AttorneyOS Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how AttorneyOS handles personal information in connection with law-firm practice-management workspaces.

1. Information processed

AttorneyOS may process firm information, user account information, client and matter records, contact information, diary records, billing records, trust-record support information, documents, audit activity and technical usage information.

Technical usage information includes recordings of how the interface is used (pages opened, clicks, scrolling and the layout on screen), made by the browser and stored only on AttorneyOS's own servers (see section 7), never with a third party. Anything typed into a field is masked before it is recorded, and inside a workspace all client, matter and financial text is masked too, so a recording never contains a client's name, a document or a balance. Recordings are deleted after 30 days and are used to find and fix parts of the interface that people struggle with.

2. Purpose of processing

Information is processed to provide the AttorneyOS platform, secure access, manage firm workspaces, support billing and trust-record workflows, maintain audit logs, improve reliability and support user administration.

3. Firm-controlled data

Each firm is responsible for the personal information it enters into AttorneyOS and for ensuring that it has a lawful basis to process such information.

4. Access control

AttorneyOS supports role-based access, firm tenancy, assigned-work views and permission-checked access to documents and sensitive modules.

5. Security & retention

AttorneyOS protects data with these measures:

All traffic is encrypted in transit with TLS (HTTPS only, with HTTP Strict Transport Security).
Access tokens for connected services (such as Google, Microsoft and Xero), two-factor secrets, identity and bank numbers are encrypted at rest with AES-256.
Every firm's data is kept apart from every other firm's, and within a firm, access follows each user's role and permissions.
Documents are kept in private storage and are only opened through permission-checked links.
Two-factor sign-in is available to every user, and sign-ins and sensitive actions are recorded in an audit log.
Backups are made every night; copies kept away from the server are encrypted with AES-256 before they leave it.

Firm data is retained for as long as the workspace is active or as otherwise required for operational, legal, backup or audit purposes.

A workspace that lapses without a subscription — a trial that ended before we asked for a card, or a first month nobody carried on from — is kept for 90 days from the day it lapsed so the firm can come back to it. The account owner is written to 60 days after the trial ends, with the date and every way to keep the workspace, and can take a copy of the firm's data or ask for it to be removed sooner. After the 90 days everything in the workspace is deleted, including its documents, and only a record that the workspace existed and was removed is kept.

6. POPIA

AttorneyOS is an operator for each firm under section 20 of POPIA, and the operator agreement is the written contract section 21 requires: processing only on the firm's instructions, confidentiality, security, the sub-operators we use, and a security-compromise notice to the firm within 72 hours of our becoming aware. Our Information Officer is Shephard Dube (support@attorneyos.co.za).

AttorneyOS is designed to support POPIA-conscious workflows, but each firm remains responsible for its own POPIA compliance, client notices, consent records and operator/controller obligations.

We do not sell personal information. We share it only with the service providers that run AttorneyOS for us, and only as far as they need it to do so:

Hosting: AttorneyOS runs on servers we control in a data centre operated by GoDaddy (Host Europe) in France, in the European Union.
Backups: encrypted backup copies of the database are stored in a private repository with GitHub. They are encrypted with AES-256 before they leave our server, and the provider cannot read them.
Email delivery: Brevo delivers the emails AttorneyOS sends and receives the emails firms send to a matter's filing address.
Payments: Paystack processes subscription payments. We do not store card numbers.
Calls and video meetings: a call connects one browser directly to the other wherever the two networks allow it. Where they do not, the audio and video are passed through a TURN relay we operate or contract for, which forwards the call and keeps no copy of it. Nothing said in a call is recorded by AttorneyOS unless a user starts a recording.
AI assistance: when a user asks AttorneyOS AI for a draft or a matter summary, the request is sent to OpenAI, L.L.C. in the United States through its business API. When a user writes to our support desk, the text of that request and the basic facts of their own account (name, role, plan, recent account activity) may be sent to Anthropic, PBC in the United States through its business API so that a draft reply can be prepared for our support team. When someone asks us about pricing or switching through the contact form, or when we write to a firm about its trial or its plan, the enquiry or the basic facts of that firm's account (the plan, seats, trial dates and how much of the setup it has done, never client or matter records) may also be sent to Anthropic, PBC in the United States so that a draft can be prepared for our team. For a firm in its first weeks, the basic facts of how far it has set up its workspace, and its own messages on its Getting started conversation, may also be sent to Anthropic, PBC in the United States so that a draft can be prepared for our team. Neither provider uses data sent through its API to train its models. Google user data is never sent to either (see section 8). Section 9 sets out the POPIA basis for these transfers.
Services a firm connects: when a firm connects Xero, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, AttorneyOS exchanges data with that service on the firm's instruction.
Advertising measurement: only if a visitor accepts cookies, AttorneyOS pages load Meta and Google advertising tags so we can tell which of our own adverts led to a sign-up or a subscription. These receive the page address and that event, never client, matter or document information, and never Google user data.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it.

