Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 6, 2026
Who we are: Northwend is run by Andrew Zhang, an individual developer ("we", "us").
Contact: support@northwend.app

This policy explains what Northwend collects, why, who it's shared with, how long it's kept, and your choices. It covers the app and the website, northwend.app.

The short version: Northwend keeps what you give it to run your account, and less than you share where it can. It never asks for your brokerage login. It doesn't sell your data, share it for advertising, show ads, or track you across other sites.

1. Who Northwend is for

Northwend is for people 18 and over in the United States. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has made an account, contact us and we will delete it.

2. What we collect

Account and sign-in

• Your username, and - if you signed up yourself or added one - your email address.
• A one-way hash of your password (never the password itself).
• The name you'd like to be called, if you give one.
• When the account was made and when you last signed in; which version of the terms you agreed to, and when; when you confirmed you're 18 or older and live in the United States. If you joined with an invite code: which code, and when.
• If you turn on two-step sign-in: the key your authenticator app uses (stored so codes can be checked) and your backup codes as hashes.
• "Stay signed in": a random token in a cookie on your device; we store only a hash.
• For advisors asking for access: your firm's name and your CRD or licence number, and a note of each check of your registration (where it was looked up, the number that matched and the day); where the advisor agreement is in use, which version you accepted and when.

Your investments and plans (what you or your advisor add)

• Holdings: symbols, share counts, cost, value, cash and account names, so the app can show them. Account numbers in account names are cut to their last 3 digits before saving.
• Activity history you import: date, kind, symbol, shares, price, amount, fees and description, with account and bank numbers cut to the last 3 digits.
• Your portfolio's value over time, any contributions you record, and nicknames you give your accounts.
• Your plan and goal, target mix, watchlist, settings and progress through Learn.
• Notes you write to your future self on a holding or your plan, and your monthly walks: the months you finished one, the day, and the kind of verdict your own plan gave (for example "nothing to do" or "next deposit mostly to bonds") - no amounts. Where the walk's log is on, also for each walk: whether you updated your holdings, how far your mix was from its target (in points), how your mix moved over the month before (in percent), whether a sale was recorded and whether you wrote a note - never amounts, and only you see it.
• If you make one, your account map: for each account, its kind, who to call, whether a beneficiary is named, where the paperwork is, and your notes for family (accounts you add by hand keep at most their last 3 digits).
• Your investing-profile answers (goals, timeline, comfort with risk, age range, emergency savings, debt, employer match and similar).
• Short notes the AI guide saves between conversations, listed on your Account page where you can delete any or all of them: goals, dates and decisions. Dollar amounts and account numbers are taken out before a note is saved. An advisor working in your account never sees or changes them.
• For advisors and their clients: advisor notes, proposals, progress reports, model portfolios, and the advisor's own name for each client.
• Where introductions are offered: each introduction you send an advisor from Find a guide - the name you give, your message, what you choose to include (your mix by asset class in whole percents, your goals, a timeline range and where you are on Northwend's route - never amounts, holdings or account details), when you sent it, and the advisor's answer. Browsing Find a guide isn't recorded at all.

You don't have to use real numbers: an example portfolio and a "percentages only" mode work without any.

What we don't keep

• Uploaded files are read from a temporary copy that is deleted; the file is never stored.
• Pasted text is read by the app itself (not by AI) and isn't saved; only symbols, share counts, cost and cash are taken from it. A fund list pasted into the 401(k) menu decoder isn't saved at all - it stays in your current visit only.
• Screenshots you choose to have read (where that's offered) are not saved.
• Your brokerage username and password: Northwend never asks for them.
• Your AI chat messages are kept only for your current visit (in the app's memory) and are not saved to the database. Only the guide's own short notes are saved (see above).

