Our privacy promise

Version 2026-11-01. Approved for launch. Adds People at your stage, Chats and the automatic helpers.

OncoBook helps people with breast cancer and their families understand their illness and reach verified oncologists. It is built by OpenI Partners LLP, Maharashtra, India. We follow India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the DPDP Rules, 2025.

What we keep, and why

• Your mobile number: to sign you in with a one-time code by SMS. It is stored encrypted and as a one-way fingerprint for finding your account; it is never shown to anyone, including oncologists.
• A display name (a nickname is fine) and what you choose to share: your stage group, and optionally your type of breast cancer and treatment step. Your real name is never required.
• What you send: questions to the AI or to an oncologist, reports you upload for an oncologist, bookings, comments to our team. Health details are encrypted field by field with a key kept outside the database.
• We never sell your information and never use your health details for advertising.

Where it is stored

On secure servers in Singapore (our database, Railway). The app and website are delivered by Vercel. Everything travels encrypted (HTTPS).

On your phone and in your browser

So you stay signed in, the phone app keeps your sign-in pass and your profile in the phone's encrypted storage, readable only while the phone is unlocked and never copied to backups. In a web browser, they are kept only for the open tab: closing the tab, signing out or deleting your account removes them. They are never kept in the browser's long-term storage.

Signing in

We send your one-time code by SMS through MSG91 (India). The code is never stored readable (only a fingerprint), and it stops working after 5 minutes. Oncologists also use a second step, a number from an authenticator app, so a stolen SIM cannot open their patients' questions.

Ask an AI

If you ask the AI a question (free, up to 3 new AI answers a day), we send your question to Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude AI, which processes it in the USA to write the answer. You agree to this each time you ask. We never send your name or phone number; your cancer type and stage go along only if you tick that box for that question. Under Anthropic's business terms, your question is not used to train their AI and is kept by them only for a limited time for safety checks. We store your questions and the AI's answers encrypted, only you can read them, and deleting your account deletes them. To keep the service free, the AI answers from well-established medical knowledge and links only to pages from a fixed list of trusted medical websites (such as national cancer institutes and oncology societies) for you to read more. OncoBook's medical reviewer, an oncologist, may read questions and answers, without your name or phone number, to check their quality, including any you mark as helpful, unhelpful or wrong. The AI's answer is an opinion, not medical advice: please check it with an oncologist.

To save cost and time, a small AI step first checks whether your question is general (like "what is HER2?") or about your own situation. A general question may be answered from OncoBook's own library of answers given before, and a new answer to a general question is saved there, rewritten without any personal details and not linked to you, so it can help the next person. It stays in the library after you delete your account, because nothing in it is about you. Questions about your own situation, urgent ones, and questions sent with your cancer type and stage are never saved to the library.

Ask an oncologist: questions, Verify my treatment, video consultations

• Written questions: we send your question, not your name or number, to the one oncologist you choose. OncoBook has checked them on the medical council register. Only you and that oncologist can read it. Your first written question is free; to keep that once per person we keep a one-way fingerprint of your number and the date for 2 years, even after you delete your account. Consultations are kept until you delete them or your account.
• Reports: for "Verify my treatment" or a video consultation, you may upload up to 3 reports (for example a biopsy). They are stored encrypted, and only that oncologist and you can open them. We record when a report is opened (who and when, not its content), and keep that record for 1 year.
• Video consultations: a 12-minute call by 8x8 (Jitsi as a Service). Calls are not recorded by OncoBook. 8x8 receives the call itself and the name you show in the call; the oncologist does not see your phone number. You may write what you want to discuss; only that oncologist sees it.
• Ratings: after a call you may rate it (1–5 stars, optional comment). Ratings are anonymous: they are stored with no link to you, the booking or the oncologist, and only the month is kept. The website shows the overall average, and only after at least 5 ratings.
• Alerts: the app shows you updates (for example "your answer is ready"). An alert never contains your question or any health detail.

Speaking instead of typing

If you tap Speak, your phone's or browser's own speech service (Google on Android phones and in Chrome, Apple on iPhones and in Safari) listens and turns your voice into text in the box, under that company's terms. OncoBook never receives or keeps the recording, only the text you choose to send. The microphone is used only while the button says "Stop listening", and the app asks your permission the first time. You can always type instead.

Comments and suggestions

If you send the OncoBook team a comment or suggestion from the app, we store it encrypted, only our team reads it (without your name or phone number shown), and it is deleted with your account. You can see it under Download my data.

