Golden YearsPeace of mind for family

Privacy Policy

Last updated 10 November 2026 · Effective 10 November 2026

This policy is written in plain language on purpose. If anything here is unclear, please contact us and we'll explain.

Who we are

Golden Years is provided by EverNear, based in Ireland (the "provider", "we", "us"). Golden Years is a home awareness system: a hub kept in the home, wireless sensors, an optional camera, and a companion app for iPhone and for Android phones. Family members ("carers") use the app to check in on a loved one.

Who this policy is about

Two kinds of people are involved:

• The person being cared for is the older adult whose home the hub lives in. The system observes patterns of everyday movement in their home so the family can be reassured they're up, about, and following their normal routine.
• Carers are the family members who install the hub and use the app.

Golden Years is intended to be used with the knowledge and agreement of the person being cared for. The family installing the system is responsible for making sure that person understands it is there and consents to it. It is not designed for covert monitoring.

What stays inside the home

The hub does its work locally, in the home. The following are created and kept on the hub and are not sent to us or stored on any server we control:

• Readings from the in home sensors (for example, movement detected by radar sensors and whether doors are open or closed).
• If a camera is used, its live view and short recent image history, kept on the hub to support the family's own checks.
• Derived information such as which room shows activity, daily routine, rest patterns, and any alerts the household has switched on.
• Each carer's account at the home: a username, a password and any recovery code, kept only in a protected form, an email address if they chose to add one, details of the phone or browser they signed in from, when they were last active, and which alerts they acknowledged.
• The resident's profile, if the household's administrator fills it in: the person's name, how to refer to them (she, he or they), their usual wake and bed times, and whether they live alone. These shape what the app says and set the quiet hours. Anyone signed in to the home can see them. When the app is used away from home, the profile passes through Cloudflare's network on its way to the phone, as described under Connecting from away from home below.

Carers reach this information by connecting to their own hub through the app. Because it lives on the hub in the home, we do not collect it or keep a copy, and it is only as available as the household's own hub and internet connection. We do not look at it in the normal running of the service. Each hub keeps its information on an encrypted disk, and we keep a recovery key for that disk in a secure place. The key exists only so that a family's history can be recovered if a hub fails, and it is not used in routine work. If you ask us to help fix a problem, we may need to see some of the information on your hub, and we will only do that with your agreement.

What leaves the home

Some information has to leave the home for the app to work. This is the complete list:

1. Connection heartbeats

About every five minutes the hub sends a small "heartbeat" to a relay service we run on Cloudflare. It contains the hub's identifier, how long it has been running, its software version, whether a software update is waiting or has been installed, and the notification addresses (called tokens) of the phones that should hear if the hub goes quiet. Normally those are the administrators' phones. If no administrator has a phone set up for alerts, they are the other carers' phones that receive alerts. It also says whether the hub's encrypted storage will unlock by itself after a power cut. It does not contain your relative's activity, camera images, or routine.

The relay keeps only the hub's identifier, when its last heartbeat arrived, and which phones to tell. That lets us tell when a hub has gone quiet. If that happens, the relay sends a notification to those phones to say the hub is offline. When a hub is reset or taken out of service, we remove its phone addresses from the relay and keep only its technical identifier.

2. Connecting from away from home

When you use the app away from home, your phone reaches your hub through Cloudflare's network, which passes the connection on to the hub. The connection is encrypted between your phone and Cloudflare, and between Cloudflare and your hub. Cloudflare passes this traffic on under its own privacy terms. We do not store it or look at it.

If a camera is viewed away from home, Cloudflare's video relay carries the live video when a direct connection is not possible. The video stays encrypted between your hub and your phone, so the relay cannot see the picture. Sometimes the app shows the live video over the ordinary connection instead, for example when the video relay cannot get through. The video then passes through Cloudflare's network like the rest of the connection.

Some cameras have a speaker. On those, a carer can hold Talk in the app to speak into the room through the camera, and hears the room while holding Talk. The app uses the phone's microphone only while Talk is held. What is said and the sound of the room go between the phone and the hub as they happen, and when the app reaches the hub through Cloudflare they pass through Cloudflare's network like the rest of the connection. The hub does not record them and keeps no copy. Talk is off for each carer until the home's administrator turns it on for them, and administrators can always use it.

3. Alerts to your phone

If your household turns on alerts, your hub sends each alert to Apple's Push Notification service, which delivers it to your iPhone, as all iPhone apps must. For an Android phone, your hub sends the alert to a relay we run on Cloudflare, which hands it to Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging to deliver. A notification carries very little. It names the home, by the name you gave it or by the resident's first name, says whether the alert is urgent, and asks you to open the app for the details. Behind those words it carries only the home's name again, how urgent the alert is, whether it is a practice or a test, the time it was sent, and an identifier for the alert and for the hub, so that tapping it opens the right home. The room, what was noticed and any camera picture stay on your hub, and the app shows them once you open it and are signed in. Pictures never pass through Apple or Google. We do not keep a copy of alerts, and our relay does not keep them either. Alerts reach phones only through the Golden Years apps: through Apple for iPhones, and through Google for Android phones. If you would rather not show even the home's name on a locked phone, you can hide notification previews in your phone's settings.