Technical information

• To stop automated sign-ups, a SHA-256 hash of your internet (IP) address - not the address itself - is kept for one day when you sign up. Email-sending limits likewise keep only hashes, for one day.
• Repeated wrong passwords are counted per username (as a hash) for 15 minutes.
• How much AI your account used each month, per feature, so the monthly allowance can be applied (amounts only, not what was asked).
• When something breaks, the admin is emailed the kind of error and where in the code it happened - never your data, the error message, or your user ID. The full error details stay in the hosting provider's server log.
• Our hosting providers receive your IP address and browser details as part of serving the site and may keep them in their logs, under their own policies.
• Northwend uses no third-party analytics or tracking: Streamlit's usage statistics are turned off, and the website (northwend.app) runs no scripts.
• Feature counts. To learn whether features like the monthly walk help, Northwend counts in totals only, inside its own database - for example, how many people took a second monthly walk within 45 days of their first, how many wrote down on the Stress test what they'd do in a drop (never what they wrote), or what share of the funds pasted into the 401(k) menu decoder were recognised (for that, your settings keep three numbers - how many lists, funds and recognised funds - never the list or a fund's name). The counts are worked out by the app's code from what's already stored; nobody looks at one person's record to make them. A count is never about one person, is shown only for groups of 20 or more (and only on the admin page), and is never shared, sold or sent to the AI. You can leave yourself out at any time with Leave me out of feature counts on the Account page; you're then left out of every count, including ones about walks you took before.

3. How we use it

Only to run Northwend for you: to sign you in, store and show your portfolio, work out values and plans, answer your AI questions, let your advisor work with you (if you have one), send account emails, keep the service secure, and fix problems - and, in totals only, to learn whether features help (the feature counts in section 2, which you can leave yourself out of). We don't use your data for advertising, and we don't sell it.

4. Who it's shared with

We don't sell, rent or share your personal information for advertising or marketing. Northwend is free and isn't paid by anyone for what it shows.

It is shared only as needed to run the service, with:

Your advisor, if you have one, sees everything in your account except your notes to your future self, your monthly walks and your account map, which only you see (the account map is never emailed, and its PDF is only downloaded by you); you see your own portfolio, plan and the notes your advisor shares with you (not ones they mark private).

Introductions. Where introductions are offered, an advisor you write to from Find a guide sees only what you send: the name you give, your message and the parts you choose to include (above) - not your email, holdings, amounts or anything else in your account. Their answer is seen only by you. Sharing your full account with them is a separate choice you make afterwards, in two steps that say exactly what they would see; only then do they see your account as described above, including the name and email on it.

Who has looked at your account. Each time an advisor opens a page in a client's account, Northwend records who, which page and when - never what was on the page or any figure - and the client sees the list on their Account page ("Who has looked at your account", the last 90 days; their data download has all of it). An advisor never sees another advisor's visits. When a client agrees to share their account with an advisor (when they set up their login from the advisor's link; where introductions are offered, when they choose to share after an introduction; or - if sharing began another way, or before these records were kept - when they're asked once at sign-in and choose to keep sharing), or sharing ends (the client stops it, the advisor ends it, we unlink them on request, or an account is deleted), Northwend records it with the time and the exact words the client was shown. Section 7 says how long these records are kept.

The person who runs Northwend can see, on an admin page, only login details: username, email, role, when the account was made and last signed in, and locks - not your holdings, plans or answers - and the feature counts, as totals only. For an account without an email address (one an advisor or the admin made), the admin can reset the login without email by setting a temporary password, which is shown to them once - so it could also be used to sign in to that account. Every admin action (this one, resets, role changes, deletions, signing everyone out) is written to an admin action log: when, which admin, what was done and to which login - never holdings or figures. The log is kept for a year.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety. If Northwend is ever passed to someone else to run, we'll tell you first, and this policy will still apply to the information we already hold.

5. What's sent to the AI

When you use the AI guide, Northwend sends Anthropic:

• your investing-profile answers (the chat leaves out your "Other notes" box);
• your holdings: as tickers, fund names from market data, what each fund holds and each one's share of the portfolio in whole percents, with your mix and your own target mix - never dollar amounts, share counts, account names or numbers;
• what you type in the chat, and the guide's short notes from earlier conversations (goals, dates and decisions - dollar amounts and account numbers are taken out before a note is saved). A note to your future self is sent only when you ask the guide about that note, as part of your question.

