Privacy notice

This notice explains how Every Chapter handles information when you use the site, talk with Emily, give or accept a gift, order a product, or choose text reminders.

Information we handle

Account and settings information: your email, the name you enter, sign-in details, and your voice and other preferences.
Stories and media: conversations, voice recordings of both sides where saved, transcripts, written stories, book drafts and proofs, and photographs you upload. Photographs invited family members submit remain pending until you choose to keep them.
Early gift conversations: a recipient’s first conversation may be held temporarily before they create an account. It is moved into their account only after they accept the gift. Unclaimed turns are not put into a book.
Gifts and purchases: the selected product, giver and recipient details supplied for an invitation (including name, email and message), payment and invitation status, and private-link records. Stripe processes card payments; we do not store card numbers.
Print orders: the delivery name, address and phone number entered for shipping, along with the approved book files and order status.
Free first memory: if you try a first conversation without an account, we keep the optional first name you enter, a written transcript of what you and the interviewer say (no audio recording), the short first glimpse written from it, and a scrambled daily version of your network address used only to limit free use. If you don’t save it to an account, it is deleted after about a day; if you save it, it becomes part of your stories.
Optional texts: your mobile number, selected day, time and time zone, phone verification and message outcomes, and a record of consent, changes, STOP and HELP requests. Consent records include a one-way scrambled version of the number and identifiers for the consent wording accepted.

How we use it

We use this information to manage accounts and gifts, conduct and save conversations, produce and revise stories and books, take payments, send invitations and account emails, fulfill print orders, respond to requests, and run optional reminders. We also keep records needed to manage consent, delivery outcomes and account security. We do not sell your information or send marketing texts.

Services we use

Lovable Cloud hosts the site and stores accounts, stories, recordings, photographs and other service records. Its AI gateway also helps with book-editing requests.
OpenAI handles the live voice conversation, including the free first memory, and some read-aloud speech. OpenRouter also writes the short first glimpse. OpenRouter connects to AI models used for story writing and revision; it is not the live interviewer.
ElevenLabs generates some voice samples. Groq transcribes some recorded speech into text.
Stripe processes payments and returns purchase status. Lulu receives approved book files and delivery details when a print order is placed.
Our email service sends account emails and gift invitations. Twilio receives the mobile number and message details needed to send requested verification codes and optional reminders, and processes delivery status and replies such as STOP and HELP.

Google Photos

Importing from Google Photos is optional. When you choose it, Google asks you to allow one permission: seeing the photos you pick in Google’s own photo picker (photospicker.mediaitems.readonly). We cannot browse or search the rest of your library, and we cannot change or delete anything in it.

What we copy. Only the photos you pick, up to 10 at a time; videos are skipped. For each photo we save a display copy and a small preview with hidden details such as location removed. When an account owner imports, we also save the higher-quality download Google provides, which Google supplies without location details. We keep the photo’s file name, size, a fingerprint of the image and Google’s reference for it, so the same photo isn’t imported twice.
Where it goes. Copies are kept in private storage on Lovable Cloud, our hosting provider. Photos an owner imports go into their own photo library; they appear in the book only if the owner places them there or chooses one for the cover. Photos a family member imports through an owner’s photo link wait in that owner’s pending list until the owner keeps or discards them.
Google access. We ask Google for one-time access only and receive no long-term (refresh) access. The access key Google issues is stored encrypted, used only to finish that import, and erased when the import finishes, stops or times out (normally within an hour); Google’s key also expires on its own within about an hour. The picker session is closed at Google when the import ends. A short record of each import (its status, photo counts, coded identifiers and Google’s picker session reference, but no access key) is kept until the related account or family photo link is deleted.
How it’s used and shared. Imported photos are used to show in your library and to make your book. They are seen by you; by someone you invite to help with your book, but only photos you have placed in the book or chosen for the cover; and by our printer, Lulu, inside the approved book file when you place a print order. Photo images are not sent to AI services. If you use the book-editing assistant, it receives text about your photo placements, including any caption you have written, but not the photos themselves or their file names. That text goes through Lovable Cloud’s AI service to its AI model providers. We do not use Google Photos data for advertising, do not sell it, and do not use it to develop or train general AI models.
Your choices. You can remove Every Chapter’s access in your Google Account settings at any time. That ends the authorization you gave, but it does not delete copies already imported. If you later choose to import again, Google will ask for your permission again. You can discard pending family photos, which deletes their stored copies, and take photos out of your book. Photos saved in your library can’t yet be deleted one at a time; Settings’ “start again” removes stored photo files, though a photo’s details such as its file name may remain until your account is deleted. You can email hello@everychapter.org to ask for specific photos to be deleted or for your account to be deleted.

Every Chapter’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

Your choices and deletion

You can review and correct your stories, choose which family photographs to keep, and pause or turn off reminders in Settings or reply STOP. Settings also lets you start your story again; this clears story material but keeps your account and purchase history, and files for previously printed orders may remain. It is not an account-deletion control. To ask about access to your information or account deletion, email hello@everychapter.org.

If an account is deleted, its reminder preferences, verification records and weekly send records are removed with it. The consent and opt-out history is kept with its account link removed, including the one-way scrambled number, so the record of consent or stopping texts remains. For questions about other account, purchase, print or service records, contact us.

Contact

Questions about this notice or your information: hello@everychapter.org.