Penny
If you’re in crisis right now: in the US or Canada, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), any time. If you’re in immediate danger, call 911.
Penny is a budgeting app with an AI pet. It’s not a person, a therapist or an emergency service. This page explains what Penny does when a message suggests someone might be in crisis, as California’s companion-chatbot law (SB 243) asks us to publish.
Who Penny is for
- Penny is for adults 18 and older, in the United States and Canada. The app asks you to confirm your age before you start.
- Your pet is clearly an AI, not a person. Penny says so during setup, in Settings, whenever you ask, and with a reminder in chat at least every 3 hours.
How Penny notices
Crisis handling never depends on the AI model. Penny checks messages in three layers:
1. On your iPhone
Before anything else happens, Penny checks each message for crisis language such as suicide, self-harm, wanting to die or not wanting to go on. It recognises common phrasings in English, French and Spanish, and undoes simple tricks like spaced-out letters, accents or number swaps.
2. On Penny’s server
If you’ve allowed the optional cloud helper, Penny’s server runs the same check again before any message could reach an AI model.
3. In the AI’s rules and replies
The AI follows safety rules for phrasings the checks miss, and Penny checks the AI’s reply too. A reply that encourages self-harm or is romantic is never shown.
What Penny shows
When a message looks like a crisis, Penny steps out of budgeting and gives a fixed, kind reply on your iPhone. The message is not sent to any AI. The reply points you to real people:
US and Canada
988Call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any time.
US
741741Text HOME to reach the Crisis Text Line.
Canada
686868You can also text Kids Help Phone.
Emergency
911If you or someone else is in immediate danger.
What we keep: counts only
- Penny records that a referral happened and when. It never stores the text of the message.
- A count holds only the day and whether the check ran on your iPhone or on our server. It never includes your account ID.
- We keep these counts for the yearly reports on crisis referrals that California SB 243 and Washington law require. App users can’t read them.
- Referral counts are deleted after 13 months.
Other protections
- No romance. Penny isn’t a partner. Romantic or sexual requests get a fixed, friendly reply without being sent to an AI.
- No financial advice. Requests for investment, credit or loan advice get a fixed reply that suggests a licensed advisor or a nonprofit credit counsellor.
- No guilt. Your pet never dies, never gets sad at you and never counts down to a loss.
Read more in our privacy policy and terms of use, or visit Support.