ELLA Privacy Policy

Last updated: 3 November 2026

1. Who we are

ELLA is provided by AUTODOTS LTD ("AutoDots", "we", "us"), company number 16475285. We are the controller of your personal information. For anything about it, email support@autodots.ai. We have not appointed a data protection officer, because the law does not require us to. You can ask for this policy in large print, braille, easy read or another format.

2. The short version

We use your documents only to do the work you ask for.
We don't use your documents to train AI models, and our AI providers aren't allowed to either.
Your files are kept for a short time, then deleted automatically, and you can delete them sooner.
We don't sell your information, and we don't use advertising cookies.
You have rights over your information. Email support@autodots.ai to use them.

3. What we collect and why

Your account. Your name, email address, the month and year you were born, your settings, and what you need to sign in: a passkey's public part and short-lived email codes. We need these to provide ELLA to you (contract) and to keep your account secure (legitimate interests). Your fingerprint, face or PIN stays on your device.

Your reading needs. Reader profiles, saved memories and notes about you can reveal a disability or health condition. We use them only to adapt results to you, with your explicit consent, which we ask for when you first save one.

Your documents and conversations. The files, links and instructions you give ELLA, including the results ELLA makes, and your conversations, so we can do the work you ask for (contract). Documents can contain health or disability information, and asking for an accessible format can itself suggest a disability, so we ask for your explicit consent once, in a separate box when you sign up. Please don't upload sensitive information about other people unless the task needs it and you have the right to share it.

Feedback. Problem reports and feedback you send us, to fix faults. If you rate an answer and send feedback, we keep that conversation and its files for up to 30 days so we can look into it.

The waitlist. If you join the waitlist at autodots.ai, your email address, whether you are joining as yourself, a school or an organisation, and when you joined, so we can invite you (consent).

Keeping ELLA safe. Service logs, technical records of requests (never their content) and your IP address, to keep ELLA secure, fix faults and stop fraud and abuse (legitimate interests). We may check what is sent to ELLA for illegal content before an AI model sees it; a check that finds illegal content leads to a record of the incident, which we may report to the authorities (legal obligation and legitimate interests).

Emails and your choices. We send service emails about your account (contract), and product news only if you said yes (consent); you can unsubscribe at any time. We record your choices and the version of the terms you accepted, to show what you agreed to (legal obligation and legitimate interests).

"Contract" means we need the information to provide ELLA to you, "legitimate interests" means we have a genuine reason that we have weighed against your rights (you can object), "legal obligation" means the law requires it, and "consent" means you agreed and can withdraw at any time (UK GDPR Articles 6 and 9(2)(a)).

4. Children and young people

You must be 13 or over to create an account; see Who can use ELLA. UK law lets people aged 13 and over agree to how an online service uses their information (Data Protection Act 2018, section 9), so you can agree to this policy yourself. If you are 13 to 17, your account starts with product news emails off, the assistant's answers suit your age, and nobody can see your documents or chats through ELLA. If we learn that someone under 13 has an account, we close it and delete its information. We design ELLA with the ICO's Children's Code in mind.

When diagnosing a request, we also keep restricted technical records of commands and their results. These can include document text. Credentials are removed, access is limited and audited, and these records are not used to train AI models.

5. How long we keep things

Files and results: up to 30 days after the last message or file in the chat. You can choose 7 days instead, or one hour after you first download a result (if nothing has happened in the chat since). Deleting a chat deletes its files.
Conversations: the messages stay until you delete the chat, even after its files have been deleted. A conversation you sent feedback on, and its files: up to 30 days.
Your account, profiles and memories: until you delete them or your account.
Waitlist entries: until you ask us to delete them.
Sign-in sessions: 30 days, or 14 days without use. Sign-in codes: 1 hour.
Restricted command and result records: up to 30 days, removed when you delete the chat or your account.
Web server logs: 48 hours. System logs: up to 30 days. Abuse-prevention records: 30 days, or until a person has reviewed a flag.
Complaints: 2 years after we close them. Other support messages: 12 months. Staff access logs: 2 years.
Anything stopped by a safety check: destroyed at once if the check was wrong, otherwise kept for at least a year and then reviewed.
Backups, for recovery only: up to 35 days after deletion.

Deleting your account deletes your documents, results, memories and settings, except records we must keep by law.

We share information only with companies that help us run ELLA, when the law requires it, or to protect people. These companies may use it only on our instructions, must keep it secure, and aren't allowed to use your content to train their AI models. They are: cloud hosting providers in the UK; AI model providers in the United States, which receive what a request needs, including your first name and reading settings, and delete it within 30 days (or up to 2 years if their safety systems flag it); our email provider; and security and safety providers. Ask us and we will tell you which companies have received your information.

We may also share information with the police or other authorities when the law requires it, or to report child sexual abuse material or serious crime; in confidence with professional advisers; and with a buyer of our business, who must keep to this policy.

Your files are stored in the UK. Where information goes to the United States, we protect it with the UK–US data bridge or the UK's approved contract clauses. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards.

7. Your rights

You can get a copy of your information (the download in Settings gives you a file straight away), correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, move it to another service, withdraw consent at any time, and ask a person to review a decision made only by an automated system, such as a safety check that stops a request. To use any right, use Settings or email support@autodots.ai. We reply within one month. It is free.

To withdraw your consent to us processing health or disability information in what you send, use "Withdraw consent" in Settings, under Account. ELLA cannot make requests without it, so you can agree again or delete your account. To stop us keeping your reading needs, remove the saved memory or profile in Settings. You can also email support@autodots.ai. What we did before you withdrew stays lawful.

8. Keeping your information safe

All connections to ELLA are encrypted. Staff don't routinely read your documents; they may look at one only for a security incident, a problem you report or a legal duty, and we log each time. If a security incident puts your information at risk, we tell the ICO where the law requires, and tell you if it is likely to put your rights at high risk.

9. Complaints

Please tell us first, at support@autodots.ai. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

10. Changes to this policy

We update this policy when ELLA changes, and tell you by email or in the app before an important change.