Privacy
Privacy policy
For the Sophie Family app (Android and iPhone/iPad), the Sophie app for iPad that runs Sophie herself in a resident's room, and the care.burf.co website. Written to be read, not skimmed past.
Last updated 25 October 2026.
Who we are
Sophie is made by Burf Robotics Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16726691). We run the care system that Sophie, the care home's console and the Sophie Family app all talk to. For anything on this page, use the contact form.
Sophie is used by care homes. The care home decides which residents use Sophie and which relatives and friends are approved to contact them, and it looks after its residents' records. If you have a question about a resident's care or records, the care home is usually the right first contact.
The Sophie Family app in one paragraph
The app lets a relative or friend whom a care home has approved call the Sophie screen in a resident's room, be called by it, and see a small amount of news the care home chooses to share. You cannot sign up on your own: the care home adds you first, using your email address. The app has no advertising, no analytics or tracking SDKs, and we do not sell or share your information for marketing.
What we collect, and why
| What | Where it comes from | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your name, email address, relationship (for example "daughter"), and optionally a phone number | The care home, when it approves you | So you can sign in, and so the resident and Sophie know who you are | While you're approved. If the care home removes you, or you delete your account, the record is kept as part of their safeguarding history of who was approved and when, but it no longer works for anything |
| Sign-in codes and invitation links | Created when you ask to sign in, or when the care home approves you | To check it's really you. We email them to the address the care home has for you. We store only a scrambled (hashed) form, never the code itself | Sign-in codes: about a day. Invitations: 90 days |
| Your sign-in session | Created when you sign in | To keep you signed in on your phone | A session stops working after 14 days, when you sign out, or when the care home removes you |
| A push token for your phone | Your phone (Google Firebase Cloud Messaging on Android, Apple Push Notification service on iPhone and iPad) | So a call can ring your phone even when the app is closed | Until the token stops working or is replaced |
| Call records: who called whom, when, voice or video, and how the call ended | Created when a call is made | To ring the right people and connect the call | 7 days |
| The call itself: your voice and, on a video call, your camera | Your phone, only during a call you placed or answered | To have the call | Not stored. Calls are not recorded |
| Messages you leave for the resident | You | Sophie shows or reads them to the resident | Kept with the resident's record held for the care home |
| Your photo, if you add one | You (camera or photo library) | Shown on Sophie's screen when you call, so the resident recognises you. It's shrunk and location data is removed before it's stored | Until you or the care home remove it, or you're taken off the list |
| IP address | Your connection | To stop people guessing sign-in codes (rate limiting), and to record where an invitation was accepted from | With the sign-in code or invitation it relates to (see above) |
What the app shows you about the resident
Only what the care home has switched on for you: a gentle daily summary of how the resident has seemed in conversation with Sophie (never what was said), notes the care team chooses to share, and diary items staff have entered. The app never shows conversations, alerts or help requests, medical records, or anything about other residents or other relatives.
Calls
- Calls are made only between a resident and people the care home has approved, and only in the directions the care home allows.
- Calls are end-to-end connections between your phone and the Sophie screen using WebRTC, which encrypts the audio and video (DTLS-SRTP). When a direct connection isn't possible, the encrypted call is relayed through a relay server we run. The relay can't play the call, and nothing is recorded.
- To help the two ends find each other, the app may contact a public STUN server run by Google, which sees your IP address and nothing else.
- Sophie, the companion, has no sight. The camera on the Sophie screen is used only for a video call that the resident has answered or asked for, and the picture goes only to the person on the call.
Permissions the app asks for
- Microphone: so the resident can hear you on a call.
- Camera: for video calls, and to take the photo of you that the resident sees when you ring.
- Photos (iPhone/iPad, optional): to choose that photo instead.
- Notifications: so calls can ring.
Sophie on a resident's iPad
A care home can run Sophie on an iPad in a resident's room instead of on a robot. The care home sets the iPad up with a one-time code from its Care Console and chooses the resident. Nobody signs in on the iPad, and the app has no advertising, analytics or tracking.
- What she hears. Sophie listens for her name, and then for what the resident says to her. On iPads that support it, speech is turned into text on the iPad itself and the audio never leaves it; on older iPads, Apple's speech service does this. One tap on the microphone button switches listening off until someone taps it again.
- What we keep. The text of what the resident says to Sophie, and her replies, is kept in the resident's record for the care home. So are the times reminders were given, whether the resident said they had taken their tablets, and a one-word mood. Requests for help go to the care home's staff. This is used to look after the resident, never for advertising or to train AI models.
- The iPad's own id and key. The app makes an id for the iPad
(it starts
ipad-) and, once the care home has set it up, keeps its own key in the iPad's Keychain. Both are tied to the resident it was given to. - Calls. Calls work as described above. Sophie has no sight: the iPad's camera is used only for a video call that the resident has answered or asked for.
- How long. As long as the care home keeps that resident's record. Ask the care home, or use the contact form.
- The demo ("Just looking") talks to Peggy, a made-up resident. Nothing said in the demo is kept, and nobody real is contacted.
Who else handles your information
- Our hosting provider runs the server the care system lives on.
- Our email provider sends your sign-in codes and invitations.
- Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging, Android) and Apple (Push Notification service, iPhone and iPad) deliver the "you're being called" signal to your phone.
We don't sell your information, use it for advertising, or use it to train AI models.
Security
Everything between the app and our server is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Your sign-in is a personal token tied to you, not a shared password; it is checked on every request, and a care home removing you takes effect immediately.
Your choices, and deleting your data
- Remove your photo at any time in the app: Account, then Remove my photo.
- Sign out in the app: Account, then Sign out. Uninstalling the app stops calls reaching that phone.
- Stop being contactable: ask the care home to remove you from the resident's approved list. This switches off your sign-in, calls and updates straight away.
- Delete your account in the app: Account, then Delete my account. It takes effect straight away: your approvals, sessions, push tokens, photo and call history are deleted. Or use the contact form, giving the email address the care home has for you. Step by step, including what is kept and why: Delete your account. The care home keeps a record that you were once approved, as part of its safeguarding history, and messages you've already left stay with the resident's record.
- Under UK data protection law you can also ask for a copy of your information, ask us to correct it, or object to how it's used. If you're unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
Children
The app is for adults approved by a care home. It isn't intended for children.
This website
care.burf.co uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages are read. If you send us a message with the contact form, we use the details only to reply about a pilot; they aren't shared, sold or added to a mailing list.
Changes
If we change what we collect, we'll update this page and the date at the top.