Privacy

Last updated: August 1, 2026

This page explains how the Council of Wisdom™, a product of The Marcus Institute™ owned by Keith David Whalen, handles your information. The short version: the app keeps no record of your sessions unless you sign in and choose to save one to your private archive.

Using the chamber without an account

You do not need an account to use the council. Without one, your subject, question, documents, and the council’s answer live only in your browser tab. Refreshing or closing the page clears them, and the only copy that persists is the file you choose to download.

If you create an account

Signing in lets you save a deliberation to a private archive. We then store your email address (or, with Google sign-in, the account details Google shares with us) and, for each deliberation you choose to save, its subject, chosen domain, seated thinkers, your question, the council’s answer and the names of any documents you attached. The document files themselves are never uploaded. Your archive is readable only by you: database rules tie every record to your account. You can delete any deliberation at any time from the archive page, and deletion is immediate and permanent.

Documents you attach

Documents are opened and read inside your browser. The extracted text — not the original file — is added to your question so the council can consider it. Exports reference your documents by name rather than repeating their contents.

What is sent onward

To produce a response, your question and any extracted document text are sent to the AI service that powers the council. If you use the microphone, the audio you record is sent to that same service to be turned into text. This is done for the single purpose of answering you. The AI provider processes the request under its own terms; we do not use your material to train models, and we do not sell or share it.

Cookies and tracking

The app sets no advertising or tracking cookies. Our hosting provider keeps standard, short lived server logs for reliability and security.

Sensitive information

Because your material passes to an AI service, please do not paste or upload highly sensitive personal information — health records, government identifiers, or another person’s confidential details — unless you are comfortable with that. See Trust & Safety for related guidance.

Your rights

Since we hold no accounts and store no sessions, there is normally nothing for us to retrieve, correct, or delete on your behalf. If you believe we hold information about you, write to info@themarcusaureliusinstitute.com and we will respond.