Elio Privacy Policy
Effective date: October 6, 2026 · Version: 1.16 · Entity: The Elio Company LLC, California (“Elio,” “we”)
Companion to our Biometric Data Retention and Destruction Policy, which governs voice data in detail and controls if the two conflict.
What this covers
Elio is a subscription service that creates personalized calming audio for dogs. This policy describes what we collect across elio.pet and the Elio service, why, and your choices. Elio is for adults: you must be 18+ to create an account or contribute a voice. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.
What we collect
Account data
Name, email, authentication data, your time zone and language, and your dog's profile (name, breed, gender, size, age and the behavioral state you selected). The signup flow collects your first name, email address and your dog's details, and optionally a voice recording, before an account or payment exists, to prepare your household and, from the recording, your voice-identity profile. Your account is created when checkout completes or a gift code is redeemed. A signup that is never completed has its recording and the voice-identity profile derived from it deleted within 24 hours; its consent records are kept as described under Retention, and its anonymous step records age out at 6 months.
Payment data
Payment details are entered directly with Stripe, our payment processor, and Elio does not receive card numbers. Where a purchase is processed through Stripe's Managed Payments service, a Stripe entity is the merchant of record. To set up your account, checkout also passes your name, email address, plan choice, time zone, any referral code and your dog's profile (name, breed, gender, size, age and the behavioral state you selected) to the payment processor, which keeps them whether or not checkout is completed. Voice and biometric data are not sent to the payment processor.
Invitations and gifts
If you invite an adult to contribute a voice, we collect the first name and email address you enter for them. If you buy a gift, we collect your name, email address and country, and any recipient name, email address and message you enter. If you ask us to email your invite link to a friend, we collect their email address, stored as a one-way hash, and any first name you enter.
Withdrawals and cancellations
If you withdraw from or cancel a contract with us, whichever way you tell us, we keep a record of it: the name and email addresses you give, which contract it concerns, any end date, reason or choice you state, the date and time we received it, the IP address, approximate location and device it came from, and what we did in response, including any refund.
Voice and biometric data
A short voice recording and a voice-identity profile derived from it. This is sensitive data, collected only with your separate, express consent at the recording step. It is governed by the Biometric Data Retention and Destruction Policy, which sets the retention and destruction schedule.
Usage data
Basic service logs (delivery, playback requests via your private feed, errors); the app or device type your feed is played on, which we infer from those playback requests; how you use the Lounge and the signup flow — which sections you open, which cover art you're shown, what you play there and how far through it you get, and which setup steps you finish. Lounge activity is recorded against your household; signup-flow activity from before you have an account is recorded under a random session identifier. We collect website analytics for elio.pet (page views, referrers, device type, operating system, browser and approximate location) and, at the consent step, your country and region derived from your IP address, kept with your consent record. We do not use third-party advertising trackers.
Cookies and on-device storage
Cookies on elio.pet are limited to those our sign-in provider (Clerk) requires for authentication and account security, one we set for up to 15 minutes when you sign in during signup, and those our payment processor (Stripe) sets for fraud prevention. They are strictly necessary and are not used for advertising. Our website analytics run without cookies. Your browser's own storage holds a few items. Needed to deliver what you asked for: a draft of your signup so you can resume it within 24 hours if you leave, and small preferences such as a reminder you've dismissed. Set for a further purpose: a random session identifier for the signup flow, created once you take a step and lasting until you close the tab, used to measure which setup steps you finish. These items are not shared with third parties and do not identify you across other sites. Other parties, including our payment processor (Stripe) for fraud prevention, may collect personal information about your online activities over time and across different websites when you use elio.pet.
How we use it
To provide the service you signed up for (generate and deliver your dog's audio), process payments, provide support, secure the service, understand how the service is used so we can improve it, send you service and account email, send our customers Elio news (see below) and, where you have agreed, other marketing email, send the invitations and gifts you ask us to send to other people, run the referral program, handle withdrawals and cancellations, and meet legal obligations. Commercial email includes an unsubscribe link.
