Your data stays under your control.

Who is responsible for your data

UC Journal Companion is operated by MARK COWAN DIGITAL LTD. MARK COWAN DIGITAL LTD is the controller of personal information processed through this service.

This notice explains how information is used when you create an account, use the Companion, save Claim Context or drafts, manage your subscription, give product feedback, optionally share new Companion conversations for product improvement, request an export or deletion, or contact us about your data.

Privacy summary

This is a private preparation workspace. You write here first, review the output, and decide what to copy manually into your official Universal Credit journal.

Do not enter your Universal Credit login details, National Insurance number, bank details, card details, full home address, full date of birth or unnecessary private identifiers into this app.

What the app may process or store

Your account may include your email address, account settings, Privacy Mode and Safety Mode settings, subscription metadata, historical Work Search Logger entries, Claim Context, saved drafts where you choose to save them, product feedback and limited conversation-derived state needed for the Companion to operate.

The Work Search Logger has been removed. Previously saved entries are retained and remain available through your account data export. Claim Context is saved because its purpose is to help the Companion understand your circumstances, commitments, work plan, availability, restrictions and relevant work-coach instructions.

Where processing is necessary to provide the service you have requested, MARK COWAN DIGITAL LTD processes that information for the performance of the service. Additional protections apply where information is especially sensitive.

Why we use information and our legal bases

Account, authentication, subscription and ordinary service information is processed where necessary to provide the service you request, manage our contract with you, meet legal obligations and keep the service secure.

Companion messages can sometimes include special-category information, for example health, disability, ethnicity or religion. Where that information is necessary to help you exercise or understand rights or obligations under social-security or social-protection law, the additional condition used is Article 9(2)(b) UK GDPR together with paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 2018.

If you choose to include criminal-offence or court-related personal information in the ordinary Companion service, it is processed only where relevant and necessary for that same social-security or social-protection purpose. Unnecessary criminal-offence information should not be entered.

Optional Conversation Sharing uses consent as its legal basis. Explicit consent is used for special-category information, and consent under Schedule 1 paragraph 29 of the Data Protection Act 2018 is used for criminal-offence information you choose to include in an eligible shared conversation. You can withdraw that consent by turning sharing off.

Temporary Companion state

The Companion may keep encrypted conversation-derived state for a limited period so that an active conversation can continue normally. This is separate from saved drafts, Claim Context and optional product-review copies.

Temporary Companion state is not kept indefinitely and is subject to the service's expiry and deletion process.

Strictly necessary cookies

The app uses session cookies to keep you signed in and protect access to your private workspace. These cookies are necessary for the account service to work.

The app does not currently use analytics, advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. If that changes, this notice and any required consent controls will be reviewed before non-essential cookies are enabled.

Privacy Mode

Privacy Mode means eligible generated journal wording is not added to your saved drafts unless you choose to save it where that option is available.

Privacy Mode does not mean that no processing or temporary service state takes place. Account data, Claim Context, temporary Companion state and other information needed to provide the service may still be processed as described in this notice.

Optional Conversation Sharing is separate from Privacy Mode. If you deliberately enable sharing, eligible new conversations may also be copied into the separate protected product-review dataset described below.

Optional Conversation Sharing

Optional Conversation Sharing is OFF by default. Paying for UC Journal Companion, accepting the Terms of Use or using the Companion does not turn it on.

If you choose to turn it on, new Companion conversations started after sharing is enabled may be copied into a separate protected product-review dataset so that we can identify problems and improve UC Journal Companion.

Turning sharing on during an existing conversation does not make that conversation shareable. Sharing begins with the next new conversation. Earlier conversations are not copied retrospectively.

Optional Conversation Sharing is based on your consent. Because conversations may contain sensitive information that you choose to provide, such as information about health, disability, ethnicity or religion, explicit consent is also used where special-category personal information is included in optional sharing. The same opt-in consent covers criminal-offence or court-related personal information that you choose to include in a shared conversation.

