Privacy notice · Merlin

Merlin is an AI that lives in group chats and direct messages. It is run by Plarza, which is responsible for the data described here.

The short version

Merlin stores every message in every chat it is in, from everyone, so it can answer questions about them later. It says so when it joins a chat.
Anyone in a chat can type /forget me to have their messages deleted and stop being stored. No account needed.
Connected apps are only used when someone asks, and only within the rules you set for each chat.
This website uses no cookies, analytics or trackers.

What Merlin stores

Messages. The text of every message in chats Merlin has been added to, who sent it and when, including from people who have not signed up. Each message is turned into a search index entry (an embedding) so it can be found by meaning.
Attachments. A reference to the original file on the chat platform, the text extracted from it, and a search index entry. Merlin does not keep the file itself. Voice notes and other audio are transcribed, so their transcripts are stored too.
Memories. Short notes Merlin chooses to keep, such as a preference or a standing instruction, tied to your account.
Your account. Your email address, plan, time zone, the chat accounts you have linked, and a record of what your usage cost.
Connected apps. Access tokens for apps you connect, encrypted. Most apps are read live when someone asks. Some, such as Last.fm, are copied to Merlin so it can answer questions their own services can't.
Browser sessions. If you sign in to a website in Merlin's browser, its cookies are kept, encrypted, so you stay signed in.
An access log. Every time someone else's request reads your connected apps, it is logged, and you can see that log.
The waitlist. If you join the waitlist, your email address and when you joined.

Why

To do what people in the chat ask of Merlin: answer questions about what was said, use the apps they connected, run the tasks they schedule, and keep track of usage and billing. Waitlist addresses are used only to tell you about Merlin.

Who can see what

Searches only ever cover the current chat and the asker's own memories. One chat's history is never searched from another.
In a group, other people can only get answers that don't expose your details, such as a time everyone is free, and only from apps you switched on for that chat. Anything more, such as an email itself, needs your approval in the chat at the time.
Data is encrypted in transit and on disk, and tokens and browser sessions are encrypted again inside the database. It is not end-to-end encrypted: the people who run Merlin can access it.

Who processes it

To answer a request, Merlin sends the parts of the chat it needs to these services:

OpenRouter and the model providers it routes to, which run the AI model.
Google, which creates the search index entries, and runs Gmail and Calendar if you connect them.
Exa, which runs web searches.
Cloudflare, which runs code in sandboxes and carries traffic to this site.
Steel, which runs Merlin's web browser.
Plarza's own servers, which store everything described above.

Discord, Telegram and WhatsApp deliver messages to and from Merlin under their own privacy policies. On WhatsApp, messages to an AI agent pass through Meta and are not end-to-end encrypted.

How long it is kept

Messages are kept while Merlin is in a chat, until the sender uses /forget me, or until the owner of the chat asks for its history to be deleted. When an original attachment is deleted from the chat platform, only its extracted text remains. Waitlist addresses are kept until you have been invited, or until you ask us to remove yours.

Your choices

/forget me in any chat deletes your messages there and stops new ones being stored.
Disconnect an app, or switch it off for a chat, at any time.
Remove Merlin from a chat at any time.
Email [email protected] for a copy of your data, or to have it deleted. We will do it within a month.

Contact

Questions about this notice or your data: [email protected].