phone and our servers |
| Care organisations | Organisation name, UEN, address, phone, website, staff names and work emails | The organisation, when it registers |
| Website visitors | The pages requested and your IP address, in our web server logs. This website sets no advertising or tracking cookies. | Your browser |
Movement data can reveal private things, such as when someone sleeps, goes out or uses the bathroom. That is why Birdhouse records movement only, never images or sound, and limits who can see it (see "Who can see a home").
Why we use it
- To provide the service: show each home's activity to the people who look after it, notice when the routine changes (for example no movement in the morning, or a long time in the bathroom) and send alerts and reports.
- To run your account: sign in, verify your email, send codes, invitations and notices about your homes.
- To answer your questions in the Birdhouse assistant (see "The assistant and OpenAI").
- To keep hubs and sensors working: spot offline hubs and low batteries, and support you when something goes wrong.
- To check care organisations before they can see anyone's home.
- To keep the service secure, investigate misuse, and meet our legal obligations.
- To improve Birdhouse, using aggregated or de-identified data wherever we can.
We rely on consent. The person who sets up a home confirms that the resident (or someone who may act for them) has been told about the sensors and agrees to monitoring; the app records that confirmation. You can withdraw consent at any time (see "Your choices and rights"), though Birdhouse cannot monitor a home without it.
Who can see a home
- The home's owner and the people they invite. The owner decides who has access and can remove anyone at any time. Each person sees only the homes they have been given access to.
- Care organisations the family invites, and staff of the organisation that set up the home. An organisation must be checked and approved by Birdhouse before it can see any home. Its staff see only that organisation's homes.
- Birdhouse staff can always see whether hubs and sensors are working (online, battery, signal), so we can support the fleet. In a home owned by a family, Birdhouse staff see activity and alerts only while you have a Birdhouse monitoring plan or have given support access, which lasts 1 to 30 days (7 by default) and which you can end at any time. Every time a staff member views activity in such a home, it is logged, and the owner can see the log in the app.
The assistant and OpenAI
The Birdhouse assistant answers questions such as "How did Mum sleep last night?". To answer, it sends your question and the information about the home that the question needs (for example times of movement in each room, alerts, and the names of rooms and residents) to OpenAI, which runs the AI model. The assistant only uses homes you can see yourself.
- The assistant asks for your agreement before your first question, once per account. It asks again only if what it sends changes. Staff of care organisations are covered by their organisation's agreement with Birdhouse.
- OpenAI processes this data on servers outside Singapore (mainly in the United States). Under OpenAI's API terms, data sent through the API is not used to train its models and is deleted within 30 days.
- You can turn the assistant off in the app under Settings › Your data. Everything else in Birdhouse keeps working without it.
Who we share data with
We share personal data only with the people you give access to (above) and with service providers who process it for us under contract:
| Provider | What for | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Alibaba Cloud | Hosting: our servers and database | Singapore |
| OpenAI | The assistant (only when you use it) | United States |
| Brevo | Sending emails (codes, invitations, alerts, reports) | European Union |
| Telegram | Messages and alerts, if you link your Telegram account or use our bots | Telegram's data centres |
| Apple | Push notifications to iPhones | Apple's data centres |
| Backblaze | Encrypted copies of our daily backups (they cannot read them) | United States |
When data leaves Singapore we make sure the recipient protects it to a standard comparable to the PDPA, through contract terms and the provider's own commitments. We do not sell personal data and do not share it for advertising. We disclose data to authorities only when the law requires it, or in an emergency that threatens someone's life, health or safety.
Birdhouse is not an emergency service. We do not pass your data to emergency services on your behalf. In a life-threatening emergency, call 995.
How long we keep it
- Your account: while it is open. When you delete it, your name, email, phone, Telegram link, phones, access to homes, notification settings and assistant conversations are erased. We keep only a placeholder ("a deleted account") so that records of consents, alerts sent and staff access can still be audited.
- A home's activity history stays with the home while it is monitored, so the routine and trends can be shown. When a home stops being monitored it is archived, not shown anywhere, and kept for audits and for the owner. The owner can ask us to delete it.
- Assistant conversations until you start a new conversation or delete your account.
- Care organisation records for as long as the organisation uses Birdhouse, and afterwards as required by law.
- Web server logs for 14 days.
We delete or anonymise data when it is no longer needed for these purposes or for legal reasons.
How we protect it
All connections to Birdhouse are encrypted (HTTPS/TLS). The database is not reachable from the internet, passwords are stored only as hashes, and every request is checked against the home's access list. The database is backed up every day; an encrypted copy of each backup is kept with our backup provider, and only Birdhouse holds the key to decrypt it. Only a small number of Birdhouse staff can operate the servers. If a data breach is likely to harm you, we will tell you and the Personal Data Protection Commission as the PDPA requires.
Your choices and rights
- Download your data: in the app, Settings › Your data › Download my data. The owner of a home can ask us for the home's activity history.
- Correct it: change your details in the app, or ask us.
- Delete your account: in the app, Settings › Your data › Delete my account. If others rely on a home you own, the app asks you to make someone else the owner first.
- Withdraw consent: turn the assistant off, leave a home, remove people or organisations from your home, or ask us to stop monitoring a home.
- Ask us anything about your data at info@birdhouse.sg. We reply within 30 days. If you are not satisfied, you can contact the Personal Data Protection Commission.
Staff of care organisations: your organisation manages your account. Ask its administrator, or us.
Children
Birdhouse is for adults. We do not knowingly create accounts for anyone under 18.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we update the date at the top. If a change affects how your data is used in an important way, we tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and ask for your agreement again where needed.