What an optional review copy contains

The review copy contains the visible messages you send in eligible Companion conversations and the visible Companion replies shown to you.

It does not deliberately include unsent text in the message box, audio recordings, hidden system prompts or reasoning, source library chunks, a separate copy of your Claim Context, billing or payment-card information, advertising identifiers or hidden tracking data.

Please avoid including unnecessary information about other people or unnecessary information about criminal convictions, alleged offences or related security measures.

Review access and security

Optional review conversations are encrypted before storage. They are not visible to ordinary users or other subscribers.

Access is restricted to authorised owner-level product-review access protected by additional authentication. Access to protected review information is recorded in an audit trail.

Review retention and turning sharing off

Shared conversations are kept only for as long as reasonably needed to review them and improve UC Journal Companion, and for no longer than 90 days. They may be deleted sooner once reviewed or no longer needed. Reviewing or tagging a conversation does not restart the retention period.

You can turn Optional Conversation Sharing off in your account at any time. Turning it off stops future collection and triggers deletion of retained review conversations associated with that sharing consent.

Turning sharing on again starts a new consent period. It does not restore previously deleted review conversations and does not retrospectively collect conversations from an earlier period.

Deleted information may remain temporarily in protected backups until those backups rotate or are replaced. It is kept out of normal active use, and if a backup is restored, applicable withdrawal and deletion controls must be reapplied before protected review information is returned to active use.

Saved drafts and Claim Context

Saved draft content and Claim Context content are encrypted before storage.

Claim Context is user-owned background information. It is not an official DWP source, not official proof, and not sent to DWP by this app.

AI and service providers

The app uses AI to help understand, organise and rewrite wording. AI can make mistakes, misunderstand unclear information or miss context. Read all output carefully before copying anything.

UC Journal Companion also uses service providers for functions such as hosting, database and authentication services, AI processing, email delivery, billing and, where used, speech transcription. Relevant provider and international-transfer safeguards are reviewed as part of the service's data-protection controls.

The app may use stored public guidance or source material where available. Source material may not cover every Universal Credit situation, and guidance can change.

Billing data

Billing is handled through Stripe. Card details are handled by Stripe and are not stored by this app. The app stores subscription metadata so it can decide whether your account has paid tool access.

Subscription cancellation is managed separately through Billing and the Stripe Customer Portal. A deletion request does not automatically cancel a Stripe subscription.

Download my data

Download a JSON export of selected app data linked to your logged-in account. The export can include account data, settings, subscription metadata, historical work-search records, Claim Context, saved drafts and supported Optional Conversation Sharing data where it is retained.

This self-service download is a convenient account-data export. It is not necessarily a complete response to every data-protection rights request.

Treat your export as private. Do not paste the export JSON into chat, upload it publicly or share it casually.

Your data-protection rights

Depending on the processing involved and the legal basis used, you may have rights to access, correct, erase or restrict use of your personal information, object to certain processing, receive certain information in a portable format, and withdraw consent where processing relies on consent.

If you want to exercise a data-protection right or request information that is not included in the self-service download, contact journalcompanion@outlook.com.

Data-protection complaints

If you are unhappy with how MARK COWAN DIGITAL LTD has handled your personal information, you can make a data-protection complaint by contacting journalcompanion@outlook.com.

Data-protection complaints will be acknowledged within 30 days, investigated appropriately without undue delay, and you will be told the outcome.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Subscription cancellation

Subscription cancellation and payment management are handled through Billing and the Stripe Customer Portal.

Terms and support

Read the Terms of Use for the app boundaries, billing wording, cancellation wording, refund wording and user responsibility wording.

Notice version

Privacy Notice version: 2026-09-27

Effective from: 27 September 2026

This notice may be updated when the service or law changes. If a materially different use of personal information is introduced, appropriate notice will be provided before that processing begins and fresh consent will be obtained where required.