privacy

Who we are

index is a trading name of Index Fragrances Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16553405), registered office 71-75 Shelton Street, London, United Kingdom, WC2H 9JQ. We are the data controller for everything described here, which means we decide what is collected and why.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under reference ZC223290.

For anything on this page, write to hi@index.you. We answer rights requests within one month.

What happens at the machine

You scan your key, the machine greets you, and you talk. While you are talking, the audio from the microphone is streamed live to OpenAI, which runs the conversation and understands what you are saying. This is the one part we cannot do without: the machine cannot hold a conversation without sending it your voice.

We do not save that audio. It is not written to the machine, not uploaded, and not kept by us in any form. While you talk, OpenAI also produces a written transcript of your words for the machine, which uses it to compose your perfume from what you actually said. The machine holds that transcript in its memory only for the length of your session. It is never written to the machine’s storage, never sent to us, and it is gone when your session ends.

What we do keep from a session:

• a short written summary of the memory you described, in a few sentences, and the closing piece the machine writes for you
• the emotions the blend was built from, their proportions, and a short note on why each fragrance was chosen, kept under the same choice as your summary
• the recipe that was dispensed, and the code printed on your bottle
• an image of the orb generated for your memory
• which installation you were at, and when

Anyone else audible near the machine while you are speaking is picked up by the microphone too, for as long as the conversation runs. That audio is treated exactly the same way: streamed, not stored.

If your summary happens to mention someone else, that person’s information is in our records because you put it there. If they ask us to remove it, write to us and we will.

When you create one digitally

You can have the same conversation from your own phone or laptop. Then it is your browser’s microphone, not the machine’s, that streams your voice live to OpenAI, and everything above about that audio holds: it is not recorded by us and not kept in any form. On a phone the microphone is open only while you hold the button.

The written transcript of your words is held in your browser’s memory for the length of the conversation and sent once, at the end, to our service so that your perfume can be composed from what you said. That service holds it for the seconds of that one step and never stores it. What we keep is the same list as at the machine: the summary, the closing piece, the emotions and their proportions, the recipe, the orb, and that it was made digitally and when.

If you ask for the bottle, the address you give is used to post it and is kept with your order, as any order is (see the retention table). Anyone audible near you while you talk is picked up too, for as long as the conversation runs, and treated the same way: streamed, not stored.

Your archive, and choosing to share

Your memories live in a private archive that only you can see when signed in. Nothing about them appears on the public archive unless you choose it, one memory at a time, from that memory’s own page.

Sharing is deliberately in parts. You can share the orb alone, which appears on the map as a cloud with nothing to read. You can additionally share the title and scent notes, the written story, and the date and place. You can sign it with your first name or stay anonymous. Every one of those starts off, and you can reverse any of them at any time, which unpublishes the memory and clears the shared copy.

Two honest notes. Once something has been public, we cannot undo other people having seen it or search engines having cached it. And if you delete your whole account, anything you published is deleted with it.

On the website

• Your account: your name, email address, member ID, and a password held by our authentication provider. We never see your password.
• Buying something: what you ordered and what you paid. If you buy a story bottle without an account, we keep your name, email address and delivery address on that order, for posting it and for the batch record. Card details go straight to Stripe and never touch our systems.
• The queue at an event: the name you chose to show on the host’s screen, and the times you joined, were called and were served.
• The mailing list: your email address, and your city if you gave one, so we can tell you where the next pop-up is. If you joined by clicking a link in one of our emails, or through the box when you registered, we also keep when you did and where, so we can say exactly what you were shown. When you register while buying from us, at an event or when booking or buying a gift on the website, the box is already ticked, because the law lets us write to our own customers about similar things; untick it and we keep your address on our do-not-email list instead, so that nothing else we hold can put you on a mailing list by mistake. On the register page of the website the box starts empty and a tick is your consent; if you leave it empty we keep your address on the do-not-email list in the same way, unless you had already joined the list another way, in which case that stands until you unsubscribe.
• Asking about a size: your email address and which blend and size you asked about, so we can write when it exists.

We use no analytics and no advertising trackers. Nothing on this site profiles you as you browse. See the cookie page for the small number of things we do store in your browser.

Why we are allowed to (lawful bases)

The summary of your memory is kept as part of the service, because without it your archive is a bottle with nothing behind it. If you would rather we kept the perfume and not the words, write to us and we will switch that off for your account.

Who else sees it

We use other companies to run parts of this. Most of them act only on our instructions and cannot use your information for their own purposes.

Nobody trains an AI on your memory. Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic is permitted to use what we send them to train their models. That is the standing position for the business accounts we hold rather than a setting we had to go and find. They may each hold what we send for a short while so they can check it was not abused, normally no more than a month, and then it is deleted. If one of their own safety systems flags something, or the law requires it, they may keep it for longer, and we would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise. Beyond what the table above says, neither of them is given your account or the rest of your archive.

Your archive is stored in the UK. The database holding your memories and your account sits in London, and so does the server that runs this website.

Some of the companies above are outside the UK, mostly in the United States. Where information leaves the UK we rely on approved safeguards. In most cases that is the standard contractual clauses as amended by the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, issued by the Information Commissioner. Some of these companies are also certified under the UK Extension to the EU to US Data Privacy Framework. Write to hi@index.you and we will send you a copy of the safeguards that apply to any company on this list.

Stripe is the exception. When it takes a payment it is not simply working for us: it decides for itself how it handles the transaction, including checking it for fraud across its own network, and it keeps its own record under its own privacy policy. That record is Stripe’s rather than ours, so if you delete your account we can remove your name from our copy of the order but we cannot delete theirs. Write to Stripe for that.

We do not sell your information, and we never have. We would only hand it to anyone else if the law required it.

How long we keep it

Your rights

You can:

• Get a copy of everything we hold. There is a download button on your account page and it gives you the lot, including the written summaries.
• Delete your account and everything in it. Also on your account page. It is irreversible, and the QR codes on your bottles stop working.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Object to what we are doing, or ask us to restrict it.
• Withdraw consent, for sharing or for email, at any time.

If you made a perfume at a pop-up and never set up an account, write to us with roughly when and where and we will find it.

Age

You must be 18 or over to use a machine or hold an account. Children are very welcome to come along, watch, and smell the result. We do not create accounts for children. A memory can be about anyone, so a summary you give us may mention a child; if you would rather it was not in your archive, tell us and we will remove it.

Keeping it safe

Your archive sits behind your password. Everything travels encrypted. A machine at a venue keeps a copy of your session until it has safely reached us, and briefly after that as a backstop, then wipes it. It also caches a few details about you, so it can greet you, for up to a month since your last visit. Only the people who need access have it.

No system is perfect. If something goes wrong in a way that puts you at risk, we will tell you and the regulator, as the law requires.

Complaints

Please come to us first at hi@index.you. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

Changes

When we change this page we update the date at the top. If a change actually affects you, we will email you rather than expect you to notice.