Privacy Policy

Who we are

A Story is operated by A Story Technologies, Inc., a Delaware corporation based in the United States ("A Story," "we," "us"). We are responsible for the personal information described in this policy. You can reach us at any time at contact@astoryapp.com.

This policy covers the A Story app for iPhone, our website at astoryapp.com, and the emails and printed books that come from them.

Information we collect

We collect the following categories of information:

• Your account. Your name, email address and password, or, if you sign in with Apple, Google or Facebook, the name and email address that service shares with us (Apple may give us a private relay address instead of your real one). We never receive your password for those services, and we never post anything to them. You may also add a photo, your birth year and other details about yourself, and a phone number if you choose to.
• The memories themselves. The audio recordings, transcripts, written memories, photographs and stories that you and your storyteller share, and the questions family members send each other. This is the heart of what we hold, and we treat it as highly sensitive personal information.
• Your family tree. The relatives you add, with what you know about them (names, relationships, years, places, photos), and the email addresses of the people you invite.
• Calls. When you talk with A Story or with family through the app, the audio of the call and its transcript, and when and how long the call was.
• Your phone. The tokens Apple gives us so the daily call can ring and a question from family can reach you, a random identifier the app makes for each install, your time zone (so a call rings at the hour you chose), the app version and the kind of phone. We do not collect your location, your contacts or the advertising identifier.
• Purchases. Plans bought in the app are paid to Apple; we receive which plan you have and when it renews, never your card. Printed books bought on our website are paid through Stripe, and we receive your name, email and the address the book is shipped to. We do not collect or store full payment card numbers.
• Usage information. The app sends us a record of which features are used (for example "a memory was saved" or "a call started"), as counts and short labels, with the app version, the kind of phone and the account it came from. These records never contain what anyone said, wrote or photographed. They go to our own database, not to an advertising or analytics company. You can turn them off in the app under Privacy ("Help improve A Story").
• Crash reports. When the app crashes, a report of the crash (the error, the app version and the phone model, with your account id so two reports from one phone can be told apart) goes to Sentry, a crash-reporting service. It carries no name, no email and nothing you recorded or wrote. The same "Help improve A Story" switch turns it off.
• What you tell us. Messages you send to support, feedback you give in the app, and reports you make about content.

How we use your information

We use your information to run A Story: to hold the conversations, build the memory cards, family tree and life timeline, ring the daily call, tell you when family asks you something, produce and ship your printed book, and host your archive. We also use it to communicate with you, take payments, provide support, keep the service safe and working, act on reports, and meet our legal obligations. We use usage counts and crash reports to find what is broken and what is used. We do not sell your personal information or your family's stories, and we do not use them for advertising.

Your stories, your control

Your recordings, transcripts, photographs and stories are private to the storyteller and the people they choose to share them with. The storyteller always decides where a memory goes; nothing is shared without their permission, and nothing is ever public. We will never sell your family's stories, show them to advertisers, or use them to train artificial-intelligence models. They are not a product.

Not even our team. People at A Story do not read, listen to or look at your memories, photos, calls or letters. The only exceptions are when you ask us to, for example to fix something; when someone reports content and we must review it; or when the law requires it. Access for those reasons is limited to the few people who need it.

How we use artificial intelligence

A Story uses artificial intelligence to hold guided conversations and to help shape what is shared into a readable story. The company whose AI does this is OpenAI. When you talk with A Story, dictate a memory, ask it to tidy your words, or have the book retold, your voice, your words and any photos you share in that conversation are sent to OpenAI through our own server, so that they can be transcribed and answered. OpenAI receives only what the feature you are using needs, at the moment you use it: it is not given your archive, your family tree or your letters, and it keeps nothing as an archive of its own. The app asks your permission before the first time, and you can say no; nothing is sent until you say yes. Text that A Story writes from what you said is shown to you to read and change before it is kept.

We use your content only to provide the A Story service to you. We do not use your family's stories, recordings or transcripts to train artificial-intelligence models, and OpenAI does not train on data sent through its business service. OpenAI may keep what it receives for up to 30 days to watch for abuse, and then deletes it. Letters (section 15) are never sent to any AI.