4. Software updates

Your hub checks an update service we run on Cloudflare for new versions of the Golden Years software. Each version is digitally signed, and the hub checks the signature before it installs anything. The service recognises the hub so it can offer it the right version. Nothing about your household is sent. The hub downloads a new version when one is offered to it, but only installs it when the household's administrator chooses Install in the app.

5. How we support your hub

We support your hub by pulling details on its hardware status, and on its software status too. Each hub has a separate, protected address that only our support tools can open, and it answers only when they ask. The answer gives the hub's identifier, how long it has been running, whether its main services are running, how busy and how full it is, its temperature, which software version it runs and how its last update went. For each sensor and camera it gives the kind of device, whether it is working, its battery and its signal. Readings are given in broad bands, such as normal, high, low or weak, rather than exact figures. Each device is also listed by the room name you gave it, and a bed or chair sensor by the furniture it sits on. The answer never includes what the sensors detect, when anyone moved, your routine, alerts, the resident's profile, carer accounts, logs or camera images.

While we look after a hub, our support tools ask about once a minute. They keep the answers for 7 days, and the latest answer until a newer one arrives, in encrypted storage. When your hub is installed, we also record its sensors and cameras with the room name of each, so that we can tell if one stops reporting. We keep that record until we record it again or the hub is removed from our support tools.

Category	What it is	Why	Used to track you?
Identifiers	The hub's identifier, the notification addresses (tokens) of phones that receive alerts, and the identifier Google keeps for the Android app	Let your phone reach your hub, deliver alerts, and warn you if the hub goes quiet	No
Hub status	Running time, software version, update status, storage status	Keep hubs working and up to date	No
Support status	The hub's hardware and software status, and each device's kind, room name, battery and signal, when our support tools ask	Look after your hub, and spot a failing hub or sensor before it affects you	No
Alerts	A short notice naming the home, on its way through Apple, or through our relay and Google for Android phones	Deliver the alert to your phone	No
Connection	Your connection to the hub when away from home, carried by Cloudflare	Let the app reach your hub	No

The Android app

The Android app works in the same way as the iPhone app. It is a private window into the home, and almost everything you see in it comes straight from there. It has no advertising, analytics or crash reporting tools.

• What it keeps on your phone. The homes you have added, your sign in for each home, the details it needs to receive alerts, a short record of recent alerts so that each one is shown only once, and a few settings such as a light or dark look. All of it stays in the app's own private storage on the phone. None of it is copied to Google's cloud backup or moved to a new phone, so a new phone signs in afresh. The app also stops screenshots of its screens.
• Alerts. To receive alerts, the app asks Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging for an alert address for your phone, called a token, and Google keeps an identifier for the app on your phone so that it knows where to deliver. The app sends the token to your home, with your phone's model name and the app's version, so the home knows where to send alerts and can show which phone is which. When the home sends an alert to an Android phone, the token and the alert travel through the Golden Years relay on Cloudflare to Google, which delivers it. The relay does not keep them. As with iPhones, the home's heartbeat (section 1) can name Android phones too, so that they hear if the home goes quiet.
• Finding your home. When you add a home, the app can look for it on the home's own network. That search stays on the local network and sends nothing about you. The app does not ask for your location.
• Talk. The first time you hold Talk, the app asks to use the microphone. It uses it only while you hold Talk, and keeps no recording on the phone.
• Signing out keeps alerts coming. If you sign out of a home on Android, the phone forgets your sign in, but alerts from that home keep coming. This is on purpose: a carer should not stop hearing about someone who may need help just by signing out. To stop alerts from a home for good, sign in and delete your account there, or ask the home's administrator to remove you. Both tell the home to stop. If you have already signed out, you can still tap Settings and choose Remove this home, and the phone then ignores that home's alerts. The home cannot be told while you are signed out, though, so it may keep sending them until an administrator removes you.
• Deleting your account. In the app, go to Settings, Your account, Delete my account. This deletes your account at the home, as described under Your choices and rights below, including the alert registrations of your Android phones, so the home stops sending alerts to them. Removing a home from the app, or uninstalling the app, does not delete your account at the home.

Who helps carry this information

Three outside services help carry this information, and each has its own privacy terms. Cloudflare runs the relays, the update service, the support address, remote connections and this website. Apple delivers alerts to iPhones. Google delivers alerts to Android phones through Firebase Cloud Messaging, and Google Play delivers the Android app itself. All three are based in the United States and may handle information outside the European Economic Area. Cloudflare and Google rely on the Data Privacy Framework between the EU and the US for that, and Apple relies on standard contractual clauses.

Separately, a hub may download software and public detection model files from the internet, for example from Google and Ubuntu servers, when it is set up or repaired. Those requests contain nothing about your household, but the service that provides a download can see the hub's internet address.

This website

This website is hosted by Cloudflare. We do not use advertising or analytics tools on it. Like any website host, Cloudflare can see the internet address and browser details of people who visit.

