Privacy Policy

StoryLink ("we", "us") is a registered Australian business name (ABN 48 372 445 638) operated from Queensland, Australia. Our registered entity details are available from ABN Lookup or on request. This policy explains what information the StoryLink app collects, why, and the choices you have. We built StoryLink for families, so we collect as little as possible and we never sell data or show advertising.

Information we collect

• Parent accounts: email address, password (stored by Google Firebase Authentication; we never see it), and a display name.
• Child profiles: a first name or nickname, a chosen cartoon avatar, and a 4-digit PIN (stored only as a secure hash). Children do not have email addresses or passwords. Beyond that, we collect about children only what this policy describes: which stories they read and when, story-question stars and goals, an optional appearance description a parent reviews and approves, and an optional Star Story voice recording (see “Voice recordings” below).
• Story content you create: descriptions you type when creating an AI story (e.g. a family memory), and the resulting story text and illustrations, stored privately for your family.
• Voice recordings: if a parent records themselves reading a book, that audio is stored privately for their own family's playback. In Star Stories, a child can record a short spoken story idea; that recording is uploaded over an encrypted connection and sent to Google (Gemini) purely to transcribe the words into a story, then deleted from our servers immediately after transcription (if a temporary fault delays processing, the clip is held only until processing can finish, and an automatic cleanup removes it after that, normally within a day). It is never used to train AI models. Live story-time calls are not recorded.
• Reading activity: which books were read in story-time sessions and when, to show your family's own dashboard.
• Device push tokens: so the child's device can ring when you start Story Time.
• Purchases and subscriptions: your family's subscription plan, purchase history and story credits. In-app purchases and subscriptions are billed by Apple's App Store. The printed keepsake is sold by us and paid through Stripe. We never see your card details either way. RevenueCat, our subscription-management provider, receives your account ID and purchase state only.
• Delivery details (only if you order a printed keepsake): your full name, postal address, phone number and email address, collected at checkout and used to print and post your book. We keep the order record so we can help you if something goes wrong with it.
• Diagnostics: minimal error reports: a short technical error message, the screen it happened on, your device platform and app version, and your account's user id; never story contents, recordings, PINs or child names. The reports we hold ourselves are deleted when you delete your account.
• Crash reports: the app uses Google's Firebase Crashlytics to tell us when it crashes. If it does, Crashlytics collects the technical details of the crash along with your device model, its operating system version and an installation identifier. It does not collect story contents, recordings, PINs or child names. Google holds these reports on its own retention schedule, so they are not covered by our account deletion and we cannot remove an individual report.
• Website waitlist (optional): if you enter your email on our website to join the launch waitlist, we store that email solely to tell you when StoryLink opens. We never use it for other marketing, never share or sell it, and you can be removed any time by emailing support@story-link.com.au.
• Website page counts: our website keeps a simple, cookieless tally of how many times each page is viewed (no cookies, no IP addresses, no identifiers) and it honours your browser's Do Not Track setting.

How story-time calls work

Live audio/video during Story Time travels either directly between your family's own devices (a private peer-to-peer connection) or over Agora's real-time network, encrypted in transit either way, and never stored by us. Call-quality metadata may be processed by Agora to operate the service.

How AI stories work

When you create an AI story, the description you write (and your child's first name, if you include it) is sent to our AI providers (Anthropic, Google and OpenAI) to generate the book. Each job has a preferred provider and a backup from a different company, so that one provider having an outage does not stop your family's stories: story text is written by Anthropic, or by OpenAI if Anthropic is unavailable; illustrations are drawn by Google, or by OpenAI if Google is unavailable; safety checks are run by OpenAI, or by Google if OpenAI is unavailable. These providers process the request to provide the service and do not use it to train their models. When a child creates a Star Story by voice, their recording is sent to Google (Gemini), or to OpenAI if Google is unavailable, to transcribe the spoken idea into that description, and is then deleted (see “Voice recordings” above). Every generated page (words and pictures) passes an automated safety check before your child can see it.

Photo stories (Family Studio)

With a Family Studio subscription you can turn a few of your own family photos into a storybook and a narrated story movie. Photos you choose are uploaded over an encrypted connection, checked by an automated safety system (OpenAI, or Google if OpenAI is unavailable), then analysed and illustrated by Google AI, with OpenAI as the backup for the analysis step, to create your book. Location metadata is stripped from photos before upload, and the photos themselves are deleted from our servers immediately after generation finishes: usually within minutes, with an automatic 24-hour cleanup as a backstop. Only the generated storybook and movie remain, stored privately for your family. Your photos are never used to train AI models.