Consent of the person being recorded

Because A Story records a person telling their life story, that person's consent matters to us. We obtain the storyteller's consent before recording begins and before their stories are produced into an archive or book. If you set up A Story on behalf of another person, you are responsible for making sure that the storyteller, and anyone else whose voice is recorded, understands and agrees to being recorded.

Calls between family. When two or more relatives talk through A Story, both sides of the call are transcribed, and the transcript is kept on the call, where only the people who were on it can read it. Each person is told that A Story is listening before they join, agrees to it, and can pause listening at any moment without ending the call. Somebody who joins by a link, without the app, sees the same notice before joining and can decline.

Recording in the room. When one phone is set down to listen to several people in a room, the audio and its transcript are kept and everyone present is recorded. The person starting it confirms that everyone there knows A Story is listening and agrees to be recorded, and is responsible for that being true.

Some places, including a number of US states, require the agreement of every person on a recorded conversation. A Story is built so that every person is asked; it is your responsibility to record only people who have agreed.

Who we share information with

Inside A Story, your memories are shared only with the family members the storyteller chooses. Outside A Story, we share information only with the service providers that help us run it, only as far as each one needs, and only under agreements that limit their use of it to providing their service to us:

• Supabase stores accounts, the archive and its files, in the United States.
• OpenAI transcribes and answers conversations and helps write memories (section 5).
• Apple takes in-app payments, delivers notifications and calls to your iPhone, and provides Sign in with Apple. Google and Facebook provide sign-in, if you choose them.
• RevenueCat keeps track of which plan an account has bought through the App Store.
• Stripe takes payment for printed books on our website.
• Our printing and shipping partners receive the book itself and the name and address it ships to.
• Resend sends our email (invitations, the Sunday note, account email).
• Sentry receives crash reports (section 2).

We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or where we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect the safety of a person, or the rights and property of our users, the public or A Story. If A Story is ever part of a merger or sale, your information would pass to the new owner only under the promises in this policy, and we would tell you before it did.

Calls and notifications on your phone

If you set up a daily call, A Story rings your iPhone like an ordinary call from "A Story", and it appears in your Phone app's Recents. If you allow notifications, a question from family arrives as a notification naming who asked and showing the question, which can be seen on your lock screen unless you hide previews in your iPhone's settings. You can turn off the daily call in the app, and notifications in your iPhone's Settings, at any time. Signing out takes your phone off our list.

How long we keep your information

Because A Story is built to keep memories for the long term, we keep your content for as long as your account or archive is active. You can delete your whole account yourself in the app (Menu, then Account, then Delete account), or ask us at contact@astoryapp.com, and we will delete it within thirty (30) days. That includes accounts made with Apple, Google or Facebook sign-in, and removes what those services shared with us. We keep only what we must to complete a transaction, resolve a dispute or meet a legal obligation (for example, records of payments), and copies in our backups are erased as those backups expire.

Memories you added to someone else's story belong to that story; deleting your account removes your account and your own story, and we will remove anything else you added if you ask.

Your archive does not expire when you stop paying. Canceling a plan, or letting a one-time purchase lapse, returns the account to the Free tier: the guided AI conversations stop, and everything else keeps working. We will not delete an archive or restrict access to material already recorded because a plan ended.

Security

We protect your information with administrative, technical and organizational safeguards suited to how sensitive it is. Recordings and transcripts are encrypted in transit and at rest, each family's archive is walled off from every other in our database, and access is restricted to the people and providers who need it to run the service. No method of storage or transmission is perfectly secure, but we work continually to protect the irreplaceable things you trust us with, and we will tell you promptly, as the law requires, if a breach affects your information.

Your privacy rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to show you, correct, delete or give you a portable copy of your personal information, and you can opt out of marketing email at any time. Write to contact@astoryapp.com; we will answer within 30 days and may need to confirm it is really you first. We will not treat you differently for using any of these rights.

