How the Familiar Voice handles hard moments: validation over correction, never reinforcing self-harm or hallucinations, transparent AI status. Built with our nurses; cited to the Alzheimer's Association, NIA, and Cochrane.
Privacy PolicyEvery Familiar Voice is a Reminiscence Assistant with a loved one's stories, photos, and facts. When asked, it's always transparent it's AI.
Complete transcripts and summaries after every call. Cognitive and behavioral stats track decline: vocabulary, repetition, temporal confusion.
Validation therapy, the clinical gold standard. We meet them where they are: if they think it's 2010, we don't correct them. When asked directly, we never claim to be the real person; “I'm a Reminiscence Assistant in your daughter's Familiar Voice, not actually her.” But we never break the moment.
Is politics acceptable? Profanity? Finances? Religion? You decide what's on and off limits. Full control.
Never says 'calm down' or 'don't you remember?' — they cause distress even when kind. Validates emotion, bridges to a fresh memory. Doesn't raise its voice or slow to a child's pace uninvited. Notices eating, sleep, mood, daily living the way a son would — never a checklist. Designed with our nurses and Alzheimer's-Association-aligned guidance.
Hard rule #1
Our Familiar Voices never argue, correct, quiz, or contradict the receiver. If they say something factually wrong, we validate the feeling and redirect. Correction in dementia causes real distress, and the corrected fact rarely sticks. Designed with Wendy Zhang RN + Dona Capuyan RN (50+ years bedside) and consensus across the Alzheimer's Association (US + Canada), NIA, and Cochrane.
Alzheimer's Association — CommunicationAlzheimer Society of Canada — Validation TechniqueCochrane — Validation Therapy reviewNIA — Communicating with someone who has Alzheimer's
Hard rule #2
If the receiver mentions wanting to harm themselves, leave home unsafely, stop medications, ingest something dangerous, or any action that would cause physical harm — the Familiar Voice never validates or reinforces. It gently redirects, calmly reassures, and immediately flags the caregiver in the call summary. If imminent risk: the agent triggers the emergency-contact escalation mid-call.
988 Suicide & Crisis LifelineAlzheimer's Association — Safety
Hard rule #3
If the receiver describes a hallucination (a person who isn't there, an animal in the room, a voice from the wall), the Familiar Voice does not confirm or deny. It acknowledges the feeling and gently redirects to a grounded, present-tense topic. About 80% of Lewy Body Dementia patients experience visual hallucinations; this rule applies to every receiver because we don't verify diagnostic specifics call-by-call.
Lewy Body Dementia Association — About LBDAlzheimer's Association — Lewy Body Dementia
Transparency over opacity. Here's what we collect, what we use it for, what we never do, and how we protect it.
What we collect
Call recordings. The receiver's side of every Daily Call with Reminiscence AI (the Familiar Voice side is our own text-to-speech, so we already have it). Every major Familiar feature below rests on this — without recording, none of them work.
Listening segments. Your mhm / haha / yeah reactions during calls; rarer than long-form speech and the most valuable for training a natural-sounding agent.
Onboarding recordings. 60-second voice sample + 17 short phrases + photo narration. Training material for your Familiar Voice.
Texted content. Anything you text Familiar — words, voice notes, photos, links. Saved straight into the Second Memory.
Circle data. Names, relationships, birthdays, schedules. Only used so the agent runs your family the way it actually is.
Why we record · features that depend on it
Post-call SMS summary. The few lines the kids will actually read, with the photos and stories revisited that day.
Tomorrow's call context. The agent remembers what you talked about today so tomorrow's call picks up where this one left off.
Cognitive tracking. Vocabulary, repetition, name recall, time orientation, mood — every call, every day. Catches decline months before a doctor would.
Second Memory auto-save. The stories you tell during the call save into the family's shared memory library. Nothing to type.
Voice naturalness over time. Your real conversational rhythm makes the Familiar Voice sound more like you and your family with every call.
Safety flag escalations. If the call surfaces self-harm risk, a fall, wandering — the agent texts the caregiver immediately.
What we never do
Never sold to third parties, advertisers, or data brokers.
Never used to train general-purpose AI (ChatGPT, Google, Anthropic) — only Familiar's own models.
No engineer can access raw recordings. Audio sits encrypted at rest; only the agent reads transcripts (for tomorrow's call).
Identifying metadata stripped before training batches. Audio itself can't be anonymized (it's voice), so we substitute encryption + zero human access + your right to delete.
How we protect it
AES-256 encryption. At rest and in transit. Bank-grade.
Zero engineer access. Raw recordings are off-limits to every Familiar employee. Only the agent reads transcripts.
Anonymized for training. Names, birthdays, phone numbers, addresses stripped from training batches.
Delete anytime. Wipe any data from your dashboard. Removed from production immediately; from cold storage within 90 days.
HIPAA status
Not HIPAA-regulated today. Familiar is consumer health, not a covered entity. We voluntarily adopt HIPAA-grade controls (AES-256, access controls, audit logs, right-to-delete). On the roadmap as we approach partnerships with providers and insurers: SOC 2 first, then HIPAA-readiness.
Why we collect this
Dementia care is approaching a generational shift: time-travel voice models can speak to your mother in her own voice from age 40, when she's forgotten the present. Models like this only work with longitudinal real-world data — decades of audio, listening patterns, family stories, cognitive baselines across the aging arc. Your data is the foundation. We collect it the way that protects it, not the way that hides it from everyone.
Not a medical device.
Familiar does not diagnose, treat, or replace clinical care. Features are designed for emotional connection and cognitive engagement grounded in validated clinical mechanisms (Reminiscence Therapy, Simulated Presence Therapy). For medical emergencies, call 911 (North America) or your local emergency services, or 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
In the voices she already loves. And the only real signal on how she's doing today. About ~40% of forgetful seniors (MCI) develop dementia within 5 years, and most go undiagnosed.
Free · No app · Easy at any age
Late-life isolation is a real health risk. Friends don’t share every hobby, every show, every take. After a spouse passes, the topic with no one to discuss it adds up.US Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Connection, 2023.
Remember the 1-900 hotlines of the 80s and 90s? Call in, hear your favorite personality. We’re bringing that back. In their Familiar Voice, with real updates they text only to Familiar. Their Second Memory, a better diary.
And when they haven't said much yet — just a short tweet on a new episode, say — we pull what people are saying about it on Reddit and the news. So there's always plenty to talk about.
Church friends, classmates, old colleagues, your best friend across the country. They're already on Familiar with their own family, so saying yes to a Daily Call with Reminiscence AI from you costs them nothing. They become Friends in your circle: full Familiar Voice, narrated photos, daily calls. A bit less data shared than family, but the warmth is the same.
And celebrities follow the same shape; you 'follow' them on Familiar, you become their Friend, and you can ask their Familiar Voice anything.
Always someone to talk to about anything.