Privacy Policy

Effective Date: April 1, 2026 | Last Updated: March 28, 2026
Operated by: Inner Group Media

Who We Are

The Grand Matriarchy is a family and community platform built on five published books about rebuilding the village, the network of people who show up for each other. We help people map their support network, connect with neighbors, access community resources, and build the kind of family structure that used to happen naturally.

We are not a social media company. We do not sell your data to advertisers. We do not build profiles to target you with ads. Our business model is membership, not surveillance.

What We Collect and Why

Information You Give Us Directly

What	Why	Example
Name and email	To create your account and contact you	Registration form
Billing address	To process payments (paid tiers only)	Payment checkout
Family information you enter	To build your Life Board (your village map)	“My daughter is Lily”
Messages to Daisy	To provide AI-assisted guidance	Conversations with our AI assistant
Event RSVPs and attendance	To coordinate community gatherings	Thursday Circle signups
Survey responses and feedback	To improve the platform	Post-event surveys

Information Collected Automatically

What	Why	How Long
Pages visited, features used	To understand what works and fix what does not	12 months, then aggregated
Device type and browser	To ensure the site works on your device	12 months, then deleted
IP address (hashed, not stored in full)	Security and fraud prevention	Hash retained, raw IP discarded immediately
Cookies (session, preferences)	To keep you logged in and remember your settings	Session or 90 days

Information We Do NOT Collect

• We do not collect data from children under 13. Users must be 13 or older to create an account.
• We do not scan your contacts, photos, or files.
• We do not track your location continuously. If you use location features (finding nearby services), we use the location you provide, not GPS tracking.
• We do not read your private messages between members.

How We Use Your Information

To serve you as a member:

• Show your Life Board and village map
• Power Daisy’s conversations (she remembers your family members so she can help you)
• Connect you with community resources (housing, senior services, food assistance, employment)
• Coordinate events and gatherings you participate in
• Send weather alerts, community notices, and safety information relevant to your area

To improve the platform:

• Understand which features members use most
• Fix bugs and improve performance
• Develop new courses and resources

For research and publication:

• We are a research-based organization. Our five books are grounded in data.
• We may use anonymized, aggregated data for academic research, journal articles, and statistical analysis.
• This data is abstracted and sanitized. No individual can be identified from published research.
• Example: “73% of members who completed the Life Board exercise reported identifying gaps in their support network.” Not: “Sarah in Frederick County has no first responder on her board.”

To share information that helps families and communities:

• Weather alerts and safety notices for your area
• Community events and gatherings near you
• Resources for missing family members (with appropriate consent)
• Local road issues, closures, or safety concerns
• Fun events, classes, and opportunities in your community

This sharing is not a commercial data model. It is the digital version of a grandmother looking out for her family and neighbors. We share what helps. We do not share what exploits.

Your Data and the Village

This is important, so we are going to be direct about it.

When you use this platform, some of what you do is personal and some of what you do is communal. We treat those two things differently, and you should understand how before you start.

What belongs to the village

When you add people to your Life Board, post in a community group, share a story about your neighborhood, or talk to Daisy about your family, you are contributing to the village. Other members see your board connections on their boards. Other members read and reply to your posts. Other members benefit from the patterns Daisy learns. Your stories become part of a shared archive that helps everyone.

If you cancel your subscription, those contributions remain. Not because we are keeping them from you, but because other people depend on them. Your attestation that your neighbor watches your kids on Tuesdays shows up on your neighbor’s board. Your reply in a group discussion is part of a conversation other people are having. Your story about the block party helps someone three streets over understand their own neighborhood.

If you delete your account entirely, your public contributions are anonymized. Your name is replaced with “Former Member.” But the content stays, because removing one side of a conversation damages the other side. Pulling one thread out of the quilt unravels the threads next to it.

What belongs to you

Private data is always yours to delete. This includes:

• Medical or health information you shared with Daisy
• Financial details beyond basic payment processing
• Private messages between you and another member (one-to-one)
• Government ID information
• Anything you explicitly marked as private

You can request deletion of any of this at any time, whether your account is active, frozen, or being deleted. We process these requests within 30 days.

You can always see your data

Even if you cancel your paid subscription, you can still log in and view your Life Board, your conversation history, your community posts, and your stories. Your view becomes read-only (you cannot edit or add), but nothing is hidden from you. If you reactivate later, even years later, everything unfreezes exactly as you left it.

Why it works this way

This is how a village works. When a grandmother passes, her stories do not disappear. The people she helped still remember. The neighbors she introduced still know each other. The village keeps what she gave it.

Your contribution to this platform works the same way. What you gave to the village stays with the village. What you kept private stays yours.

What We Do NOT Do With Your Data

• We do not sell your personal information. Not to advertisers. Not to data brokers. Not to anyone.
• We do not share your Life Board with other members without your explicit consent.
• We do not use your data to target you with third-party advertising. There are no ads on our platform.
• We do not build behavioral profiles for marketing purposes.
• We do not share your information with government agencies unless required by law (such as a valid court order).

