Privacy is not the same as secrecy
When people ask whether a therapy journal is private, they are usually asking two separate questions: who can see what I write, and what happens to the data I generate. Both matter, and they are worth thinking through clearly.
Who can see your journal?
In Betterjournal, the answer is: only you, until you choose otherwise.
Your clinician cannot read your journal entries, your check-ins, or your homework responses unless you explicitly share them. There is no passive monitoring. Nothing is sent automatically.
Betterjournal is opt-in by design. You share nothing unless you choose to share it, entry by entry. Your journal is yours.
What about the data you generate?
Betterjournal stores all data on Canadian servers. It does not sell data, share data with advertisers, or use journal content to train AI models. Each client-clinician pair has an isolated encryption key; if consent is revoked, the key is rotated and existing data becomes permanently unreadable.
A note on generic apps
Generic journaling apps like Day One, Notion, or Apple Notes are not designed for a therapeutic context. They do not allow a clinician to assign homework. They do not support selective sharing. They are governed by the terms of service of large technology companies, often with US-based servers, a meaningful difference under Canadian privacy law.
Your journal, your terms
Private by default. Client-controlled sharing. Always free for clients in Canada.
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