Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 15, 2026 · Effective Date: Pending sign-off

DRAFT — FOR LEGAL REVIEW ONLY. This document must be reviewed by qualified legal counsel before publication. Pay special attention to COPPA, GDPR-K, and App Store privacy requirements.

1. Introduction

ReadBy, operated by Litson PLLC, a Tennessee professional limited liability company ("we," "us," or "our"), provides a personalized children's storytelling app ("the App") for parents, grandparents, and caregivers ("you" or "Account Holders") to create bedtime stories for children ages 3-12+ ("Children").

We take children's privacy seriously. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and your rights regarding that information.

This App is intended for use by adults (parents/caregivers) on behalf of Children. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from Children under 13.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Account Information (Provided by You)

2.2 Story Creation Data (Provided by You)

2.3 Voice Data (Provided by You)

Voice cloning is optional and available only to adults, behind a parental gate. Voice samples are processed by our voice-synthesis provider (Inworld AI) to create a voice model used to narrate your stories. We keep a voice recording and the cloned voice it produces only while that voice profile exists in your account. When you delete a voice (Settings → Privacy & Data → Delete My Voice Data), we delete the voice profile from ReadBy and send a deletion request to Inworld AI for the associated voice model and source recording; copies may persist briefly in routine backups before being overwritten in the ordinary course of business. We do not use voice recordings for advertising.

2.3.1 Voice Data Provided by Invited Family Members ("Family Voice Invites")

ReadBy lets you ("Account Holder") invite a trusted family member or other adult ("Voice Donor" — e.g., a grandparent or co-parent) to record a sample of their voice so it can narrate stories for the Children on your account. The Voice Donor records on a public web page hosted by ReadBy at readby.app/record/<token>; the Voice Donor does not need a ReadBy account.

How the flow works:

1. You generate a one-time invite link in the App and share it (text, email, etc.) with the Voice Donor. The link contains a single-use token; it does not contain any personal information about you or the Voice Donor.
2. The Voice Donor opens the link in their own browser, reads a short prompt aloud, and uploads the recording.
3. Their recording is sent to Inworld AI for voice-model creation (same provider and protections described in Sections 5 and 6). The recording and the resulting voice model are kept only while the voice exists on your account; when the voice is removed, we send a deletion request to Inworld AI for both (see Section 8).
4. Approval gate. The voice does not become usable in your App until you (the Account Holder) listen to a short preview and explicitly approve it. If you reject or cancel, the cloned voice and the original recording are deleted.
5. The Voice Donor or you may withdraw consent at any time by asking us to delete the voice (see Section 8). Removal triggers deletion at Inworld AI as well.

By sending an invite link, you confirm that you have permission from the intended recipient to invite them, and that you will only invite adults. The invite page itself reminds the Voice Donor that participation is voluntary and gives them a way to decline before recording.

We do not use Voice Donor data for advertising, model training outside the cloning step, or any purpose unrelated to producing narration on your account.

2.3.2 Voice Data Is Biometric Data

Under applicable law — including the FTC's Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (as amended in 2025) and certain state biometric privacy laws (such as the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, and the Washington My Health My Data Act) — voice recordings and the voice models ("voiceprints") generated from them are classified as biometric identifiers. We treat this data with the highest level of care. Our full retention and destruction commitments for biometric data are published in our Biometric Data Retention & Destruction Policy.

What we collect: audio of the voice you voluntarily provide, and the voice model (voiceprint) generated from it by our voice-synthesis partner, Inworld AI.

How it is processed: the recording is transmitted over an encrypted connection (TLS 1.2+) to Inworld AI solely to create a personalized voice model used exclusively to narrate stories within ReadBy. We do not retain the raw recording on our own servers — only an opaque voice identifier and a one-way hash. Voice data is never sold, never used for advertising, and never used to train third-party AI models beyond the voice-cloning step.

Retention and deletion: voice models are retained while the associated voice profile (or your account) is active. When you delete a voice or your account, we delete the voice profile from ReadBy and send a deletion request to Inworld AI for the associated voice model. You may request deletion of your voice data at any time, and you may use ReadBy without providing any voice data (built-in system voices are available as an alternative).