People at your stage (optional)

• You can choose to switch on "People at your stage" to find others in your stage group. It is off unless you switch it on, and you agree to it separately when you do.
• Other members see only the display name you choose (a nickname is fine) and what you have in common (for example the same treatment step). They never see your phone number, real name or city.
• Your stage group is health information: we store it encrypted and as a one-way fingerprint, never readable.
• You see, and can be seen by, only people who also switched it on and are in your group.
• Switching it off deletes your details, your connections, your group memberships, your messages and your private chats, at once.

Chats: groups and private chats

• With "People at your stage" on, you can join group chats (for example your stage group, or a group for a treatment step) and have private 1-on-1 chats with people you are connected with.
• Who can read what: a group message is seen by the members of that group. A private chat is seen only by the two of you, except as explained under "Keeping chats safe" below.
• Every message is stored encrypted. Which groups you are in is stored as a one-way fingerprint.
• You can delete any message you wrote, at any time. Switching off "People at your stage" or deleting your account deletes all your messages. (Leaving a group keeps the messages you wrote there until you delete them.)
• How long messages are kept: until you delete them, switch off or delete your account, and never longer than 2 years. Messages older than 2 years are deleted automatically.
• Please don't share phone numbers, addresses or anything you would not want other members to read. Messages from other members are their experience, not medical advice.

Keeping chats safe: moderators and the automatic moderator

• The automatic moderator is a set of fixed rules, not an AI, running on our own server. Before anyone sees a message, it checks for phone numbers and other contact details, requests for money, unsafe medical advice and rude words. A message that breaks these rules is hidden. Your message is not sent to any other company for this.
• If someone writes 3 messages in a day that the rules hide, they are paused from writing for 1 day.
• Words about self-harm are never decided automatically. Such a message is held for our medical moderator, who is alerted, so a person can respond with care.
• Our moderator, OncoBook's medical reviewer (an oncologist), sees every automatic decision and can show a message again, keep it hidden, or lift a pause. They read a private chat message only if the automatic moderator held it or the other person reported it.
• Reporting: you can report a message. In a group, 2 reports hide it until the moderator decides. A reported private message waits for the moderator. Reports never count towards a pause. Your report is deleted with your account.

Automatic helpers in the app

OncoBook uses a few small helpers that follow fixed rules. They are not AI, cost you nothing, and do not send your information to any other company.

• Urgent questions: when you send a question to an oncologist, a helper looks for warning signs (for example difficulty breathing, chest pain, heavy bleeding) in English, Hindi and Kannada. If it finds one, your question goes to the top of the oncologist's list, they are alerted (and alerted again after 2 hours if it is still unanswered), and you are reminded to call 112 if it is happening now. It does not keep your question: only that it was marked urgent and which kind of sign it found.
• Booking times: when you book a video consultation, a helper suggests 3 good free times, using the time of day you choose or the time of day of your earlier bookings.
• Profile check: on your phone only, a helper may gently ask about setup answers that don't usually go together, so you can correct them. This happens on your phone; nothing is sent to us.
• What the helpers remember: a short record of each decision (for example "hidden: contact details" or "marked urgent"), stored encrypted, so our moderator can check the helpers' work and so they can improve (for example an oncologist marking a question "not urgent"). These records are deleted when you delete your account, and the moderator's records about your chats are deleted when you switch off "People at your stage".

You stay in control

Under Settings → Your privacy & data you can download everything we hold about you, see what you agreed to and when, and withdraw consent as easily as you gave it.

• Withdrawing Ask an AI consent deletes your AI questions and answers.
• Withdrawing Ask an Oncologist consent deletes your consultations and reports, and cancels your bookings.
• Download my data includes the groups you joined, the messages you wrote, and the automatic helpers' decisions about you (with their reasons).
• Withdrawing "People at your stage" consent deletes everything listed under "People at your stage" and "Chats" above.
• Deleting your account removes your profile, AI questions, consultations, reports, bookings and alerts. Kept afterwards: anonymous ratings, as they are not linked to you; the 2-year "free question used" fingerprint; and the 1-year record of who opened which report, as ids only.

To correct your data, or to name someone to act for you (your nominee), write to our Grievance Officer.

Backups and safety

Our database is backed up automatically. A backup is kept for at most about 3 months, then deleted. If a breach ever affected your data, we would tell you without delay, as the DPDP Rules require.

Who we are

OncoBook is built by OpenI Partners LLP, Maharashtra, India.

Grievance Officer

For any question or complaint about your data or privacy, write to our Grievance Officer, Vanessa Banduni, at vanessa@openi.ai. We will reply as soon as we can, and always within the time the DPDP Rules allow. If you are not satisfied with our reply, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India.