Privacy Policy
Last updated 3 October 2026
This explains what personal information Futnor handles, why, who it is shared with, and what you can ask us to do about it. It covers this website and the Client Engine Reply WhatsApp assistant, including what we do with Google user data when a business connects its Google Calendar.
The short version. Apart from the advertising cookie described below, this website does not track you. We count page visits without storing who you are. When a business uses our assistant, we process their customers' WhatsApp messages only to answer them on that business's behalf.
Who we are
Futnor is run by Sizo Gugushe and builds Client Engine Reply, a WhatsApp assistant that answers a business's customers on the business's own number. You can reach us on WhatsApp at +266 5603 4542.
On this website
- Advertising cookies. To see whether our adverts work, our public pages (the home page, the sign-up page, our guides and the payment confirmation page) load a small script from Meta (Facebook and Instagram). It sets a cookie in your browser and tells that company that a page was opened, or that someone signed up, started a trial or subscribed. Visitors in Europe are asked first and can say no. The script is never loaded inside your dashboard or on your setup page, and it never sees your customers or their messages.
- Matching a sale to an advert. When you start a trial or subscribe, we may send Meta a scrambled (hashed) copy of your email address and phone number, so the sale can be matched to the advert that brought you. Meta cannot read the original from it.
- Visit counts. We count how many times each page is opened, and the website that sent you here if there was one. We do not store your IP address, your device, or anything that identifies you.
- The live demo chat. What you type into the demo on the homepage is sent to our AI provider so the assistant can reply. It is held in our server's memory only for your conversation and is never saved to disk.
- Abuse protection. To stop the demo being flooded, the server briefly remembers your IP address to limit how many messages one visitor can send. This is kept in memory and cleared automatically.
- Fonts. The pages load their typefaces from Google Fonts, which means your browser connects to Google and shares your IP address with them to download the font files.
When a business uses Client Engine Reply
When a business sets up the assistant, it gives us information about itself: its services, prices, opening hours and policies. We use that to configure its assistant.
The assistant then reads the WhatsApp messages the business's customers send and replies to them. For that information, the business is the responsible party and decides what it is used for. Futnor acts as its operator, processing it only to provide the service the business asked for. If you are a customer of one of those businesses and have a question about your information, the business is the right first contact, and we will help them answer you.
Google user data
A business that uses Client Engine Reply can choose to connect its own Google Calendar. It does this by pressing Connect with Google in its Futnor dashboard and signing in on Google's own screen. This is optional, and the assistant works without it. This section says exactly what Google user data our app accesses, how we use it, who we share it with, how we store it and how you can have it deleted.
What Google user data we access
When you connect with Google, we ask for these permissions and nothing more:
- Your Google account email address (the
openidandemailpermissions). We do not access your name, photo, contacts or anything else in your Google profile. - Your Google Calendar (the
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendarpermission). From your calendar we access: the start and end times when you are busy; the title, start time and end time of your events for the next 14 days; and the bookings our assistant adds for you.
We do not access Gmail, Google Drive, Google Contacts or any other Google service.
How we use Google user data
We use it only to run the booking feature you switched on:
- Your email address is shown in your dashboard so you can see which Google account is connected.
- Your busy times are checked so the assistant only offers your customers times when you are free. The assistant never tells a customer what your events are; it only knows a time is taken.
- Adding bookings. When a customer books on WhatsApp, the assistant adds an event to your calendar with the customer's name, phone number and what they booked. If the customer asks to move or cancel that booking, the assistant moves or removes that same event. It does not change or delete events it did not create.
- Your upcoming appointments (title and time, next 14 days) are shown to you in your own dashboard.
We do not use Google user data for advertising. We do not sell it. We do not use it to build, train or improve artificial intelligence or machine learning models.
Who we share Google user data with
We do not sell, rent or pass Google user data to third parties. It is handled only by the service providers that are needed to run the feature:
- Cloud hosting (Oracle Cloud), where our service runs.
- Our AI provider (Anthropic) receives the list of busy times only (start and end times, with no event titles or details), so that the reply written for your customer offers a time that is free. It is used to write that reply and for nothing else.
Nobody at Futnor reads your calendar, unless you ask us for help with it, it is needed for security reasons, or the law requires it.
How we store and protect it
We do not keep a copy of your calendar. It is read from Google each time it is needed. What we store is: the access key Google gives us for your calendar, your Google email address, and a reference to each booking the assistant added so it can move or cancel it later. These are stored on our server in your business's own private folder, which no other business can see. All connections to Google and to our service are encrypted, and access to the server is restricted to Futnor.
How long we keep it, and how to delete it
- We keep the access key only while your calendar is connected.
- Press Disconnect next to Google Calendar in your dashboard at any time. We hand the access back to Google and delete the key from our server straight away. Your calendar itself is not touched.
- You can also remove our access from Google's side at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
- When an account is closed, we hand the access back to Google and delete the key.
- To ask us to delete your Google user data, message us on WhatsApp at +266 5603 4542 and we will do it.
Google API Services User Data Policy
Client Engine Reply's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Who we share information with
We use a small number of service providers to run the assistant, and share with them only what each one needs to do its job:
- An AI provider (Anthropic), to generate the assistant's replies.
- Cloud hosting (Oracle Cloud), where the service runs and its data is stored.
- WhatsApp (Meta), which carries the messages themselves.
- A speech-to-text service, to transcribe voice notes so the assistant can answer them.
- Calendly and Google Calendar, when a booking is made through them. What we do with Google data is set out under Google user data above.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.
How long we keep it
We keep a business's setup information and its customer conversations for as long as that business uses the service, because the assistant needs the conversation history to reply properly. When a business ends the service, we delete that information unless the business asks us to keep it or the law requires us to.
Keeping it safe
The service runs over encrypted connections, each business's assistant runs separately so one business's information is never visible to another, and access to the servers is restricted to Futnor.
Your rights
Under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), and similar laws elsewhere, you can ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it, and you can object to how it is being used. Message us on WhatsApp at +266 5603 4542 and we will respond.
If you are not satisfied with how we handle your information, you can complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa at inforegulator.org.za.
Changes
If we change how we handle personal information, we will update this page and the date at the top of it.