Privacy
Their Stories Live On is where a family keeps its stories: told, recorded, and passed on. This page says what we collect, why, who helps us run the service, and what you can do about it. It is run by Jared Smythe (sole proprietor), and you can reach us at [email protected].
What we collect
- Your account: your email address, the name your family sees, and, if you give it, the year you were born (so children under 13 are kept to reading and listening).
- What you and your family add: stories, recordings of your voice, photos, notes and questions, and family tree information, which can include living relatives.
- What it takes to run the service: when you sign in, what plan you're on, and how much AI help each archive uses. We don't sell data, show ads, or use advertising trackers.
- Payments, when billing begins, are handled by the payment provider; we never see your full card number.
Who can see what
- The service is never public on the open web, and search engines don't index it.
- By default, a story can be seen by members of Their Stories Live On, so relatives in other archives can find shared family. You can make any story visible only to your family's archive, and an archive's admins can make the whole archive private.
- Recordings and photos follow the story they belong to: a private story's recordings and photos are private too.
- Our staff don't look at private content. Before launch, we'll add a way for an archive's owner to let us in to help fix a problem, with every such access logged.
How AI is used
When you tell a story, an AI service writes down what was said and suggests who, when and where. Nothing is added to your archive until you confirm it. We send these services only what's needed for that request. We use AI services whose terms don't allow training on customer content, and we keep their retention as short as they allow. [To confirm against each vendor's terms before launch.] Today this is Groq; later it may include Anthropic.
Who helps us run it
- Supabase: our database, sign-in and file storage, in the United States (Virginia).
- Cloudflare: hosting the app and handling our domain's email routing.
- Resend: sending sign-in codes and invitations.
- Groq: speech-to-text and story suggestions, as above.
Children
Accounts are for people 13 and older. A child under 13 can take part only as a read-and-listen viewer, invited by a parent or guardian under the parent's plan, with the parent's consent. We collect only a child's name and year of birth. A parent can see, change or delete their child's account at any time by writing to us.
Information about other people
Family stories are about other people, including living relatives. If something in an archive is about you and you want it corrected or removed, ask the archive's admins, or write to us and we'll help.
Keeping and deleting
- Originals of recordings and photos are kept as uploaded, so a family's archive lasts.
- You can delete your account from your profile. Your sign-in, email and name are deleted. By default, the stories, recordings and photos you shared stay with your family, shown as from "a former member". If you want those removed too, write to us and we will remove them.
- If a subscription ends, nobody on it can see the archive. We keep it so the family can return or export it.
Your choices and rights
You can see and change what you've added, change who can see each story, export your archive (coming before launch), and delete your account. Depending on where you live, you may have more rights (for example under GDPR or California law). Write to us to use them.
Security
Access is checked by the database itself for every request: who you are, which archive you're in, and what that story allows. Connections are encrypted. If we ever learn of a breach affecting your data, we'll tell you.
Changes
We'll post changes here, and tell you in the app or by email if they matter.