8. Google user data

A user may connect their own Google account to AttorneyOS. We then access only the following:

Google Calendar (the events of the calendar the user connects): diary events created in AttorneyOS are added to that calendar, and events from it are shown in the AttorneyOS diary.
Google Drive (only the files the user picks in Google's own file picker, and the files the user saves from AttorneyOS): picked files are copied into the user's firm workspace; documents the user chooses are saved to their Drive. AttorneyOS cannot see any other file in the user's Drive.
The email address of the Google account, to show which account is connected.

We use Google user data only to provide these features to the user who connected their account. We do not sell it, use it for advertising, or transfer it to anyone except as needed to provide these features, for security, or to comply with the law. Google user data is never sent to OpenAI or any other AI service, and it is never used to develop, improve or train artificial intelligence or machine learning models, whether generalised or not. People at AttorneyOS do not read Google user data unless the user asks us to for support, it is needed for security, or the law requires it.

AttorneyOS's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Google access tokens are encrypted at rest with AES-256 and sent only to Google over TLS. A user can disconnect Google in AttorneyOS at any time; we then delete the stored tokens and withdraw AttorneyOS's access at Google. Access can also be removed at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Files a user has already added to a matter stay in the firm's workspace, as part of the firm's records, until the firm deletes them.

9. AI assistance, and taking client information outside South Africa

AttorneyOS AI answers a request in one of two ways, and the AI pages in the workspace say which one is in force at the time:

On our own server, using the AttorneyOS drafting engine. Nothing is sent to an AI provider and nothing leaves the server that holds the workspace.
By sending the request to OpenAI, L.L.C. in the United States through its business API.
For a support request: by sending the text of the request, and the basic facts of the requesting user's own account, to Anthropic, PBC in the United States through its business API, so that a draft reply can be prepared for a member of our support team to review and send.
For a pricing or switching enquiry made through our contact form, and for a note to a firm about its trial or its plan: by sending the enquiry, or the basic facts of that firm's account, to Anthropic, PBC in the United States through its business API, so that a draft can be prepared for a member of our team to review and send.
For a firm in its first weeks: by sending the basic facts of how far it has set up its workspace, and its own messages on its Getting started conversation, to Anthropic, PBC in the United States through its business API, so that a draft can be prepared for a member of our team to review and send.

Where a request is sent to OpenAI or to Anthropic, that is a transfer of personal information outside the Republic, and section 72 of POPIA applies. The transfer is made because it is necessary for the performance of our agreement with the firm, and because each provider is bound by an agreement that upholds principles of lawful processing substantially similar to those in POPIA.

Section 21 of POPIA applies to OpenAI and to Anthropic as our operators. Each processes the text only to answer the request and on our instruction, under a written agreement; neither uses it to train its models; each keeps it no longer than its published retention period; and each is required to notify us of any compromise so that we can notify the firm and, where the Act requires it, the Information Regulator.

A firm remains the responsible party for the client information its people enter. Before entering a client's affairs into an AI tool, a firm should satisfy itself that its own client notice and mandate cover processing by an operator outside South Africa. The tools work from a description of a matter as readily as from names, and a firm that would rather nothing left the country can simply leave identifying detail out. Support requests, enquiry replies, notes to firms and getting-started messages are reviewed by a person at AttorneyOS before anything is sent; a firm that would rather its support request were not processed by an AI provider can say so in the request and it will be handled by a person only.

Google user data is never sent to OpenAI or any other AI service, and is never used to train any model. See section 8.

10. Connected accounts and deleting your data

A firm can disconnect Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft or Xero at any time from the page where it was connected. AttorneyOS then deletes the stored access tokens for that account at once and stops all further access. Posts already published stay on the firm's own Page or account.

To have all data about you or your firm deleted, email support@attorneyos.co.za from the address on the account. We confirm the request, then delete the data within 30 days, except records the law requires us to keep. Copies in encrypted backups are deleted as those backups expire, within a further 30 days.

11. Contact

Questions about this policy or a request about personal information: support@attorneyos.co.za. AttorneyOS is provided by Ophir Technologies (Pty) Ltd, South Africa.

Last updated 19 September 2026.