An advisor's meeting talking points send the same profile and holdings summary, plus facts in percentages (how the portfolio and goal moved since the last review, which holdings were added or reduced, drift from target) - never dollar amounts or note text.

Reading screenshots is optional, offered only on some copies of the app, and the one exception to the above: the pictures you choose are sent whole, so the AI sees everything on them - including balances, account names and any account numbers on screen. You're asked first each time; only symbols, share counts, cost and cash are taken from what it reads, and the pictures aren't saved. Pasting or typing instead sends nothing to the AI.

A file's column names and kinds of cell ("text", "number") are sent only if you press "Let AI guess the columns" - never the values. Your email address is never sent to the AI.

Anthropic handles what it receives under its own commercial terms and privacy policy (at anthropic.com/legal): data sent through its API isn't used to train its models, and it's kept only for a limited time.

6. Cookies, Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control

• Northwend sets one cookie of its own, only if you tick "Stay signed in", to keep you signed in on that device. The hosting service may set cookies it needs to run the site.
• There are no advertising or tracking cookies and no third-party analytics.
• No cross-site tracking: we don't track you across other websites, and we don't allow third parties to collect personal information about your online activities over time and across other websites through Northwend.
• Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control: because Northwend doesn't track you, sell your data or share it for advertising, there's nothing for these signals to switch off - every visitor is treated the same, whether or not their browser sends one.

7. How long we keep it

What's kept only for a while is deleted by a nightly job; the rest stays until you delete it.

8. Your choices: see, correct, download, delete

• See and correct: your holdings, plan, profile answers, name, email and settings are all shown in the app, and you can change them there (Account, Profile, Plan and the holdings window). An advisor-managed client can ask their advisor, or us.
• Download: the Account page's "Export everything" downloads everything held for your account as spreadsheet (CSV) files, including the sharing and "who has looked" records and any introductions you sent or received. Passwords, sign-in tokens, internet address hashes, advisors' private notes and other accounts' data aren't included.
• Delete holdings: the Account page deletes all your holdings, cash, activity and value history (your goals, answers, notes and settings stay).
• Delete your account: the Account page deletes your account and everything in it. If an advisor manages your account, ask them or contact us, and we'll delete it; an advisor with clients contacts us so their clients aren't left without notice.
• If you used to have an advisor: deleting your account deletes everything that's yours - holdings, history, plan, answers, notes, settings and login. Your former advisor keeps only their own records about working with you: their notes, the proposals and progress reports they sent you, and the name and email they had for you, because advisers must keep records of their advice. They can't see your account once you've stopped sharing with them. The records of your consent to share and of advisors' visits to your account also stay, for 7 years (section 7): they hold who, when and the words you were shown, never figures.
• Anything else, or if you can't sign in: email support@northwend.app. We'll answer within 30 days, and usually much sooner. Whatever state you live in, you can ask us what we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it.
• Emails: Northwend sends no newsletters or marketing. Advisors can turn off the Monday summary on the Clients page. The monthly walk reminder is off unless you turn it on (Account page), and says only that it's time - no figures.
• Feature counts: turn on "Leave me out of feature counts" on the Account page to be left out of every count (see section 2).

9. Security

Passwords are stored as salted PBKDF2-SHA256 hashes (600,000 iterations); after 5 wrong passwords a username is locked for 15 minutes. Two-step sign-in is required for advisors and admins and available to everyone. The site is served over HTTPS. Uploads are deleted after reading and account numbers are cut to 3 digits. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting your information, we'll tell you without unreasonable delay, by email where we have your address and in the app, and as the law requires.

10. Where data is kept

Northwend is offered in the United States and its database is in the United States (Neon). The app is hosted by Streamlit Community Cloud today, and is moving to Render, in the United States. Some service providers may process data elsewhere under their own terms.

11. Changes to this policy

When this policy changes in a way that matters - what's stored, who it's shared with, what's sent to the AI - we update the effective date above and tell you in the app (in What's new, and when you next sign in) before the change applies to information we already hold.

12. Contact

Questions or requests: support@northwend.app.

The Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy and About and disclosures say the same thing in different detail; the app shows the same About text, under About.