2.4 Payment Information

All purchases are processed through Apple's In-App Purchase system. We do not collect, store, or have access to your credit card number, bank account, or other financial payment information. Apple provides us only with a purchase receipt to verify your subscription status.

2.5 Automatically Collected Information

The App does not embed any third-party analytics or advertising SDK, and does not perform cross-app/device tracking (no IDFA, no App Tracking Transparency prompt). On-device crash and performance diagnostics use Apple's built-in frameworks (MetricKit / App Store Connect) — no third-party crash-reporting SDK is included in the App. Our backend servers use Sentry for server-side error monitoring; those reports are scrubbed of personal information and never include story text or any child's data. Any usage metrics we keep are aggregated, de-identified, used only to improve reliability, and never used for advertising or tracking.

2.6 Photo Avatars (Optional)

You may optionally provide a photograph (selfie or uploaded image) to generate a paper-cutout avatar in the ReadBy art style. This applies to both the parent/narrator avatar setup and the optional kid-character builder.

How the flow works:

1. You tap "Take a Selfie" or "Upload a Photo" in the avatar source picker.
2. For child-character photos: a parental gate (math problem) appears before the camera or photo library opens. This is a deliberate friction point to ensure a parent is involved when a child's photo is provided.
3. After capture/upload, you crop the photo to head-and-shoulders.
4. The cropped photo is sent in a single request to Google Gemini (gemini-3-pro-image-preview) along with a paper-cutout style reference and an instruction prompt. The response is the generated paper-cutout PNG.
5. You see the result on a preview screen with three choices: Use this, Try again, or Build it Myself instead (which routes to the manual tile-builder, no photo needed).
6. On Use this: the source photo is deleted from our storage immediately. Only the generated paper-cutout PNG is retained as your avatar.
7. On Try again: the source photo is kept until your final selection is made (so we can regenerate with a different method without re-uploading).

Generation cap. To prevent runaway usage costs, every account is limited to 3 paper-cutout generations total (across selfie + photo + manual builder). After 3 attempts, the most recent result is locked in as your avatar.

Source photos are never re-used as input to any other model context (story generation, audio synthesis, etc.). The photo is only ever sent to Gemini once, in the single request that produces the avatar.

Children's photos handled per COPPA. Photos of children require the parental gate described above before capture. By passing the gate, the parent/guardian confirms they have authority to provide the child's photo and have read this Privacy Policy. We do not retain source photos of children beyond the single avatar-generation step (delete-on-approve), and we never use any child photo for advertising, training, or any purpose unrelated to generating the user-requested avatar.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Generate personalized stories using AI (see Section 5)
• Create voice narration from your voice profiles
• Maintain your account and saved story library
• Process subscriptions via Apple In-App Purchase
• Improve the App through aggregated, de-identified metrics (no third-party analytics or advertising SDKs)
• Ensure safety through content filtering and moderation
• Communicate with you about account issues or important updates (not marketing)

We do NOT use your information for:

• Targeted advertising
• Selling to third parties
• Marketing to Children
• Building advertising profiles

4. Children's Privacy (COPPA Compliance)

ReadBy is designed for adult Account Holders creating stories for Children. We comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as follows:

• No direct data collection from Children. All account creation and data input is performed by the adult Account Holder.
• No child accounts. Children do not have separate logins or profiles.
• Parental control. The Account Holder controls all data associated with their account, including Children's names used in stories.
• No behavioral tracking of Children. We do not track, profile, or target Children.
• Verifiable parental consent (VPC). Account creation requires a valid email address. Before any feature that collects biometric data (voice recordings/voice models) or a photograph is made available, we obtain verifiable parental consent through an Apple In-App Purchase transaction, which confirms the Account Holder is an adult. Free-tier accounts that have not completed a VPC-qualifying step cannot record voices or upload photos.
• Biometric data. Voice recordings and voice models are treated as biometric identifiers; see Section 2.3.2 and our Biometric Data Retention & Destruction Policy. Where required by state law, we obtain a separate written release before collecting a person's voice (see Section 2.3.1 for family-member recordings).

