Privacy Policy

1. Overview

BookWorm-Me ("we," "us," or "our") makes personalized picture books from family photos. This policy explains what we collect, what we do with it, who helps us, and the choices you have. BookWorm-Me is offered in the United States only and is for adults 18 and older.

2. Information We Collect

Account information

• Your name and email address
• Your password, stored only in hashed form
• Your email address if you join our waitlist

Photos and family details

• Photos you upload of the people and pets in your books
• Names, ages, relationships, personality traits and interests you enter
• Your answers to our story questions, and any memories you share for a memory book

What we create from them

• A written description of each person's appearance (for example hair color, eye color, skin tone and distinguishing features), used to draw them consistently
• Portrait options and the portrait you approve for each person
• Your stories, illustrations, narration and finished books
• Results of our likeness checks (whether an illustration passed, and a score)

Payments and shipping

• Stripe handles all payments. We never see or store your full card number; we receive a confirmation and an order reference.
• Shipping address and name for printed books

Usage and technical information

• Page-view counts from Cloudflare Web Analytics, which uses no cookies and doesn't track you across sites
• Error reports (browser, device, the error and your account ID) so we can fix problems
• Server logs, including IP addresses, kept for security
• A record of the AI work done for your account and what it cost, so we can keep spending in check

Messages

• Emails you send us, and feedback or survey answers you choose to give

3. What We Do With Your Photos

• Draw your book. We send your photos to Google's Gemini AI service, which writes the appearance description, draws portrait options and draws the pages, using your photos and the portrait you approved as references.
• Check the likeness. An AI model compares each illustration with your photos to decide whether it looks like the same person, and we redraw pages that don't. We keep only the result.
• No face recognition. We don't use facial recognition technology, and we don't create or store face templates, face measurements or other biometric identifiers.
• No AI training. We don't use your photos or books to train AI models. We use Google's paid Gemini service, whose terms don't let Google use them to improve its products; Google may keep them for a limited time to detect abuse.
• Stored for your next book. Photos and portraits are kept in encrypted storage (Cloudflare R2) so you can make more books without uploading again, until you delete them.
• Who looks at them. Only you, plus our team when you ask for support, when we need to fix a problem with your book, or to investigate abuse.

4. Marketing: Only With Your Permission

• We never use your photos, your family's names or likenesses, your books or your words in our marketing (our website's example books, social media, ads or emails) unless a parent or legal guardian gives us separate written permission.
• That permission form lists exactly what we may use (for example book pages, an original photo, a first name, a quote) and where (our website, our social media, paid ads). Saying no changes nothing about your account or your books.
• We use first names only, never last names, schools or locations.
• You can withdraw permission at any time by emailing [email protected]. Within 7 days we remove the material from our website and our own social media accounts and stop any ads that use it. We can't recall copies other people have already shared or printed materials made before you withdrew.
• The example books on our website and social media show fictional families created with AI, unless they are clearly labeled as a real family's book shared with permission.
• We may publish overall numbers that identify no one, such as how many books have been made.
• If you have an account or join our waitlist, we may email you about BookWorm-Me. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link.
• We don't put advertising pixels or trackers on our site, and we don't sell or share your personal information for targeted advertising. If that ever changes, we will update this policy before it starts.

5. Books You Share

Your books are private to your account. If you create a share link, anyone with that link can see the book's title, the hero's first name, the cover and the first few pages, and apps that preview links (like messaging or social apps) may show the cover. Deleting the book turns its share link off, or email us and we will turn it off for you.

6. Who Helps Us

We share information only with these service providers, and only what each needs to do its job for us:

• Google (Gemini): writing stories, drawing illustrations, likeness checks and narration. Receives your photos and story details.
• Cloudflare: hosting, storage, database, security and cookie-free page-view counts
• Stripe: payments
• Resend: sending our emails
• Sentry: error reports
• FAL: drawing illustrations for books made without photos. It never receives your photos.
• Our print partner: printing and shipping printed books (the book file, your name and shipping address)

We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or as part of a sale or merger of BookWorm-Me, in which case this policy keeps applying to your information. We do not sell your personal information.

7. Children's Privacy

• BookWorm-Me is for adults. Children don't create accounts, and we don't knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13.
• Photos and details of a child must be added by their parent or legal guardian, or by an adult with the parent or guardian's permission. The same goes for any other person you add: you need their permission.
• A parent or guardian can ask us at any time to see or delete what we hold about their child, even if someone else added it.
• If we learn we collected information from a child under 13 without a parent's permission, we delete it promptly.

8. How Long We Keep It

• Your account, photos and books are kept while your account is open, so you can reread books and make new ones.
• When you delete a photo, a person, a book or your account, we delete the related photos, portraits, illustrations and data from our storage within 30 days.
• A book you paid for stays in your library so you can keep downloading it. To remove it, delete your account or email [email protected] and we will delete it within 30 days.
• We keep order and payment records as long as tax and accounting law requires, and overall usage numbers that identify no one.
• Waitlist emails are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them. Marketing material you gave permission for is kept until you withdraw it.

9. Your Choices and Rights

Wherever you live in the US, you can:

• See the personal information we hold about you or your child
• Correct it
• Delete photos, people, unpaid books or your whole account (paid books by email, see section 8)
• Download your books
• Withdraw marketing permission or unsubscribe from emails

Most of this works from your account. For anything else, email [email protected] from your account's email address and we will respond within 30 days. Some states give you additional rights; we handle those requests the same way.

10. Security

We use HTTPS for all data in transit, encrypted storage for photos and books, hashed passwords, access controls and rate limiting. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your information, we will notify you as the law requires.

11. Cookies and Local Storage

We use your browser's local storage to keep you signed in, save book drafts and remember preferences. Drafts you start before signing in stay in your browser until you create an account. We don't use third-party tracking cookies or advertising trackers.

12. Changes to This Policy

We will post any changes here and update the date above, and email you before a material change takes effect. We will never use photos you have already uploaded in a new way without asking you first.

13. Contact Us

Questions about this policy or your information? Email us at [email protected].