Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Ferndesk is operated by Work Paragon LLC (“Ferndesk”, “we”, “us”), 1111b South Governors Ave, STE 34230, Dover, DE 19904, USA. You can reach us at [email protected].

This policy covers:

• our website, ferndesk.com;
• the Ferndesk dashboard, API and MCP server;
• help centers and help widgets that our customers run on Ferndesk; and
• emails and support conversations with us.

2. Our two roles

Privacy law gives a company one of two roles for each piece of personal data. Ferndesk has both, depending on whose data it is.

We are the controller for data about the people who use Ferndesk for our customers, and about visitors to our website. That means we decide why and how it is used. Examples: your Ferndesk account, billing details, messages you send our support team, and how you use our website and dashboard.

We are a processor (or “service provider”) for our customers’ content and for data about their end users. Our customer decides why and how it is used, and we process it on their behalf. Examples: the articles a company writes, the code and support tickets it connects, and the questions people ask in its help center.

For example: Acme uses Ferndesk for its help center. When Acme’s customer reads an article or asks the help center’s AI assistant a question, Acme is responsible for that data, and we store and process it for Acme. Acme’s own privacy policy applies to it.

If you are an end user of a company’s help center or widget and have a question about your data, please contact that company. If you contact us instead, we will pass your request to them and help them respond.

3. What we collect

3.1 Data we control

3.2 Data we process for our customers

In help centers and widgets, we measure usage with a random visitor ID kept in the browser’s local storage, not with a cookie. We store the page, searches, feedback and the visitor’s country. We use the IP address to limit abuse and to work out the country, and we do not store it with these usage events. Sign-in sessions for private help centers record the IP address and browser, to keep them secure.

We do not want special categories of personal data, such as health or biometric data. Customers should not upload it unless they have a lawful basis and have agreed it with us in writing.

4. How we use data, and our legal bases

The table covers data we control. For the EU and the rest of the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, it also shows the legal basis we rely on.

For data we process for our customers, we act only on their instructions, and the customer decides the legal basis.

We do not sell personal data. We do not make decisions with legal or similarly significant effects about you based solely on automated processing.

5. AI and your content

Fern, AI answers in help centers and other AI features send the relevant parts of your content to AI model providers so they can produce a result. For example, Fern may send part of an article and a related support ticket to write an update.

We do not use your content to train AI models, and we do not let our AI providers train on it. This is how we enforce it:

• Our language-model, embedding and search-ranking requests go through OpenRouter. Our OpenRouter account is set so that providers may not train on our inputs. Every request we send also tells OpenRouter to route only to providers that do not train on the data they receive.
• Product videos are analyzed with Gemini models on Google Cloud Vertex AI, under a paid Google Cloud account. Under Google Cloud’s terms, Google does not use that content to train its models.

Some AI providers keep requests for a limited time, for example up to 30 days for abuse monitoring, before deleting them. They do not train on them.

AI output can be wrong. Fern prepares changes for the customer’s team to review, and they are published only when the customer publishes them.

We also use AI, through the same providers and with the same no-training settings, to help draft replies to messages sent to our support team.

6. Who we share data with

Subprocessors. We use service providers to run Ferndesk. We give each one only the data it needs to do its job for us. The current list is on our trust portal. At the date of this policy, they are:

New subprocessors. We update the list at least 30 days before a new subprocessor starts processing personal data. We also email workspace owners and post a note in our changelog. If you object, tell us within that period. If we cannot address your objection, you may cancel.

Integrations you connect. When you connect a service such as GitHub, a helpdesk or Slack, data moves between it and Ferndesk as you direct. That service’s own terms and privacy policy apply to it.

Our customers. If you are an end user of a help center, your data is available to the company that runs it.

Legal reasons. We may disclose data if the law requires it, such as a valid court order, or to protect the rights, safety or property of Ferndesk, our customers or others. Where the law allows, we will tell the affected customer first.

Business transfers. If Ferndesk is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, data may transfer to the new owner under this policy.

7. Cookies and analytics

This section covers ferndesk.com, including the dashboard at ferndesk.com/app.

Who is asked first. We use the country Cloudflare reports for your connection. If you are in the EU or the rest of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom (including Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man) or Switzerland, or we cannot tell where you are, you see a cookie banner. It does not block the page. You can choose Accept all, Reject all or Customize preferences, where you turn Analytics and Advertising on or off separately. Strictly necessary cookies are always on.

Before you choose, or if you reject. Only a cookieless version of Mixpanel runs. It sends anonymous page views and clicks. It stores nothing on your device, does not keep your IP address or work out your location from it, records no session replay, and is not linked to you or your account. We set no analytics or advertising cookies and do not load the Google Ads tag.

If you accept analytics, Mixpanel runs with its cookie, so visits can be connected over time and, in the dashboard, to your account. In the dashboard it also records session replays, with all text, typed input and media masked, so your content is not captured. We also set our attribution cookie. If you accept advertising, the dashboard loads the Google Ads tag.

Everyone else gets analytics and advertising on by default and can turn them off at any time.

Global Privacy Control. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, wherever you are, we treat it as a refusal of analytics and advertising: Mixpanel stays cookieless, the Google Ads tag does not load, the attribution cookie is not set, and this overrides any earlier choice. We do not show the banner, and the settings stay switched off.

Changing your mind. Use “Cookie settings” in the footer of ferndesk.com, in the dashboard’s account menu, or at the bottom of the sign-in and sign-up pages. One choice covers the website and the dashboard. When you turn a category off, we switch that tool off and delete its cookies.

