Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 17, 2026

Family history is about as personal as data gets — names, dates, photographs, and stories of the people you love. This policy explains plainly what Heritage Studio collects, what we do with it, and what we will never do with it. Questions: support@heritagestudio.us.

The short version

• Your tree, photos, and books are private to your account.
• We never sell your data and we show no ads.
• AI features run only when you ask, and your material is sent to our AI providers solely to produce your result — never to build advertising profiles.
• Your card number goes to Stripe, not to us.
• You can download your files and delete your projects at any time.

What we collect

• Account details — your email address and password (stored as a secure hash), managed by our authentication provider.
• Your content — the GEDCOM files you import, photos and documents you add to the Media Vault, family stories and material you write or paste, and the books, drafts, and settings the app creates for you.
• Billing records— your plan, invoices, and payment status. Card details are collected and held by Stripe, our payment processor; we receive only what's needed to run your subscription (such as the card brand and last four digits).
• Operational data — routine logs (such as IP address and browser type) and AI-credit usage, used for security, debugging, and metering.

We deliberately collect no more than this. There is no advertising tracking on Heritage Studio, and we use only the cookies required to keep you signed in.

A word about family data

A family tree naturally contains information about people other than you, including living relatives. That data belongs to your research and stays private to your account. You're responsible for gathering it lawfully and for deciding what to publish in the books you make. We don't mine your tree, cross-link it with other customers' trees, or use it for anything except rendering your own projects.

How your data is used

To run Heritage Studio — nothing else. That means storing your files, rendering your books and reports, running the AI features you request, processing payments, sending service emails (receipts, password resets, confirmations), and keeping the service secure.

The service providers we rely on

Heritage Studio runs on a small set of specialist providers, each receiving only what its job requires:

• Supabase — our database, authentication, and file storage.
• Railway — application hosting.
• Stripe — payments, invoices, and receipts.
• Anthropic (Claude) — writes Storyteller chapters and other AI text from the material you choose to include.
• Google (Gemini) — restores the photos you send to the AI Photo Studio.
• Postmark — delivers our service emails.

When you use an AI feature, the relevant content (for example, a chapter's facts and your pasted family stories, or the photo you're restoring) is sent to the AI provider to produce your result. We use these providers under their API terms, which do not permit them to use your content for advertising. We never send your content to an AI provider except to fulfill a request you made.

How long we keep things

• Your family tree, book settings, and drafts — kept indefinitely, even if your subscription ends, so your work is waiting whenever you return.
• Media Vault files — kept for at least 30 days after your subscription ends, after which they may be permanently deleted. Download anything you want to keep while your plan is active.
• Deleted projects — deleting a project permanently removes its tree, books, drafts, and media. There is no undo.
• Billing records — retained as required for tax and accounting law.

Security

Your data is encrypted in transit, access to your projects is enforced at the database level so accounts are isolated from one another, and payment credentials never touch our servers. No internet service can promise perfection, but we treat your family archive with the care we'd want for our own — and we keep improving the protections as the product grows.

Your rights and choices

• Download your GEDCOM (including your edits), your books, and your media anytime.
• Delete individual media items or whole projects in the app; to erase your account entirely, email us and we'll take care of it.
• Change your email address or password in Account settings.
• Email support@heritagestudio.usto ask what we hold about you or to request deletion — we'll respond within 30 days.

Children

Heritage Studio is not directed at children and requires users to be at least 16. We don't knowingly collect data from children.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in any material way, we'll notify you by email or in the app before the change takes effect.

Contact

Privacy questions or requests: support@heritagestudio.us.