Privacy policy

Last updated 20 October 2026

HelperSkelter is a shared family calendar and to-do list, with an app for Android and iPhone and a website at app.helperskelter.cloud. This page says what it holds about you, why, who else handles it, and what you can do about it.

Who we are

HelperSkelter is run by Peter Hobson, an individual in the United Kingdom, who is the data controller under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018). Contact: support@helperskelter.cloud.

What we hold

• Your account: your name, your email addresses, and your password (stored only as a one-way hash).
• Your family's plans: the appointments, to-dos, children's names, organisations (such as schools and clubs), blueprints and settings that you and your family add.
• What you send us: messages you write in the app's chat, and emails you forward to HelperSkelter, including any attachments and links in them.
• The people you invite: the email addresses that calendar invitations go to.
• Your phone: a notification token for each phone you sign in on, so we can send you notifications. If you connect WhatsApp, your phone number.
• Assistants you connect: if you connect an AI assistant (such as Claude) to your family, a record of that connection.
• How the service is used: the days you open the app or the website, when each invitation was sent and answered, and whether a chat message could not be handled and why. Never what you looked at or wrote.

We do not use advertising or analytics trackers, and we do not read your Google, Outlook or Apple calendar. HelperSkelter only sends calendar invitations; it never connects to anyone's own calendar.

Why we use it

Only to run the service you signed up for: to keep your family's calendar and to-do list, to read what you send us and turn it into appointments and to-dos, to send calendar invitations and your daily briefing, and to notify you. The lawful basis is that we need it to provide the service to you (contract). We never sell your data or use it for advertising.

We also measure how HelperSkelter is used and how well it works, such as how many families use it each week, which parts they use, how quickly chat answers and what fails, so we can fix and improve it. We work this out ourselves from the data we already hold for the service; no analytics company is involved. The measurements are counts and timings, and never include what you or your family wrote. The lawful basis for this is our legitimate interest in running a service that works.

Who else handles it

We use these services to run HelperSkelter. Each one handles your data only on our behalf and only for the purpose given.

• Google Gemini (Google): reads the emails you forward and the messages you write in chat, to find dates, deadlines and what you are asking for. We use Google's paid API, under terms that do not allow Google to use this content to train its models.
• Mailgun (Sinch, EU region): sends calendar invitations and emails.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google): delivers notifications to your phone. Notifications to iPhones also pass through Apple's push service.
• WhatsApp (Meta): only if you choose to use HelperSkelter through WhatsApp; it carries those messages.
• GitHub (Microsoft): only if you report a message in chat. Your report is kept as an issue in our private GitHub repository, which only the HelperSkelter team can see, so we can look into it and fix the problem. It holds the message you reported, your reason and note, what you wrote just before it if the message was answering you, your first name and your family's ID. It never holds your email address or phone number.
• Our hosting provider: hosts our server and database in the United Kingdom.

Some of these providers may process data outside the UK. Where they do, they are bound by safeguards recognised under UK law, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or the UK-US Data Bridge.

Who can see it

Your family's calendar, to-do list and chat are visible to the members of your family. People you invite to an appointment receive that appointment in their own calendar. We do not look at your data, except when you ask us to investigate a problem, for example by reporting a message in chat.

How long we keep it

For as long as your account exists. When you delete your account, your data is deleted from the live service straight away, as described on how to delete your account. Copies in our backups are deleted within 30 days. A report you made stays in our private GitHub repository after you delete your account, because it records a problem we are fixing; email support@helperskelter.cloud and we will delete it. Our usage measurements keep daily counts; when an account is deleted, its share of those counts stays only as part of an unlinked total for deleted accounts, with nothing that points back to you or your family.

Your rights

You can see and correct most of your data in the app, and delete your account from Settings at any time. You can also ask us for a copy of your data, to correct or delete it, or to restrict or object to how we use it, by emailing support@helperskelter.cloud. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Children

HelperSkelter accounts are for adults. Parents can add their children's names and activities to the family calendar; children do not have accounts and we do not knowingly collect data from them directly.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page, and tell you in the app if the change is significant.