Legal

Privacy Notice

Last updated: 12 October 2026.

This document is a draft pending legal review. Wording will be finalised with legal counsel before publication.

1. Data controller

Theirs & Ours is the data controller for the personal data described in this notice. You can contact us at privacy@theirsandours.com.

2. What we collect

Account data

Name, email address, and delivery address you provide when you set up a book or pay for one.

Content

Photos and voice recordings you and your contributors upload.
The time a photo was taken and the camera or phone model, which most photos carry inside the file. We read these on our own server, only to spot photos taken moments apart, so you can choose whether to keep both. Nothing is sent to anyone else to do this.
Written memories, messages, and notes contributors submit.
The names of the people who contribute and of the person the book is about.
For a leaving book, the details you enter about the person it is for: the company they are leaving, their start date and last day, and, if you choose to give it, why they are leaving (retiring, a promotion, a new job, or a reason you type yourself), along with whether you want that reason mentioned in the book. You enter these, not the person themselves, and we use them only to make the book. The reason appears in the book only if you choose to include it. You can ask us to change or remove any of these details.
The names of people you intend to invite, if you choose to list them when preparing invitations. These are held privately under your account so we can give you a personalised link for each person. They are never shown publicly, never shown to other contributors, and are not used to contact anyone. We send nothing to a person on this list. You can edit or delete the list at any time, and deleting it removes those names.
Email addresses you type in to send invitations from your book. We use each one only to send that invitation.
If you invite a helper, their name and email address, so we can send them their invitation and let them sign in. A helper sees everything in the book they are invited to: the messages, photographs and voice recordings, and the names of the people who sent them, and they can order the book, so they see its price and the delivery address. They see only that book. You can remove a helper at any time, and their access ends straight away. A helper’s name and address are deleted with the book.

Recordings played from the printed book

When a contributor records a spoken message, a small code can be printed beside its words so that anyone holding the book can scan it and hear the recording. This happens only with permission: the contributor’s own, given as they record, or, for recordings made before this was offered, the buyer’s, after checking with the person who spoke. Each code opens that one recording only, is not listed anywhere or findable by search, can be switched off by the buyer at any time, and works for as long as the book is kept online. So that it plays on every phone, we keep a second copy of the recording in a common format, stored privately in the same way as the original and deleted with it.

Feedback you send us

If you use “Help & ideas” to tell us what you need, we receive your answers, your email address and the page you were on (never your private link to a book). We use them to reply to you and to decide what to build next. Your message goes to our support inbox and is also kept in our own records, so that none is missed.

If you choose “Ask a question”, an automatic assistant answers. To do that, we send Anthropic your question, the conversation so far, the name of the page you were on (never your private link to a book), where you are on that page (for example “the 4th spread of this chapter, a photo selected”), a list of the site’s pages and buttons, and the rules they follow. So that it can answer about your book, it may also be given counts we work out from it, such as how many messages in a chapter are short enough to share a page, or how many photos are waiting for a chapter. We never send your photos or anything written in your book: no messages, no names of the people who wrote, no captions, no chapter names. If you choose “Send this to us”, your questions and a short summary are kept as feedback, as above. We also keep each question you ask (with any links and codes taken out), the page you asked it on, which page the answer pointed to, whether you pressed its link, and whether you said it helped. We use this to see what people need and to make the answers simpler. It is kept for 12 months, then deleted.

Payment data

Card details are entered directly with our payment provider Stripe. We do not store card numbers, CVCs, or expiry dates on our own systems. We receive only the transaction reference, the amount, and the success or failure status.

Technical data

Session identifiers and IP addresses are processed at request time to operate the service. We do not store long-term tracking data and we do not use third-party tracking cookies.

If you choose to be remembered on a phone or computer, that device creates a passkey and we store its public key, a counter and a short device label against your email address, so the device can sign you in without an email. Your face, fingerprint or PIN never leaves the device and is never sent to us. You can forget a device at any time from Your books, and the email link always works.

When you are signed in, we note the last time you opened each of your books, so Your books can show the one you used most recently first. We keep only that one time for each book, and it is deleted with the book.

3. Lawful basis

We process personal data under one of the following lawful bases:

Contract: Processing necessary to produce and deliver the book you have ordered.
Consent: For contributor submissions, which contributors agree to via the consent statement shown at the time of submission. Consent text is snapshotted with each contribution so the wording in force at the time of submission is preserved alongside the record.
Legal obligation: Where we are required to retain records, for example transaction records for tax purposes.
Legitimate interest: For operational purposes such as fraud prevention and service security, where this interest is not overridden by your rights.