California and other US states. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended, and the privacy laws of other states, you have the right to know what personal information we collect and how we use it, to access, correct and delete it, and to opt out of any "sale," "sharing" or targeted advertising. We do not sell or share personal information, or use it for targeted advertising, as those terms are defined in those laws, and we do not use sensitive personal information to infer things about you. You may use an authorized agent, and if we decline a request you may appeal by replying to our answer.

EEA, UK and Swiss residents. Where these data-protection laws apply, we process your personal information to perform our contract with you, with your consent (for example, before anything is sent to our AI provider, and for recordings), and for our legitimate interests in running and improving a safe service. You have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict or object to processing, to data portability, to withdraw consent at any time, and to complain to your local supervisory authority.

We do not track you across other companies' apps or websites, so there is nothing for "Do Not Track" or Global Privacy Control signals to switch off; we honor them all the same.

Children

A Story accounts are for people aged 13 and older, and we do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. Families naturally talk about their children, and a child may be heard on a family call or added to the family tree; that content is part of the family's archive, protected under this policy, and added by the adult responsible for it. If you believe a child under 13 has made an account, tell us and we will delete it.

Where your information is stored

A Story is operated from the United States, and your information is stored and processed in the United States. If you use A Story from outside the United States, your information is transferred to and processed in the United States, where we rely on the safeguards our providers offer, such as standard contractual clauses, where the law requires them.

If someone gave this to you as a gift

Many A Story archives are paid for by one person and filled by another. When that happens, the two of you are treated as separate people with separate rights, and the money does not decide who gets what.

The person who bought the gift gives us their name, email and payment details, which we use to take the payment, send them the gift, and keep them updated on the book. That is all we hold about them as a buyer, and none of it gives them access to anything you record.

You control your archive. You decide whether the person who gave you the gift can read, hear or download any of it, and you can change your mind at any time. We may tell them the gift was opened and, if you order one, that the book is on its way; nothing about what you said.

Content you bring in from other services. You can bring posts, journal entries and photos into your archive from an export file you download yourself from Facebook, Instagram, X, Day One, Journey, Apple Notes, Google Keep or a WhatsApp chat. The file is read on your phone; we never connect to those accounts, never sign in to them, and never post anything anywhere on your behalf. Only the entries you confirm are kept, and anything brought across is treated exactly like the rest of your archive: it belongs to the storyteller, it is never sold, it is never used to train models, and it can be removed at any time.

What your family adds about you, and letters

The family tree. A relative can add you to their family tree with your name, your relationship to them, and, if they know them, your years, places and photo, before you have an account. That information is visible only to the family in that tree, never to the public. Once you have an account, you can change or remove what is said about you yourself; until then, the person who added you and the family's organizer look after it. Memories and facts that others add about you are kept with your story and can be corrected, declined or reported from the app, and we act on reports within 24 hours. You can also block a person, so that they can no longer reach you through A Story.

Questions from family. A question a relative sends you waits on your Home and, if you allow it, arrives as a notification (section 8). It is seen only by you and the person who asked. Your answer goes into your own story, under your control like any other memory.

Letters. A letter is something you write for one person and seal. It is stored apart from your memories, no AI ever reads it, and nobody can open it but the person it is for. You can give it to them at any time. If you have not opened A Story for six months, your sealed letters pass to the person you named as your trusted person, or, if you named nobody, to the closest relative with an account in your family, so that what you wrote is not lost. You can change your trusted person, or delete a letter, at any time before then.

Email we send

Once a week, on Sunday, we email the people on a story a short note of what the family added that week: the title of a memory, a few of its lines, and its photo, with a link to open the app. A family call is mentioned only as the memory it became, never as a call or a transcript. The email is on by default for everyone with an account, and one tap at the foot of any copy turns it off, as does the switch in the app under Privacy. Beyond that we send the emails an account needs (confirming your address, resetting a password, an invitation somebody sent you, a book order) and nothing else.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will post the revised version here with a new "Last updated" date, and we will tell you about material changes by email or in the app before they take effect. We will never apply a change that weakens these promises to memories already recorded without asking you first.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or your privacy, or want to use any of your rights, email us at contact@astoryapp.com. We answer every message.