Privacy Policy

Who we are and what this covers

Tribe & Tale makes a personalized children's book from the words and photos of the people who love a child. This policy explains what information we collect to do that, what we do with it, who else handles it, and the choices you have.

It covers our website, the story-building tools, the private links we send to contributors, and the books and digital extras we produce.

What we collect

Three kinds of people appear in a book, and we collect different things about each.

• The host (the adult who creates the book): your name, email address, how you are related to the child, a few personality traits, an optional photo, an optional story idea, your shipping address, and your order details. Card details are entered with our payment provider and never reach our servers.
• The child: everything about the child is entered by the host, an adult. This is the child's name or nickname, age or stage (including 'on the way'), pronouns, a description of their appearance, and an optional photo. A child never has an account and never uses the service.
• Contributors (family and friends the host invites): the name they go by, how they relate to the child, their answers to a few short questions, an optional photo of themselves, and, if the host sends the invite by text message, a phone number the host provided. Contributors do not create accounts; they use a private link.
• Technical information: basic usage events (such as which screens are visited) and standard server logs, used to keep the service working and to understand where people get stuck.

How we use it

We use this information to:

• create the illustrations and story text for your book, show you a proof, and print and deliver the book you approve;
• send the emails and invitations the service needs (for example, invites to contributors and 'your draft book is ready' notices);
• check what people write for content we won't put in a children's book;
• process payment and handle support requests; and
• find and fix problems and keep the service secure.

AI services

Illustrations and story text are created with the help of AI services. To do that, we send those services the photos and written descriptions that are needed for a page, such as a contributor's photo and a description of the child, along with instructions for the scene. We also use an AI service to review written answers and finished pictures for quality and suitability.

The chat assistant on the website (the "Ask us" button) sends the question you type to Anthropic so it can be answered. We do not keep the text of what you type: we keep only a count of questions and what they cost. Please do not type personal details into it.

We do not use your photos or answers to build or train our own models. The AI providers receive this information through their business services and handle it under their own terms.

Who else handles your information

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with the companies that help us run the service, and only for that purpose:

• Supabase: database and sign-in.
• Cloudflare: storage of uploaded and generated images, and network security.
• Vercel: hosting.
• fal.ai and Anthropic: AI image and text generation, and content and quality checks.
• Resend: sending email.
• Twilio: sending text-message invitations, when the host chooses to send one.
• Stripe: payment processing.
• PostHog: product analytics.
• Our print and fulfilment partner: the finished book's pages, and the name and shipping address needed to deliver it.

If you were invited as a contributor

A host invited you to add a part to a child's book. What you enter, including your photo if you add one, is used to include you in that one book and to produce it. The host who created the book sees what you wrote and the illustrations made from it, and the book may be printed and given to the child's family.

You can ask us to remove what you provided at any time by writing to [email protected] from the email or phone number the invitation reached, or by asking the host.

How long we keep it, and deleting it

We keep a book's information until you ask us to delete it. We do not currently delete books on an automatic timer.

A host can delete a book's data from their dashboard at any time. If the book has not been paid for, everything is deleted. If it has been paid for, we delete the names, photos, written answers and generated images, and keep only the order and payment record that we need for our accounts and for the print job. A book that has already been sent to the printer can't be erased until it has been produced; contact us and we will take care of it.

If people in your tribe have paid for their own copy of the book (a digital PDF or wallpapers), we tell you before you delete. By default we then keep just the files they paid for, available only to them through their own link, for 60 days and then remove them. Their names, photos and written answers are erased straight away, like everything else. You can instead choose to delete those files too, and the people who paid are told they are no longer available.

Because every book is made to order, deleting a paid book's data does not entitle you to a refund.

Your choices

You can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by emailing [email protected]. We will confirm who you are before we act, because we would not want anyone else to be able to see or erase your information.

You can also decline to add a photo, and you can leave optional questions blank.

Security

Information is sent over encrypted connections, uploaded photos and generated images are kept in private storage that is only reachable through short-lived links, and a host can only open their own books. No system is perfectly secure, so we cannot promise absolute security, but we take care to limit who can see your information.

Children

The service is for adults. Children do not have accounts and do not use it. Information about a child is provided by the adult creating the book, and that adult is responsible for having the right to provide it.

If you believe a child has used the service directly or has given us information themselves, please tell us at [email protected] and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page when what we do changes, and we will change the date at the top. If a change affects how we use information you have already given us, we will tell you before it takes effect.

Contact us

Questions, requests and concerns: [email protected].