How we remember your choice. We store it in a cookie called fd_consent for about six months, then ask again. We also ask again if we change how we use cookies. Each time you make or change a choice, we keep a record of it as proof: a random ID (the same one in the cookie), your choices, the version of our cookie rules, whether you chose on the website or in the dashboard, and the time. The record does not include your account, IP address or browser details. These records are not deleted automatically.

Other analytics that do not use cookies. When you are signed in to the dashboard, our servers also send Mixpanel a record of account events, such as signing up or publishing an article, linked to your account. This does not use cookies and does not depend on your cookie choice; we rely on legitimate interests (section 4). You can ask us to delete it (section 11). We also use Sentry to record errors in the dashboard. It keeps a replay of some sessions, with all text, inputs and media masked, to help us fix bugs.

Content from other companies. Some pages load content from other companies, which receive your IP address: YouTube, through its privacy-enhanced mode, which sets no cookies until you play a video; Cal.com on our demo booking page; and Senja, for customer testimonials and photos. Senja’s testimonial widget keeps a visitor ID in your browser, so it loads only when analytics is on. To show profile pictures, the dashboard and help centers may request an image from Gravatar using a scrambled (hashed) form of your email address.

Help centers and widgets do not load Mixpanel, the Google Ads tag or any other Ferndesk analytics tool, and do not show our cookie banner. They load fonts and icons from Google Fonts and jsDelivr, which receive your IP address as part of the request. A customer can add its own scripts to its help center, such as analytics. That customer is responsible for them.

Other ways to opt out: turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser, block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or manage Google’s ad personalization at adssettings.google.com.

8. Where we process data

Ferndesk is based in the United States. We host the Service and store data in the United States, mainly in the US East region. Some subprocessors, such as Cloudflare’s global network and AI providers, may process data in other countries. The table in section 6 shows where each provider processes data.

If you use Ferndesk from outside the United States, your data will be transferred to and processed in the United States.

9. How we protect data

• Encryption. Data is encrypted in transit with TLS. Our hosting, database and storage providers encrypt it at rest. We also encrypt the credentials you give us for integrations.
• Access control. Only people who need access to production systems have it, with the least privilege they need, and multi-factor authentication is required. Staff access to a customer’s workspace for support is limited to one hour at a time and logged.
• Monitoring. We log and monitor activity on our systems to detect problems and misuse.
• Secure development. Changes to our code go through pull requests and must pass automated tests and scans for security bugs and exposed secrets before they are merged. We monitor our dependencies for known vulnerabilities.
• Independent testing. An independent third party assesses our security, or performs a penetration test, at least once a year.
• Reporting a vulnerability. Email [email protected], also listed in our security.txt. Our Vulnerability Disclosure Policy explains how we handle reports.
• Incident response. We have an incident response process. If a security incident affects your personal data, we will tell affected customers without undue delay. We will also tell regulators and individuals where the law requires.

We are preparing for a SOC 2 audit. We do not yet have a SOC 2 report.

No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

10. How long we keep data

The first row of the table takes effect on October 24, 2026. Until then, the previous wording applies: we keep Customer Content for the duration of the subscription plus up to 30 days, or delete it sooner on request.

How deletion works:

• A workspace owner can delete a workspace in Settings → Danger Zone. This permanently deletes its content, files, search indexes, help centers and cached pages from our systems and from our providers, and cancels its subscription.
• Each person can delete their own account in Settings → Profile. If you wrote content in a workspace that others still use, that content stays and is credited to “Deleted user”.
• A customer can delete one of its help-center end users in the dashboard.
• Anyone can also ask us to delete data (see section 11).

Before deleting a workspace, you can download your help-center content in Settings → Export Data. This remains possible after a subscription ends.

11. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you, and get a copy in a portable format;
• correct it if it is wrong;
• delete it;
• restrict or object to how we use it;
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent;
• opt out of marketing emails, with the unsubscribe link in each one.

How to make a request. Use our privacy request form or email [email protected]. Each request gets a reference number and is tracked until it is closed.

Identity check. Before we act, we check that the request comes from you. Usually we ask you to reply from the email address on your account. We only ask for more information if that is not enough.

Timing. We respond within one month, or within 45 days for requests under California law. If the law lets us take longer for a complex request, we will tell you why within that first period.

If we cannot help. If we decline a request, we will explain why. You can reply to ask us to reconsider.

End users of help centers. If your data is in a customer’s help center, the customer controls it. We will forward your request to them and help them respond.

California residents. The categories of personal information we collect, where it comes from, why we use it, and who we share it with are set out in sections 3 to 6. We do not sell personal information. Using the Google Ads tag to measure ads may count as “sharing” under California law, and you can opt out by turning advertising off in “Cookie settings” or by sending a Global Privacy Control signal. You can use an authorized agent to make a request; we will ask them for proof of your authorization. We will not treat you differently for using your rights.

Complaints. If you are in the EU, the UK or another country with a data protection authority, you can complain to that authority. We would appreciate the chance to help first.

12. Children

Ferndesk is for businesses. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16. If we learn that we have, we will delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. For material changes, we will give at least 30 days’ notice before they take effect, by email to workspace owners. Each version shows its effective date on this page.

14. Contact us

Work Paragon LLC (Ferndesk)
1111b South Governors Ave, STE 34230
Dover, DE 19904, USA
[email protected]

To exercise your privacy rights, use the privacy request form.