How We Protect Your Data

Technical safeguards:

• All data transmitted over HTTPS (encrypted in transit)
• Passwords stored using industry-standard hashing (never in plain text)
• Database access restricted by role and authentication
• Sensitive personal data stored in a separate, access-controlled database silo
• IP addresses hashed before storage (we cannot reconstruct your actual IP)
• Regular security monitoring and vulnerability scanning
• Firewall rules limiting access to internal systems

Organizational safeguards:

• Staff and contractors with data access are trained on privacy practices
• Access to personal data is limited to those who need it for their role
• We maintain an incident response plan for data breaches
• We conduct regular reviews of our data practices

Cookies

We use cookies for:

• Essential: Keeping you logged in, remembering your preferences, security tokens
• Analytics: Understanding how the site is used (aggregated, not individual tracking)

We do not use cookies for third-party advertising. You can disable non-essential cookies in your browser settings. Disabling essential cookies may prevent you from logging in.

Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services that may process your data:

Service	Purpose	Their Privacy Policy
Authorize.net	Payment processing	authorize.net/about-us/privacy
Telnyx	SMS notifications (if you opt in)	telnyx.com/privacy-policy

We do not share your Life Board data, family information, or Daisy conversations with any third party.

Your Rights

All members:

• Access your data (download what we have about you)
• Correct inaccurate information
• Delete your account and associated data
• Opt out of non-essential communications
• Withdraw consent for data processing

Maryland residents (under MODPA, effective April 1, 2026):

• Right to know what personal data we collect and why
• Right to delete your personal data
• Right to correct inaccurate data
• Right to opt out of the sale of personal data (we do not sell data, but you can confirm this)
• Right to opt out of targeted advertising (we do not do targeted advertising)
• Right to opt out of profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects
• Right to obtain your data in a portable format

California residents (under CCPA/CPRA):

• Same rights as above, plus the right to know categories of third parties with whom we share data
• We do not sell or share personal information as defined by CCPA

EU/EEA residents (under GDPR):

• All rights above, plus the right to restrict processing and the right to object to processing
• Our lawful basis for processing is consent (for account creation) and legitimate interest (for platform operation)

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@grandmatriarchy.com or through your account settings.

Data Retention

We distinguish between two categories of data for retention purposes:

Village data (permanent)

Life Board entries, community posts, neighborhood stories, course completion records, and attestations about other members are village data. This data is retained permanently because other members rely on it. If you delete your account, village data is anonymized (attributed to “Former Member”) but not erased.

Personal data (deletable)

Your name, email, profile, preferences, login history, and all Tier 3 protected data (medical, financial, private messages, government IDs) are personal data. This data is deleted within 30 days of an account deletion request.

Specific retention periods

• Account data (name, email, profile): Retained while your account is active. Anonymized within 30 days of account deletion.
• Village contributions (posts, board entries, stories): Retained permanently in anonymized form after account deletion.
• Daisy conversations: Interactive while your account is active. De-identified on account deletion (your identity is removed, but conversation patterns are retained for research).
• Payment records: Retained for 7 years as required by tax law, regardless of account status.
• Protected data (medical, financial, private messages): Deleted within 30 days of request, at any time, regardless of account status.
• Analytics data: Aggregated after 12 months. Individual records deleted.
• Frozen accounts: If you cancel your subscription without deleting your account, all data is preserved in read-only state. If you reactivate, everything restores. Frozen accounts with no login for 5 years are treated as deletion requests.

For the full technical details of our data classification and retention schedule, see our Data Retention Policy.

Children

Our platform is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we discover that a child under 13 has created an account, we will delete it promptly.

Users aged 13-17 may use the platform with parental consent. A parent or guardian may manage a family member’s presence on their Life Board without creating a separate account for a minor.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as our platform evolves. We will notify members of significant changes via email and a notice on the platform. The effective date at the top of this page indicates the most recent revision.

Something Goes Wrong

We do everything we reasonably can to protect your information. We use encryption, access controls, separate databases, monitoring, and trained staff. But no system is perfect. If a security incident occurs:

• We will notify affected members within 72 hours (or sooner if required by state law)
• We will explain what happened, what data was affected, and what we are doing about it
• We will report to relevant authorities as required by law

By using our platform, you acknowledge that while we take security seriously and invest in protecting your data, no technology is immune to all risks. We ask that you also protect your own account by using a strong password and not sharing your login credentials.

Mobile App (Journey)

The Grand Matriarchy community includes a companion mobile app called Journey, available on iPhone, iPad, and Android. Journey is the phone-side extension of your gmadaisy.com account — a way to stay in touch with your circle when you are not at the table. It is often introduced as “a Daisy & Jenny app” because it connects you to the same community you know on the web.

