For sexual-wellness apps, cycle and symptom trackers, and connected-toy companion apps

Sixty days from discovery. The clock does not wait for the lawyer.

Bellwether puts every notice the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule asks for on a dated line: the people affected, the FTC at the same time when 500 or more are hit, the media in each state with 500 or more, substitute notice when people cannot be reached, and the client when you are the vendor. Under 500 goes in the yearly log, with its due date.

Open the demo See pricing

Opens in this browser with an invented tracker app already in it. No account, no email address, nothing installed.

Bellwether with its example records in it

Open the free demo →

The problem

An ad network you never told users about is a breach.

Apps that hold health records outside HIPAA — sexual-wellness apps, cycle trackers, toy companion apps — are covered by the FTC’s rule. When health data leaks, including through sharing users were never told about, notices go out no later than 60 calendar days after discovery. With 500 or more affected, the FTC is told at the same time; fewer, and it goes in a yearly log.

60 days

the latest the notices may go, counted from the day the breach was discovered.

16 CFR 318.4 →

500

or more affected, and the FTC is told at the same time as the people.

16 CFR 318.4 →

Yearly log

for breaches under 500, sent to the FTC after the year ends.

16 CFR 318.4 →

Will not let a notice quietly run out of time.

Every notice has its deadline, and a notice that is late, or due within ten days, is urgent. A breach cannot be written down without how many people it touched. The notice’s wording is checked against the five things the rule requires. Nothing is marked sent without the day it went.

How it works

Breaches, notices, the log

Log the breach

When it was discovered and when it happened, who is affected by state, how many cannot be reached, and what the notice says.

Send each notice

People, FTC, media per state, substitute notice, the client. Each on its own dated line.

Keep the yearly log

Every breach under 500 for the year, with the date the log is due to the FTC.

What it will never do

It keeps the clock. It sends no notice.

Bellwether tells no one. It shows what is owed, to whom, and by when.

No emails sent.You send every notice. Bellwether records the day it went.

No user data.It counts people by state; it holds no records about them.

It is not a lawyer.A breach goes to one fast. Bellwether is the clock beside them.

It never touches a payment.The subscription is for software.

Pricing

Priced per company

Less than an hour of breach counsel a year.

Most apps

One company

$15/month

One app company holding health data.

The 60-day clock per breach
Every notice on a dated line
Yearly FTC log

One company, yearly

$150/year

The same, two months free.

Everything in One company
Notice wording checked
Export for your lawyer

Subscription. Your bank statement says Bellwether Software. Refunded in full on request within 30 days. Your licence key is emailed to you within two working days of payment.

Checkout is our own bitcoin server, not a card processor — nobody we had to apply to and nobody who can close the account. The button takes you straight to it. Give your email address there — that is where your key is sent.

Questions

The ones we actually get asked

Does sharing with an ad network count?

The FTC treats a disclosure users were never told about as a breach of security under this rule. Bellwether logs it like any other.

When do media get told?

When 500 or more residents of a state are affected. Bellwether works it out state by state.

What if we are the vendor?

A service provider tells its client and gets an acknowledgment. Bellwether keeps that line too.

Is this legal advice?

No. It is the clock you wish you had started.

What do I actually get when I pay?

The demo on this page is the whole program, running on invented records. Paying gets you a licence key — one line of text, emailed to the address you give at checkout within two working days. Paste it into the program and from then on it keeps your own records. Until then, nothing you type into it is kept.

The key is checked inside the page, on your own machine. It never calls us, so there is still no account and nothing about your business goes anywhere. If you ever stop paying, your records stay exactly where they are, read-only, and Export still hands you every one of them.

Open the demo before the next incident

The invented tracker app has an analytics leak of 1,240 people with eight days left and nobody told, a lost laptop whose 37 people were told late, and a vendor breach the client never acknowledged. Bellwether puts the urgent ones at the top.

Open the demo See pricing