4. How we use it

To produce, print, and deliver the book you have ordered.
To coordinate contributors (sending invitations, and a confirmation to contributors who give an email address).
To tell the person who set up the book when something new arrives. By default they get an email each time someone adds to the book, with the contributor’s name as they gave it and what they added. On a birthday book the email also shows the first lines of the message; on a memorial book it never shows the words themselves. They can switch these emails off, or to one summary a day where that is offered, from the book’s details page. These emails go only to the person who set up the book, not to helpers, and are sent through our email provider, Resend.
To process payments and issue receipts.
To provide customer support.
To comply with legal obligations.

We do not use your content or personal data to train AI models. We do not sell personal data or content to anyone.

5. Sub-processors

We use the following sub-processors to deliver the service:

Cloudflare R2: Storage of photos and voice recordings (United States, with regional replication where available).
OpenAI: Optional writing assistance for contributors. When a contributor chooses AI help, the words they have written are sent to OpenAI to help correct or shape their writing, or to suggest a clarifying question. If they spoke rather than typed, only the transcript is sent to OpenAI, not the audio recording (United States). Data processing terms are being confirmed with this provider.
Anthropic Claude: Used when a buyer asks for it on the Speech or Eulogy page of their own book. It reads the messages already in the book, not messages sent privately, to identify relevant stories and wording and help create a first draft for whoever is speaking (United States). Data processing terms are being confirmed with this provider. It also answers “Ask a question” under “Help & ideas”, and for that it receives only the question typed, the page name and where on it, a list of the site’s pages and buttons, and counts about the book (never its words): never photos, and nothing written in a book.
Deepgram: Speech-to-text for contributor voice recordings, where a contributor chooses to speak rather than type (United States). DPA accepted 10 September 2026.
Replicate: Photo enhancement (United States).
Stripe: Payment processing (United States, with Ireland for European payments).
Cloudprinter: Book printing and fulfilment (multiple regions, enabling print-near-delivery).
Resend: Transactional email delivery (United States).
ImprovMX: Forwards email sent to our hello@ address to the inbox where we read and answer it.
Neon: Primary database hosting (regions selected by us; current configuration uses Asia-Pacific).
Vercel: Hosts and runs the website (Singapore).
Render: Prepares the print files for your book from your photographs and words (United States).

Each sub-processor has its own privacy practices and security controls. We review the sub-processor list before adding new processors.

6. Data retention

Book project data: Memorial and birthday boards, with their photographs, messages and recordings (including the copy made so a recording plays on every phone), stay online for ten years from the day the book is ordered. You can ask us to delete them sooner at any time.
Help assistant questions: Questions asked of the help assistant are kept for 12 months, then deleted. You can ask us to delete yours sooner at any time.
Feedback: Messages sent with “Help & ideas” are kept in our records and our support inbox for two years, then deleted. You can ask us to delete yours sooner at any time.
Account data: Retained while your account is active. Deleted on account closure, except where retention is required to satisfy legal or tax obligations (typically up to seven years for transaction records).
Versions of a contribution: If a contributor uses the optional writing help, we keep three versions of what they wrote: their own words as they typed them, the version the writing help produced, and the version they approved and sent. Only the approved version appears in a book. The other two are kept so a contributor can return to their own words, and so it stays possible to check what the writing help changed. All three are deleted together under section 7.
Where data is held: Photographs and files are held on Cloudflare’s storage infrastructure; database records are held with our database provider. Erasure under section 7 removes both.

7. Your rights

Under the UK GDPR, EU GDPR, Singapore PDPA, and applicable US state privacy laws (including CCPA and CPRA), you have the right to:

access the personal data we hold about you;
correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data;
request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention obligations;
export your personal data in a structured, machine-readable format;
object to processing based on legitimate interests;
withdraw consent at any time, where consent is the lawful basis.

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@theirsandours.com. We will respond within thirty days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to complain to your local data protection regulator: the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK, your national supervisory authority in the EU, the Personal Data Protection Commission in Singapore, or the relevant state authority in the United States.

8. International data transfers

Personal data may be transferred outside the UK, the EU, or Singapore to sub-processors located in the United States and other jurisdictions. These transfers are safeguarded by standard contractual clauses approved by the relevant data protection authorities and, where applicable, by additional technical and organisational measures.

9. Memorial-specific handling

When you create a memorial board or book, the content concerns a deceased person and may include information about that person contributed by family, friends, and colleagues.

We rely on you, the buyer, to confirm contributors have agreed to inclusion at the time of contribution. Consent text is shown to each contributor before submission.
We will action takedown requests from contributors, from the buyer, or from people with legitimate standing to act on behalf of the deceased person.
Memorial content is retained on the same schedule as other content unless takedown is requested.

10. Cookies and similar technologies

We use a small number of session cookies necessary for the service to operate (sign-in state, draft preservation in the buyer wizard, language preference). We do not use third-party tracking cookies. We do not use advertising or analytics cookies.

11. Contact

For privacy questions or to exercise your rights, email privacy@theirsandours.com.

12. Updates

We may update this notice from time to time. Material changes will be notified by email to the address on your account at least thirty days before they take effect.