Privacy policy

Effective 10 October 2026

Switchboard is an inbox and scheduling tool for small practices. It stores the messages and appointment details a practice needs to talk to its clients, keeps them on a server set up for that practice alone, and does not sell them or use them for advertising.

1. About this policy

Switchboard is operated by The Switchboard Inbox, run by Dante Nwokeocha ("we", "us"). This policy explains what information Switchboard and our public website, theswitchboardinbox.com, collect, how it is used and shared, and the choices you have. It is written for the United States, where we operate and where the practices we serve are located.

It applies to two groups of people. Practices are the businesses, and the staff who sign in for them, that use Switchboard. Clients are the people who message, book with, or visit the website of a practice. For a client's information, the practice decides why and how it is used, and we handle it on the practice's behalf as its service provider. For a practice's own account information, and for visitors to this website, we are the party responsible.

2. Information we collect

What is collected depends on which features a practice has switched on.

Information a practice or its staff give us

Staff accounts. Name, email address, role, and a password. The password is stored only as a one-way hash, so we cannot read it.
Clinical notes. If staff write notes about a session, the note is stored encrypted and is visible only to staff whose role allows it.
Settings and connection details. The practice's business details, the written description the website chat uses, and the keys or tokens entered to connect a booking system, email account, or social account. Keys and tokens are stored encrypted.

Information about clients

Contacts and conversations. A client's name, email address, phone number, and the handle or ID a messaging platform assigns them, together with the text of their messages, when they were sent, and the channel they came through.
Appointments. Appointment type, date and time, and the client's contact details, copied from the practice's online booking system so they can be shown beside the conversation.
Website chat. What a visitor types into the chat box on a practice's website, and any name, email address or phone number they choose to give.

Messages and notes can contain sensitive information, including details about a person's health, if the people writing them include it. We treat everything in a practice's installation as confidential and use it only as described in this policy.

Information collected automatically

Activity records. A record of who did what in the app, including viewing a clinical note, with the time and the IP address of the request.
Server logs. Like most websites, our web server keeps ordinary access logs, such as IP address, time, and the page requested. This website does not use analytics or advertising trackers.

3. How we use information

To show a practice its conversations in one inbox and let staff reply.
To send the appointment reminders and follow-up messages the practice has chosen to send.
To show appointment details beside the conversation they belong to.
To sign staff in and keep accounts secure, including the activity records described above.
To fix problems, answer support requests, and improve how Switchboard works.
To meet legal obligations.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for advertising. We do not build profiles of clients, and we do not use anything in a practice's installation for purposes unrelated to providing Switchboard to that practice.

We share information only as needed to run Switchboard:

Hosting. Each practice's installation runs on a server at DigitalOcean, our hosting provider.
Services a practice connects. For example its booking system, its email provider, and Meta (for Facebook Messenger and Instagram) or TikTok for social messages. Switchboard exchanges information with these services as the practice has set it up, and each service handles that information under its own terms.
An AI provider, if the practice has switched on the AI features, as described in section 6.
Legal and safety. We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the rights, safety or security of our users or the public.
A change of ownership. If Switchboard is transferred to another owner, information may transfer with it, and this policy will continue to apply to it until we tell you otherwise.

Each practice has its own server and database, so one practice's information is not stored alongside another's.

When a practice connects one of its own business accounts on these platforms, meaning its Facebook Page for Messenger, its Instagram business account, or its TikTok business account, Switchboard receives the messages people send to that account, along with the sender's public name or ID, so the practice can read and answer them in the inbox. Messages sent back go out through the same account.

We use this information only to provide that inbox. We do not use it for advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not combine it with information from other sources. A practice can disconnect an account at any time in Settings, and we will delete the stored messages from that account if the practice asks. If you are a person who messaged a practice on one of these platforms and want your information removed, see our data deletion page.

Each platform has its own rules for when a business may message someone, and Switchboard follows them. For example, Meta allows promotional messages on Messenger only within a short window after the person last wrote, so reminders and follow-ups may be sent by another channel, such as email, instead.

6. Optional AI features

Switchboard can use an AI service to draft replies and to answer questions on a practice's website chat. This is off until the practice owner chooses a provider and adds its own key in Settings. The providers available today are OpenAI and Anthropic.

When it is on, the following is sent to the chosen provider so it can respond:

for the website chat, the visitor's messages in that chat and the written description of the practice that the owner has entered;
when a staff member asks for a suggested reply, a summary, or a draft note, the most recent messages in that conversation and the client's name.

The provider handles that information under its own terms for business use of its service, in addition to this policy. If a practice is subject to health-privacy law such as HIPAA, it is responsible for deciding whether to use AI features on conversations that contain health information, and for having any agreement it needs with the provider, such as a business associate agreement.

7. Cookies and browser storage

Signing in. The app sets one cookie that keeps a staff member signed in. It is needed for the app to work, and scripts on the page cannot read it.
Website chat. The chat box on a practice's website stores a random visitor ID and the recent messages in the visitor's own browser so a conversation can continue on the next visit.
Preferences. The app saves some settings and drafts, such as column sorting, in the browser on the staff member's device.

We do not use advertising cookies or third-party analytics cookies. You can clear this storage at any time in your browser settings.

8. How long we keep information

A practice's information is kept while it uses Switchboard. Staff can delete clinical notes inside the app. For anything else, such as a client's conversations or a whole installation, write to us and we will delete it. That applies when a practice stops using Switchboard and when a client asks to have their information removed. Anyone can start a request on our data deletion page. Encrypted backups made before a deletion are removed as they age out after 14 days. We may keep records we are legally required to keep, such as for tax or in a dispute.

9. Security

Every connection to Switchboard uses HTTPS.
Clinical notes and saved connection details are encrypted with AES-256 before they are written to the database.
Staff accounts have roles, and what each person can see and change depends on their role.
Actions in the app, including reading a clinical note, are written to an activity record.
Nightly database backups are encrypted and kept for 14 days.
Each practice has its own server and database.

No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot promise that nothing will ever go wrong. If we learn of a breach that affects a practice's information, we will tell that practice promptly so it can meet any duty it has to notify the people affected.

10. Your rights and choices

You can ask us, or the practice you dealt with, to tell you what information is held about you, to correct it, or to delete it. Depending on where you live, such as California and a growing number of other US states, you may also have the right to know what personal information is collected and how it is used, to receive a copy, to correct or delete it, and not to be treated differently for using these rights. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

To make a request, use our data deletion page or write to support@theswitchboardinbox.com. We may need to confirm who you are first. Because we hold most client information on behalf of a practice, we will often work with the practice to act on your request, and we will answer within 45 days. If you want a practice to stop messaging you, tell the practice. If you are unhappy with how we handled a request, you can reply to tell us, and you may also contact your state's attorney general.

11. Children

Switchboard is a tool for businesses and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13 for our own purposes. If you believe a child has given us personal information, write to us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will update the effective date at the top and tell the practices that use Switchboard. Using Switchboard after a change means you accept the updated policy.

13. Contact us

The Switchboard Inbox, operated by Dante Nwokeocha
Email: support@theswitchboardinbox.com