Family member descriptions (from photos)

When you add a family member to your family's cast, you can show the app one photo of them. The photo is analysed once, by the same AI providers described above, to draft a short written description (hair, glasses, that sort of thing) which you review and edit before it is saved. The photo itself is never stored: only the written description you approved is kept, it is only used to illustrate your own family's stories, and it is never used to train AI models. You can edit or delete a member's description at any time.

Where data lives

StoryLink is run from Australia, and your family's data is held with Google Firebase across a few of Google's data-centre regions:

• Your family, child and account records, your books and your activity (Cloud Firestore) are stored in Australia (Google's Sydney region).
• Your book artwork, your voice recordings and the read-aloud audio (Cloud Storage) are stored in the United States (Google's South Carolina region).
• Story-time session records (which book, which family members were reading, and when) are held in the Realtime Database in Singapore, and kept until you delete your account.
• Signing in and creating a family or a child profile is processed by Google Cloud Functions in the United States (Iowa); most other app logic runs in Singapore.

Access is locked to your own family by security rules. Unless you choose to share a book, no other family can read your books, recordings or activity. When you do share one, you can share it as a public read-only web link that anyone holding the link can open, or by code into another family's library, where a copy is kept.

Overseas disclosure

Because of the above, some of your family's data is stored and processed outside Australia, including in the United States and Singapore. A number of features also rely on trusted service providers who process some data overseas:

• Google (Australia, USA & Singapore): our database and hosting (Firebase, as set out above), and Gemini AI for illustrations, photo analysis, voice transcription and narration audio.
• Anthropic (USA): writes AI story text; when you email support, your name, email address and message help an AI assistant draft a reply for a human to review.
• OpenAI (USA): backup story writing and illustrations, the automated safety check on every page, and voice features.
• Agora (USA): carries live story-time audio/video and processes call-quality data; calls are not stored.
• Apple (USA): App Store billing; Apple handles all payment details and we never see your card.
• RevenueCat (USA): manages which subscription your family has; receives your account ID and purchase state, never payment details.
• Expo (USA): delivers push notifications; receives device push tokens.
• Stripe (USA): takes payment for the printed keepsake, which we sell directly rather than through the App Store. Stripe receives your name, email address, postal address and phone number. We never see or store your card details.
• Gelato (printing partner, Norway, printing and posting handled by its production network): receives your full name, street address, city, state, postcode, country, email address and phone number, and the finished book file, so that your book can be printed and posted to you. The book file contains your child's first name and their illustrated character.

We only use providers who are bound by contract to protect your information, and we take reasonable steps to ensure they handle it consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles. We do not sell your data or disclose it for advertising.

Children's privacy

Child profiles can only be created by a parent using their family's invite code. We collect no contact details from children, show no ads, include no third-party tracking, and children cannot make purchases. A child's data is only ever visible to their own family, and a parent can remove a child profile (or the whole account) at any time.

Your choices

• Delete a recording or AI story: contact us and we'll remove it, or re-record over it in the app.
• Remove a child profile: Family screen → Remove.
• Delete your whole account and family data: see Delete account, available in-app or by email.

Retention

We keep your family's content while your account exists. When you delete your account, your family's profiles, books, recordings, reading history and push tokens are deleted from our live systems within 30 days. Copies may remain in our encrypted disaster-recovery backups for up to 98 days before they are automatically destroyed; backups are used only to restore the service after a failure, never for anything else. Uploaded photos for photo stories are not retained at all: they are deleted immediately after your book is generated (24-hour automatic cleanup at the latest).

One small exception, kept deliberately tiny: to stop the free signup stories being claimed over and over with the same email, we retain a one-way cryptographic hash of your sign-in email after deletion. It cannot be turned back into your address, it is used for nothing except preventing repeat free-story redemption, it is never used for marketing or analytics and never shared, and it stops having any effect 12 months after your account is deleted.

Access and correction

You can view and change most of your information right in the app: your display name, your children's profiles, and the stories and recordings you create. If you'd like a copy of the personal information we hold about your family, or you'd like something corrected, email support@story-link.com.au and we'll respond within a reasonable time (usually a few days). We may need to confirm your identity first. If we can't give access or make a correction, we'll explain why in writing.

Complaints

If you think we've mishandled your personal information, please tell us first at support@story-link.com.au. Mark it "Privacy complaint" and we'll acknowledge it promptly and aim to resolve it within 30 days. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au or 1300 363 992.

Data breaches

If a data breach ever occurs that is likely to result in serious harm, we will promptly notify affected families and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in line with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, and tell you what happened and what we're doing about it.

Contact

Questions or requests: support@story-link.com.au. We handle personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (Privacy Act 1988, Cth).