Privacy Policy

What We Collect

When you create an account

• Your name and email
• A password, or just an email link if you use our passwordless sign-in
• A phone number, if you choose to give us one

When you do an interview

• Background you give us in the foundation form — where you grew up, family details, work history, anniversary date, and so on
• Your answers to the interview questions — the story you tell us
• Voice recordings, if you have a video subscription that captures audio
• Video recordings, if you have the video interview subscription
• Photos, documents, audio, video, or other files you upload

When you buy something

• Your billing address and what you purchased
• Your payment card goes directly to our payment processor. We never see or store your card number.

When you use the site

• Standard web information: your IP address, your browser, what pages you visit, and how long you stay
• Cookies that keep you logged in and remember your place

That's it. We don't track you across other websites for advertising.

How We Use It

• To run your interview
• To turn your interview into a finished memoir — PDF, printed book, video, family archive, and other formats
• To send your story to the email addresses you tell us to send it to
• To help you when you contact us for support
• To remind you about your account (renewal dates, annual update prompts, anniversary chapters)
• To improve the product — by looking at how the site is used, not by reading your story

We don't train AI on your story. The AI provider we use commits — in their own terms of service — not to train on customer data sent through their API.

Who Sees Your Information

• You.
• The people you invite. When you choose to share your story with a family member, they see what you shared with them.
• The buyer, if your interview was a gift. If someone bought the interview for you, they receive the finished story by email. That's how gifting works.
• HoldUsTogether staff. A small number of people on our team can access account information when needed to help you with support, fix a bug, or recover lost data.
• The service providers we use to run the platform. Each one is listed in the next section.

That's the entire list. We never sell your information. We never share it with advertisers. We never give it to data brokers.

Service Providers We Use

Specialized companies handle different parts of the platform. None of them owns your story.

• AI conversation provider. Conducts your interview. Receives the conversation in real time to ask the next question.
• Payment processor. Handles your credit card directly, separate from us.
• Cloud database service. Stores your account and story data on secured servers.
• Video hosting service. Stores your video recordings, if you have a video subscription.
• Website host. Runs the website itself.
• Transactional email service. Sends your finished story, login links, and purchase receipts.

Each of these providers has its own privacy and security obligations. We choose partners that take this seriously.

Voice and Video Recordings

If you have a subscription that records voice or video, those recordings include biometric information — your voice and your face. We store them so you can play them back, share them with family, and keep them as part of your archive.

Recordings are stored online. They're served only to logged-in subscribers through expiring links that can't be shared.

If you live in Illinois, Texas, or Washington, your state has specific biometric privacy laws. You have the right to know what we collect, request its deletion, and withdraw consent. Email privacy@holdustogether.com to exercise those rights.

When You Share Your Story

Sharing is something you choose — never a default. Nothing about your story is visible to anyone you didn't invite.

When you invite a family member by email, they get a link to view your story. They see only the story you shared — not your account, not your settings, not anything else. You can revoke their access any time.

If someone gifted you an interview, the gift buyer receives the finished story automatically — that's part of what they paid for. If you'd rather they didn't see it, contact us and we'll work it out.

A Family Vault holds multiple stories in one place — Dad's story, Mom's story, a couples interview. Each story is still owned by the person who told it. The vault just keeps them together so the family can find them. If a vault subscription lapses, the vault doesn't get deleted — access freezes and resumes the day you come back.

Cookies and Site Tracking

We use cookies for the basics: keeping you logged in, remembering your place in an interview, and seeing which pages get visited so we can improve the site.

We don't use cookies for advertising. We don't run advertising on the site. We don't share cookie data with other companies for marketing.

You can turn off cookies in your browser settings. If you do, parts of the site — mainly login — won't work properly.

Security

• HTTPS encryption on every page
• Passwords stored as one-way hashes — we can't see your password, even if we wanted to
• Passwordless sign-in as an option, so a leaked password isn't a worry
• Database access locked to our own servers only
• Video files served only to logged-in subscribers through expiring links
• Regular offsite backups

We can't promise nothing will ever go wrong — no one can — but we take this as seriously as it deserves.

Your Rights

You can:

• See all the information we have about you
• Correct anything that's wrong
• Export your story as a PDF or text file any time
• Delete your account and everything in it
• Cancel a subscription without losing your data — it freezes, it doesn't disappear

The fastest way to do any of this is from your account settings. Or email privacy@holdustogether.com and we'll handle it.

Once your account is deleted, your story is removed from active systems within 30 days and from backups within 90 days. Copies family members downloaded while you had it shared with them may still exist on their devices — that's outside our control. Deletion is permanent. If you might want your story back later, freeze your account instead of deleting it.

How Long We Keep Your Information

• Your account and stories stay with us until you ask us to delete them.
• If you cancel a subscription, your data freezes. We hold onto it until you come back or until you tell us to delete it.
• Video and audio recordings: after a subscription lapses, we keep recordings active for 12 months. Then we'll email you with a choice — resubscribe, request your files, or move them to long-term cold storage. We won't permanently delete your recordings without your direct request.
• Some records we have to keep longer for legal reasons — tax records, payment records. Those don't include your story.

For California Residents

If you live in California, you have specific rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA):

• The right to know what personal information we collect and how we use it
• The right to request a copy of your information
• The right to ask us to delete your information
• The right to opt out of the "sale" of your information — though we don't sell any information to anyone, ever
• The right not to be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@holdustogether.com.

For Visitors from Europe and the UK

If you're in the European Union, European Economic Area, or United Kingdom, you have rights under the GDPR and UK GDPR — to access, correct, delete, restrict, or move your information, and to object to certain uses of it.

The lawful basis we rely on for processing your information is your consent when you sign up, and our legitimate interest in operating the service. You can withdraw consent any time by deleting your account.

If you believe we've handled your information improperly, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. We'd much rather you contact us first so we can fix it — but the right is yours.

Children's Privacy

HoldUsTogether is built for adults. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If a parent finds out their child has created an account, contact us and we'll remove it.

When This Policy Changes

If we change this policy in a way that affects your rights, we'll email you before the change takes effect. The date at the top will always show when this policy was last updated. If you don't agree with a change, you can delete your account before it takes effect.

This Privacy Policy applies to HoldUsTogether.com and the services connected to it.