Elio news is occasional email about Elio's own plans and offers. If you start a subscription, we send it to you unless you turn it off, except where the law requires us to ask first; there, and for gift purchases and gift recipients, we send it only if you turn it on in your Lounge. Where the law requires it, we show a switch for it when you give us your email address. You can turn it off at any time, free of charge, with the link in any Elio news email or in your Lounge; turning it off never stops email about your account or plan. In Canada we send it for up to 2 years after your plan ends, in Ireland for 12 months after your last purchase or news email, and in Australia, New Zealand and Israel only while your plan is active, unless you agree to receive it for longer. We send it on the basis of our legitimate interest in telling our customers about our own plans and offers. If we showed you a notice when you gave us your email address, we record which version and when.
Addresses given on the launch-updates form are added to our list and used to send launch updates; addresses given on the newsletter form are added to the same list and used to send news about Elio.
Who receives it
Service providers acting on our instructions: cloud storage and content delivery, audio-processing infrastructure, database hosting, authentication, payment processing, email delivery, and website analytics. Each is bound by contract to use the data only to provide services to us. Two recipients also act for their own purposes: Stripe (its own purposes, including fraud prevention and legal compliance, and as merchant of record for payment and tax where Managed Payments processes your purchase); and Amazon if you connect the Alexa skill (its own platform purposes). Anyone who opens your invite link can see your first name and your dogs' names. If you sign up through someone's invite link, they can see your dogs' names and whether you have become a paying subscriber. We disclose data where legally required. We may disclose data other than voice data to defend legal claims, and transfer it to a successor in a merger, acquisition or sale of all or part of our business.
Where it's processed; who can use the service
Elio is a US company; the Terms list the places the service is not offered. Data is processed on our providers' servers in the United States and Europe.
Retention
Voice data: per the Biometric Data Retention and Destruction Policy. Account data: until your account is deleted. An account with no active subscription is deleted 12 months after both its last subscription period ended and your last interaction with Elio, or 24 months after your last interaction with Elio, whichever comes first. Subscription and payment records: for the life of your account and then for seven years, the period we apply to meet the tax, accounting and consumer-law record-keeping obligations that apply to Elio and to defend legal claims; that period is the same wherever you live, apart from the French contract records described next; each record holds the transaction details, the account email address and an identifier for the card used, which also tell us whether an email address or card has been used with Elio before, for free-trial and referral eligibility. French contract records: if you live in France and your contract with us is for €120 or more (today, a 6- or 12-month gift bought in euros), the record of that contract (the version of the Terms you accepted, the order summary and the time of your order) is kept until 10 years after that contract ends, and we give you access to it on request. Consent records, including your acceptance of the Terms (also when you buy or redeem a gift, or contribute a voice to someone else's household) and any request that the service start within the 14-day withdrawal period: until 5 years after the account or voice data they relate to is deleted or, for a record that relates to neither, 5 years after it was made, and longer while a legal claim concerning them is pending, as evidence that consent was obtained, including for a recording session that never leads to an account. Each consent record holds the date, the wording agreed to, the IP address, approximate location and device it was given from, and, for a voice other than the account holder's, the name given for the person recording. Records of withdrawals and cancellations: until 5 years after the account they relate to is deleted or, if they relate to no account, 5 years after we receive them, and longer while a legal claim concerning them is pending. Records of the destruction of voice data: until 5 years after the destruction, and longer while a legal claim concerning them is pending. Usage data: detailed records of how you use the Lounge and the signup flow are kept for up to 6 months, and website analytics for as long as our analytics provider retains them; we may keep aggregate counts that identify neither you nor your household for longer. Records of which app or device your feed plays on last for the life of your account. Invitations: for the life of the inviting account; those from a signup that is never completed age out at 6 months. Gifts: names, email addresses and the message are kept while the code can be redeemed and for up to 12 months after it is redeemed or voided, or until the account that bought or redeemed it is deleted, if sooner. Mailing list: your address, and any name, approximate location and device details recorded with it, are kept until the list is closed; if you unsubscribe, the address is also kept on our do-not-email list. Deleting your account deletes the data linked to it, other than the consent records, the records of withdrawals and cancellations, the records of the destruction of voice data, the subscription and payment records and French contract records described above, and any record that your address opted out of or could not receive our email, which is kept so that it continues to be honored; signup-flow records that were never linked to an account age out on the same 6-month schedule.
