Consent and recording policy

Last updated September 25, 2026

Hello calls only people who have agreed to it. Your parent is asked on the very first call, you confirm they are happy to try it, and either of you can stop the calls at any time. Hello keeps written transcripts, not audio.

This policy explains how Hello, a service of Illuminant Inc (“we”), gets and keeps consent for its daily calls, and how call transcripts and recordings are handled. It is part of our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. In it, “your parent” means the person Hello calls, and “you” means the family member who set Hello up.

Two kinds of consent, before the calls begin

The family’s confirmation. When you set Hello up, you confirm in the app that you have talked with your parent and that they are happy to try Hello. We store that confirmation with the date and time. Please don’t set up Hello for someone who hasn’t agreed.

Your parent’s own consent, on the first call. The first call opens with this script, word for word (with your parent’s name and yours):

Hi Ruth, it’s Hello. I’m an AI companion — a computer program, not a person — and Sarah asked me to call you each morning to say hello and pass along reminders. Is it okay with you if I call every day around this time?

• If your parent agrees, Hello stores their answer as they said it, with the date and time, and daily calls begin.
• If they say no or aren’t sure, Hello replies: “That’s completely fine. I’ll let Sarah know and I won’t call unless you’d like me to. Take care.” Then it ends the call. It does not call again, and it lets you know in the app.

You can see your parent’s answer, and the date you confirmed, in the app under Parent › Consent & recording.

Stopping the calls

Either of you can stop the calls at any time. Nobody has to give a reason.

• Your parent can end any call the moment they want to; Hello says goodbye and hangs up. If they don’t want the calls any more, they can tell you, or tell us at support@illuminantinc.com, and we stop them that day.
• You can pause or reschedule calls in the app (Parent › Call schedule), or stop them altogether (Parent › Consent & recording › Stop Hello’s calls). Stopping takes effect immediately; to start again, Hello asks your parent for their okay on a new first call.
• Deleting your parent’s profile, your family circle or your account also stops the calls immediately. See Privacy Policy for what happens to the data.

Hello only calls in the time window your parent agreed to, and never places marketing calls to your parent.

Transcripts

Hello keeps a written transcript of each call so that it can remember what your parent said and so that the family can read the summary. Transcripts are:

• visible only to members of your family circle whom the circle’s owner allows to read them (everyone else in the circle sees only the short summary);
• kept for 18 months by default, or 3, 6 or 12 months if your family chooses a shorter period in the app, and then deleted;
• never sold, never used for advertising, and never used to train AI models.

Audio recordings

Today, Hello does not keep audio recordings of calls. It keeps transcripts only.

If we offer audio recording in the future, these rules will apply:

• Recording will be off unless the family turns it on and your parent says yes on a call. Hello will ask them plainly whether it’s okay for the family to keep audio recordings, and store their answer.
• Hello will ask your parent to confirm again every month.
• If your parent lives in a state that requires everyone on a call to agree to a recording, recording stays off unless their consent has been recorded. Those states are currently California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington. We update this list when the law changes.
• Recordings will be kept for 90 days and then deleted.

We will update this page before any recording feature is switched on.

Text messages

If your family’s alert plan includes texts, Hello may send short text messages to your parent (for example, after a missed call) and to family members or an emergency contact who agreed to be contacted. Hello does not send marketing texts. Anyone can reply STOP to stop texts from Hello, or HELP for help. Message and data rates may apply.

Emergency contacts

If you add an emergency contact to your alert plan, you confirm in the app that they have agreed to be contacted by Hello. Hello tells them who it is and why it is contacting them.

Questions

Write to support@illuminantinc.com, or by post to Illuminant Inc, 2082 Michelson Dr., Irvine, CA 92612.