How Journey uses your data

• You sign in with your gmadaisy.com credentials. No separate account is needed in the app.
• Your messages are delivered through our self-hosted chat server (chat.gmad.net, operated by us). Messages inside a circle stay inside that circle.
• Presence — who is online — is shared only with other members of the circles you belong to.
• Push notifications are opt-in at the operating-system level.

Sensors and device access — three honest levels

Journey serves multi-generational households and elder care, so we are specific about how sensor access works. There are three levels, and we never blur them.

Level 1 — You act in the moment

This is everyday use. You tap the camera button, the camera opens. You type a message, the keyboard appears. Without your action, these sensors stay closed. Journey does not read your contacts, photo library, location, camera, or microphone in the background by default.

Level 2 — You pre-authorize a safety network

Because the matriarchal family often includes grandparents, small children, and people who need a little extra care, Journey offers a small set of opt-in safety features. These let trusted family members help in a specific moment — finding you if you wander, reaching you if you fall, ringing through a silenced phone. The device permissions still follow your phone’s own rules; we do not bypass Apple or Google controls. What pre-authorization gives a named family member is the ability to reach you faster in a safety moment, not to silently open your device.

Examples of safety features you can pre-authorize, one family member at a time:

• Continuous location sharing with named circle members. Once you opt in, your phone shares your approximate location in the background with the family members you chose. Your phone shows the “location is being shared” indicator the whole time. Similar to Life360, Apple’s Find My Friends, or Google’s Shared Location. You can pause or revoke at any time.
• Place alerts (geofences). You can let a trusted family member know when you arrive at or leave a place you chose together — home, a medical appointment, a grandchild’s school. The alert fires automatically when your phone crosses the geofence. No one is watching your every step; a named family member simply gets a short “arrived at home” or “left the appointment” notification.
• Crash and fall detection. If your phone’s accelerometer detects a sudden impact, or if your linked Apple Watch detects a fall, Journey can automatically notify the family members you chose. This uses the same signals Apple and Google provide to any app; we simply fan the alert out to your circle.
• SOS button. One tap sends your location and a short alert to the family members you chose. Useful when you can act but cannot talk.
• Priority ring-through. You pre-authorize named family members to ring through your Do Not Disturb or silent mode when they need you. Your phone rings loudly even in contexts where you would normally miss it.
• Check-in prompts. A family member can request a check-in. Your phone displays the request and announces it aloud. You answer by tapping. No audio, video, or location leaves your device without your action in that moment — this one is intentionally user-acts rather than automatic.

These patterns follow the same approach used by Life360, Apple Find My, Google Family Link, and similar family-safety apps. The difference is that Journey keeps the data inside your Grand Matriarchy circle, under your control, not sold to advertisers or resold as aggregated location data.

Level 3 — Linked third-party devices

If you use an Apple AirTag, Apple Watch, Samsung SmartTag, Google / Android Find My Device tags, Tile, or similar safety hardware, Journey can display the device’s status to you and the family members you chose. If your Watch detects a fall, the notifications you already configured still trigger; Journey adds your family circle to that loop. All permissions for these devices remain managed in the device maker’s own app — we do not override or reconfigure them. You manage the device with Apple or Google or the maker, and Journey just respects what you set there.

Universal rules that apply to every level

• Off by default. Every safety feature is opt-in. You turn it on; you pick the family members it applies to.
• Visible when active. iOS and Android both show system-level indicators when location is being shared, the microphone is open, or the camera is recording. Journey honors these without exception. Our own in-app indicators reinforce them.
• Revocable at any time. You can turn any safety feature off from your account settings or the Journey identity menu. Revocation takes effect immediately.
• No silent activation, ever. Journey will never activate your camera, microphone, or location without a visible or audible signal that it is doing so. If you ever see a Journey feature running that you did not authorize, uninstall the app and contact support — we will investigate immediately.

What stays on your device

• Your login session, stored as an HTTP-only cookie that cannot be read by JavaScript.
• Per-device settings (nickname, silence preferences, which safety features you have enabled).
• Cached messages for offline reading.

What we collect from the app

• The same content as the website: messages you send in your circle, reactions, and attachments you share.
• A device identifier (a random string we generate) so you can manage signed-in devices from your account.
• For any safety feature you enabled, the events needed to make it work (e.g., a recorded fact that “on date X, you shared your location with family member Y”). These are retained per the rules in Data Retention above.
• Basic error logs with no personal content, to fix bugs.

Your rights in the app

• Sign out on one device or all devices from the identity menu.
• Review and revoke any safety feature from your account settings.
• Delete your account from gmadaisy.com/account — removing your account removes it everywhere: web and every paired app device, and every safety feature tied to it.

No in-app purchases. Memberships are always managed on gmadaisy.com, never inside the app.

Contact Us

privacy@grandmatriarchy.com

The Grand Matriarchy / Inner Group Media

grandmatriarchy.com/contact

This privacy policy was written in plain English because we believe you should understand how your data is handled without needing a lawyer to translate it.

Contact Us

This privacy policy was written in plain English because we believe you should understand how your data is handled without needing a lawyer to translate it.