Alexa and other voice assistants
If you listen through an Alexa-enabled speaker, Elio offers an Alexa skill (“Elio”). Connecting it is optional and does not change what is collected during onboarding.
What the skill stores:
- A random identifier Amazon assigns to your Alexa account for this skill (such as
amzn1.ask.account.…), which carries no name, email, or Amazon account details. - A link between that identifier and your Elio household, created when you enter your connect code, so the skill knows which dog's track to play.
- Your playback position (which track, and how far into it).
The skill does not capture audio and does not collect name, email, address, or phone number. Billing does not go through Amazon.
You can disconnect at any time with Disconnect in the Listening section of your Lounge, which deletes the link and your playback position. Deleting your Elio account removes the skill binding and playback data with the rest of your data.
Your rights and choices
You can access, correct, export, or delete your data in your Lounge or by emailing privacy@elio.pet.
California and other state privacy rights
This section applies where the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA, as amended by the CPRA) or another US state comprehensive consumer privacy law applies to our processing of your personal information. Together with the disclosures shown when you sign up, this policy serves as our notice at collection. Washington residents: our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy applies to voice data.
Categories of personal information we collect: identifiers (name, email, account credentials); commercial information (your subscription and transaction history); internet or network activity (service and playback logs, the app or device type your feed plays on, and your interactions with the Lounge, the signup flow, and our website); approximate geolocation (derived from your IP address); audio information (your voice recording); and biometric information (the voice-identity profile derived from it). Your voice recording and the voice-identity profile derived from it are sensitive personal information. We collect this from you, your device, and your use of the service; use it only for the purposes in “How we use it”; disclose it only to the recipients in “Who receives it”; and retain it as described in “Retention” and the Biometric Data Retention and Destruction Policy.
California residents have the rights to know, access, delete, and correct personal information, to opt out of sale or sharing, and to limit the use of sensitive personal information. We do not sell or share personal information, and we use sensitive personal information only to provide the service you requested, so the opt-out and limit-use rights do not apply to our processing. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any right.
To exercise a right, use your Lounge or email privacy@elio.pet. We verify your identity before acting, and an authorized agent may submit a request with proof of authorization. We respond within 45 days, extendable once by another 45 days with notice. Where state law provides a right to appeal a declined request, our decision notice will describe how to appeal.
If you're in the EU, the EEA, Switzerland or the UK
This section applies in addition to the sections above and prevails over them where they differ. For Switzerland, the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection applies, and the rights described in this section apply correspondingly.
Who's responsible for your data
The Elio Company LLC, 7300 W Sunset Blvd, Ste L #800, Los Angeles, CA 90046, USA, is the controller of your personal data. Privacy contact: privacy@elio.pet.
Why we're allowed to use your data
We rely on the following legal bases.
