Terms of Use
Using Ask Sheldon responsibly
Effective Date: May 8, 2026
Important: AskSheldon is for support and information only — not a substitute for professional mental health care or medical diagnosis. By using either product, you agree to these Terms. Questions? Email us at [email protected]
Welcome to Ask Sheldon! These Terms of Use ("Terms") apply to our neurodiversity assessment platform, created by The Ask Sheldon Team ("we", "us", or "our"). We offer this as a Freemium service designed by neurodivergent individuals, for neurodivergent individuals.
Please read these Terms carefully. By downloading, opening, or using Ask Sheldon, you're agreeing to these Terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the app.
🤝 Our Commitment to You
We understand the unique challenges neurodivergent individuals face with digital privacy and trust. Ask Sheldon is built with privacy-first principles, transparent practices, and community feedback at its core.
Important: Ask Sheldon is for support and information only. It's not a replacement for professional mental health care.
Age Requirements
- • You must be at least 13 years old
- • Some countries require you to be 16+
- • If you're under 18, a parent/guardian should review these terms
Account Responsibility
- • Keep your password safe
- • You're responsible for activity on your account
- • Tell us immediately if someone else uses your account
✓ What You Can Do
- Use Ask Sheldon for personal mental health support
- Chat with Sheldon, track your mood, and use journal features
- Give us feedback to help improve the app
✗ What You Cannot Do
- Use the app for anything illegal or harmful
- Try to hack, reverse engineer, or break the app
- Share content that's abusive, discriminatory, or inappropriate
- Use the app for commercial purposes without permission
Your Content
You own your journal entries, mood logs, and other content you create. By using Ask Sheldon, you give us permission to:
- • Store and display your content to provide app features
- • Use anonymous, aggregated data to improve Sheldon's responses
- • Format your content appropriately for different devices
Our Content
Ask Sheldon's design, features, and technology belong to us. You can use them through the app, but you can't copy, modify, or redistribute them.
⚠️ Not Medical Advice
Ask Sheldon, including our AI chatbot Sheldon, provides information and support only. It is NOT a replacement for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.No AI system, however advanced, can replace the nuanced understanding and professional judgment of trained healthcare providers.
🤖 Understanding AI Limitations
Sheldon, while designed with care for the neurodivergent community, has inherent limitations as an AI system:
- • Limited Empathy: Cannot truly understand or feel your experiences like a human can
- • Pattern-Based Responses: May miss nuances that a trained professional would catch
- • No Professional Training: Lacks the years of education and supervised practice of therapists
- • Context Limitations: May not understand complex personal histories or trauma
- • Crisis Handling: Cannot provide emergency intervention or immediate professional help
About Sheldon (AI Chatbot)
- • Responses are generated by AI technology
- • May not always be accurate or complete
- • Not suitable for crisis situations
- • Cannot replace human professional judgment
- • Limited by current AI capabilities
- • Designed to complement, not replace, professional care
When to Seek Professional Help
- • Any mental health concerns or symptoms
- • Questions about medication or treatment
- • Suicidal thoughts or crisis situations
- • Significant life challenges or trauma
- • Need for formal diagnosis or assessment
- • When Sheldon's responses don't feel helpful
🎯 How Sheldon CAN Help
While limited compared to human professionals, Sheldon is designed to:
- • Provide 24/7 availability for basic emotional support
- • Help you organize thoughts and feelings between professional sessions
- • Offer neurodivergent-informed perspectives and coping strategies
- • Guide you toward appropriate professional resources
- • Support daily check-ins and mood tracking
- • Provide educational information about neurodiversity
🚨 Crisis Support
If you're in crisis, having thoughts of self-harm, or experiencing a mental health emergency, please contact emergency services (911), your local crisis hotline, or go to the nearest emergency room immediately.Ask Sheldon is not equipped for crisis intervention and cannot provide emergency mental health services.
Ask Sheldon may link to or use services from other companies (like Firebase for secure data storage). These companies have their own terms and privacy policies.
We're not responsible for what these other companies do, but we try to work only with trusted partners who share our commitment to user privacy and security.
Ask Sheldon needs an internet connection to work properly. We're not responsible if the app doesn't work because you don't have Wi-Fi or mobile data.
You're responsible for any data charges from your mobile carrier or internet provider when using Ask Sheldon.
App Updates
- • We may release updates to improve Ask Sheldon
- • Some updates might be required to continue using the app
- • We'll try to make updates smooth and beneficial
Service Changes
- • We may modify features or add new ones
- • In rare cases, we might pause or discontinue the service
- • We'll try to give advance notice of major changes
We provide Ask Sheldon "as is" and do our best to make it helpful and reliable. However, like any technology service, we can't guarantee it will always work perfectly.
Legal limitation: To the extent allowed by law, we're not responsible for indirect damages, lost profits, or other consequential losses that might result from using Ask Sheldon.
These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. For users in India, applicable Indian law also applies where required.
For any legal disputes, we'll first try to resolve them through friendly discussion. If that doesn't work, disputes will be handled in the courts of England and Wales.
Users in the European Economic Area have rights under the GDPR. Users in India have rights under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (DPDPA). Please contact [email protected] to exercise any of these rights.
We may update these Terms as Ask Sheldon evolves. We'll notify you of important changes through the app or email.
Continued use of Ask Sheldon after changes means you accept the updated Terms.
🛡️ Privacy-First Design Principles
We're building Ask Sheldon with privacy as a fundamental right, not a luxury. Most of your data stays on your device, and we're working toward complete browser-based AI processing.
- • Local-First: Most features work without sending data to our servers
- • Automatic Deletion: Conversations and test results are automatically deleted monthly (moving to weekly)
- • Minimal Collection: We only collect what's essential for core functionality
- • Your Control: Delete your data anytime, disable tracking, or use anonymously
Current Protections
- • Browser-based AI processing
- • Encrypted data transmission
- • Limited server-side storage
- • Regular data purging
Future Enhancements
- • Zero-knowledge architecture
- • Complete local AI processing
- • Advanced anonymization
- • 7-day auto-deletion
Clinicians on the SheldonDx platform may optionally connect their Google Calendar account. By connecting your Google Calendar, you authorise Ask Sheldon / SheldonDx to:
- Create new calendar events on your primary Google Calendar when appointments are booked via SheldonDx
- Generate a Google Meet link for each video consultation appointment
We do not read, list, modify, or delete your existing calendar events. Your Google OAuth tokens are stored server-side in encrypted form and are never shared with third parties.
You may disconnect Google Calendar at any time from SheldonDx → Settings → Google Calendar → Disconnect, which immediately revokes and deletes the stored credentials. You can also revoke access via your Google Account at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
This integration is governed by Google's Terms of Service in addition to these Terms.
Questions About These Terms?
We're here to help clarify anything about using Ask Sheldon responsibly.
Contact Us