Parental Rights Under COPPA

As an Account Holder, you have the right to:

• Review any personal information associated with your account
• Delete your account and all associated data (see Section 8)
• Refuse further collection by deleting your account
• Request a copy of your data in a portable format

To exercise these rights, contact us at support@readby.app.

5. Artificial Intelligence and Story Generation

ReadBy uses AI to generate personalized stories. Here's how it works:

• Story text is generated by Anthropic's Claude AI based on your inputs (character names, settings, plot ideas). The AI does not retain your inputs after generating the story.
• Voice narration is generated by Inworld AI's text-to-speech system using your voice profile.
• Content safety: All generated content passes through a 6-layer safety pipeline including profanity filters, age-appropriateness checks, and content moderation before being shown to you.

AI Data Handling

• Your story inputs are sent to Anthropic's API for processing. Anthropic does not use API inputs for model training (per their API data policy).
• Voice samples are sent to Inworld AI for voice model creation. Voice models are associated with your account and not shared.
• Generated stories are stored in your account library on Google Cloud Platform.
• No AI-generated content is used for advertising or shared with third parties.

6. Third-Party Service Providers

We use the following third-party services to operate the App:

We require all third-party providers to maintain appropriate security measures and to process data only for the purposes described above.

7. Data Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your information:

• Encryption in transit: All data is transmitted over TLS 1.2+
• Encryption at rest: Sensitive data is encrypted using AES-256
• Secure credential storage: Passwords are hashed (never stored in plain text); tokens are stored in iOS Keychain
• Access control: Server access is restricted to authorized personnel
• PII protection: Personal information is masked in logs and error reports
• Breach notification: In the event of a data breach affecting personal information, we will notify affected users within 72 hours

8. Data Retention and Deletion

Deleting Your Data

You can delete your account and all associated data by:

1. Going to Settings > Account > Delete Account in the App
2. Emailing support@readby.app with your account email

Upon deletion, we will:

• Remove your account, stories, and voice profiles from our servers within 30 days
• Request deletion of your data from third-party processors — including deletion of voice models and source recordings at our voice provider (Inworld AI); residual provider/backup copies are overwritten in the ordinary course of business
• Note: Some de-identified records may be retained after deletion, specifically: (a) aggregated, de-identified operational metrics (not linked to you or a Child, and never from a third-party analytics SDK), retained to maintain service reliability; and (b) de-identified transaction/payment records — from which the identifiers linking a purchase to you (your account ID and the Apple linking token) have been removed — retained to meet tax, accounting, and fraud-prevention obligations. We never collect or store card numbers or bank-account details (all payment is processed by Apple). Retained records are held only as long as necessary for those purposes and are then destroyed.

9. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights:

• Access: Request a copy of your personal data
• Correction: Update inaccurate information
• Deletion: Delete your account and associated data
• Portability: Receive your data in a machine-readable format
• Objection: Object to certain data processing activities
• Restriction: Limit how we process your data

California Residents (CCPA)

California residents have additional rights under the CCPA, including the right to know what personal information is collected and the right to opt out of the sale of personal information. We do not sell personal information.

European Residents (GDPR)

If you are in the EEA/UK, our legal basis for processing is: (a) contractual necessity for account and service operation, (b) legitimate interest for security and improvement, and (c) consent for optional features like voice profiles.

To exercise any of these rights, contact support@readby.app.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by:

• Posting the updated policy in the App
• Sending an email to your registered address for significant changes
• Updating the "Last Updated" date at the top

Continued use of the App after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices:

• Email: support@readby.app
• Website: https://readby.app
• Mailing Address: [COMPANY ADDRESS — Litson PLLC mailing address; provide before publishing]

For COPPA-related inquiries, please contact us at the email above with "COPPA Request" in the subject line.

This privacy policy is provided as a draft template. It must be reviewed and approved by qualified legal counsel before publication, particularly regarding COPPA, GDPR, and CCPA compliance specific to your jurisdiction and business practices.