What we never do

• We do not sell your information.
• We do not use it for advertising, and there are no outside advertising or tracking SDKs in our apps.
• We do not track you across other apps or websites.
• We do not store your home's monitoring data, camera views, or routine on our own servers.

Why we handle it, and how long it is kept

We handle the technical information above because it is needed to provide the service you have asked for, and because we have a legitimate interest in keeping that service secure and working.

On the hub in the home, information is kept for a limited, rolling period and then removed by the hub automatically:

• Camera pictures taken when the main outside door opens, so you can see who came or went: 24 hours.
• Recent pictures on the camera's card in the app: 24 hours.
• Camera pictures saved with an alert: kept until someone acknowledges the alert, then deleted 24 hours later.
• Camera pictures the hub keeps to check that it is noticing people correctly: 1 day.
• Live video from a camera is not recorded. While someone is watching, the hub holds only about the last 20 seconds. That short piece stays on the hub until the camera is next watched, and is then replaced.
• Talk: what a carer says and the sound of the room are not recorded. The hub's technical logs note who used Talk, on which camera and for how long, never what was said.
• Detailed sensor readings: 30 days.
• Alerts: once someone has acknowledged an alert, it is removed 30 days after it was raised, and never sooner than a day after it was acknowledged. An alert nobody has acknowledged stays until someone does. Notices shown only in the app, such as a note that your relative has gone out or come back: 7 days.
• Daily routine records: 90 days. The home's picture of a usual week, one average for each room and each half hour of each day of the week, is updated rather than added to, and stays until the hub is factory reset.
• Movement and event records, such as room visits and door openings: 180 days.
• Technical working files: 7 days.
• Daily summaries, one short entry per day: up to 2 years.
• Nightly backups kept on the hub: 7 days. Each backup is a full copy of the hub's information, so something deleted on the hub stays in the backups until they are removed. If a nightly backup fails, the older ones are kept until the next one succeeds.
• Sign ins: a sign in ends after 30 days without use, and after 60 days at most. Invites that nobody uses expire after 7 days.
• The hub's technical logs: limited by size rather than by time, with the oldest entries removed first.
• A short history of who changed each alert and who receives it, and of password resets and new recovery codes: kept until the hub is factory reset. Only the newest 200 password and recovery code entries of each kind are kept. When a carer deletes their account, their name is removed from this history.

The hub clears old information every 6 hours, and camera pictures every 10 minutes, so something can stay up to 6 hours past its period. Carer accounts, the resident's profile, the home's settings and the alerts the household has switched on are kept until someone changes or removes them, or the hub is factory reset.

On our relay we keep only each hub's identifier, when its last heartbeat arrived and which phones to tell, until the hub is reset or taken out of service. Our support tools keep each hub's support answers for 7 days, and its list of sensors and cameras with their room names until the hub is removed from our support tools. We do not keep alerts that pass through Apple, our Android relay or Google. Emails you send us are kept for as long as needed to deal with your request.

Your choices and rights

• Delete your account. A carer can delete their account in the app, under Settings, Your account, Delete my account. This deletes their carer record, sign ins, the alert registrations of their iPhones and Android phones, alert settings and quiet periods from the hub, and removes their name from alerts they acknowledged. The hub's nightly backups still hold the account until they are removed, normally within 7 days. The home's own records stay with the household. At its next heartbeat the hub tells the relay, and those phones stop being used for notifications. A home's only administrator cannot delete their account until there is another administrator.
• Delete home data. The hub keeps its information on its own storage, so unplugging it does not erase anything. To erase it, an administrator can do a factory reset from the app's settings. That deletes the hub's stored information, including camera pictures and backups, and switches off the hub's remote access. It is a deletion and not a secure wipe, so if a hub is going to another household, ask us for help.
• Your rights. Under Irish and EU data protection law you can ask us what personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it, delete it, limit how we use it, or give you a copy you can reuse. You can also object to how we use it. Email us and we will reply within one month. What we hold about a person is small: mainly the technical details above and any emails you send us. Information about a household lives on the hub, which the household controls.
• Complaints. If you are not happy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Data Protection Commission in Ireland at dataprotection.ie.

Security

Access to a hub is protected by sign in, and connections between the app and the hub are encrypted in transit. Because the sensitive data stays on the hub in the home rather than in a central cloud, it is not exposed in one place online.

Children

Golden Years is intended for adults caring for an older relative. It is not directed at children and is not intended for use by children.

Not a medical device

Golden Years is a home awareness and reassurance product to help families stay connected with an older relative and notice changes in everyday routine. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat, monitor, or prevent any medical condition, and it is not a substitute for professional care, supervision, or emergency services. In an emergency, always contact the emergency services.

Changes to this policy

If we make material changes, we will update this page and revise the date at the top. If a change affects how your information is used, we will also let you know in the app or by email where we can.

Contact us

Questions about privacy, or requests to access or delete information, can be sent to:

privacy@evernear.ie
EverNear, provider of Golden Years, Ireland