| What we do | Our legal basis |
|---|---|
| Create your account and deliver your dog's audio | Performing our contract with you — Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Record your voice and make your voice-identity profile | Your explicit consent — Art. 9(2)(a) — alongside performing our contract — Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Take payment and keep tax records | Performing our contract — Art. 6(1)(b) — our legal obligations — Art. 6(1)(c) — and our legitimate interest in meeting our US tax and accounting obligations — Art. 6(1)(f) |
| Keep the service secure and stop abuse | Our legitimate interest in service security and abuse prevention — Art. 6(1)(f) |
| Understand how the service is used so we can improve it | Our legitimate interest in improving the product — Art. 6(1)(f). You can object at any time |
| Send you marketing email | Your consent — Art. 6(1)(a). You may withdraw that consent at any time; withdrawal does not affect processing carried out before it |
| Keep consent records and defend legal claims | Our legal obligations — Art. 6(1)(c) — our legitimate interest in defending claims — Art. 6(1)(f) — and Art. 9(2)(f) for records about voice data |
| Run the referral program and send the invitations and gifts you ask us to send | Performing our contract with you — Art. 6(1)(b) — and, for the people you invite, refer or give a gift to, our legitimate interest in running the program and delivering what you asked us to send — Art. 6(1)(f) |
| Transfer data other than voice data in a merger, acquisition or sale of our business | Our legitimate interest in transferring the business — Art. 6(1)(f) |
| Send Elio news, email about our own products and offers, to customers who bought a subscription | Our legitimate interest in telling our customers about our own similar products and services — Art. 6(1)(f) — within the existing-customer exception for email marketing (Art. 13(2) of the ePrivacy Directive 2002/58/EC and, in the UK, regulation 22(3) of PECR). You can object at any time, free of charge; see “Your right to object” |
| Record and handle a withdrawal or cancellation you send us | Performing our contract with you — Art. 6(1)(b) — our legal obligations — Art. 6(1)(c) — and our legitimate interest in being able to show what was declared and when, and in defending legal claims — Art. 6(1)(f) |
| Keep the record of a contract of €120 or more with a consumer in France | Our legal obligation under the French Consumer Code (Art. L213-1) — Art. 6(1)(c) |
Your rights
Access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and objection to processing based on legitimate interests. You may object to direct marketing at any time.
Your right to object
You have the right to object, at any time and free of charge, to our use of your personal data for direct marketing, including Elio news. If you object, we stop. Use the link in any such email, the switch in your Lounge, or email privacy@elio.pet. You also have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to any use of your personal data that we base on our legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)); we then stop unless we have compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or need the data to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
How to use them
Use your Lounge, or email privacy@elio.pet. We respond within one month. Where a request is complex or requests are numerous, we may extend by up to two further months and will notify you within the first month.
Do you have to give us this?
Providing an email address and a payment method is necessary to enter into and perform the subscription. A voice recording is necessary to generate your dog's tracks. Without them the service cannot be provided.
Changing your mind about your voice
You may withdraw your voice consent at any time: remove the voice in the Voices section of your Lounge, or email privacy@elio.pet. We delete the profile and stop using your voice. New tracks pause until your household has a voice again; you can cancel your subscription at any time. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.
Where your data goes
Your data is processed in the United States and Europe. Transfers to the United States are covered by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses — with the UK Addendum, if you are in the UK — or by a provider's certification under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK extension; for Switzerland, by the FDPIC-recognised version of those clauses or by a provider's Swiss–US Data Privacy Framework certification. A copy of the relevant safeguards is available on request at privacy@elio.pet.
How long we keep things
Retention periods are set out under “Retention” above and, for voice data, in the Biometric Data Retention and Destruction Policy.
No automated decisions about you
We do not make decisions about you by automated means that produce legal effects or similarly significant effects.
Complaints
Contact privacy@elio.pet. You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority.
Security
Voice data is encrypted in transit, and at rest in object storage and our database; access is restricted; deletion is logged. We process your IP address and request metadata to secure the service and prevent fraud and abuse; the resulting counters hold the IP address or other identifier and a count, and are kept for up to 7 days after last use. If you sign in with a passkey, your device checks your fingerprint or face locally; we receive a passkey public key, not biometric data. No system is perfectly secure; we will notify you of breaches as required by law.
Changes and contact
We may update this policy; the effective date above will change. Where a change adds a purpose, a category of voice data, a category of recipient or a longer retention period, we will obtain fresh consent before it applies to your voice data. Person in charge of the protection of personal information: the Member, The Elio Company LLC, 7300 W Sunset Blvd, Ste L #800, Los Angeles, CA 90046, USA · privacy@elio.pet.