Privacy Policy

Last updated: 24 September 2026

Talefern writes a new bedtime story each night for a child, from a short profile a parent or guardian gives us. Because it's made for children, we collect as little as we can and keep parents in control. This page explains what we collect, who helps us handle it, how long we keep it, and how to have it deleted.

Who we are

Talefern is run by Widebeam Digital Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 06957672), whose registered office is at Chauffeurs Cottage, Hindon Road, East Knoyle, Salisbury SP3 6AA. We decide how your information is used and we're responsible for looking after it. Our registration with the UK Information Commissioner's Office is in progress. You can reach us at hello@talefern.com.

What we collect

• From you (the adult): your email address, to sign you in and send you stories. If you invite another grown-up to help, or send a gift, we keep the email addresses you give us for that, and a gift's message.
• Payments: if you pay on our website, Stripe handles your card and we never see or store the card number. If you pay in our app, Apple or Google take the payment, and we're told about your purchase but never your payment details.
• About your child: their first name, their birth month and year (never the exact date), and what you tell us they enjoy — interests, story genres, characters they like, and anything to avoid. Optionally, you can also add a reading level, a bedtime, their gender, a short description of how they look, and the first names of family members or characters you'd like to appear in their stories.
• Photos (optional): you can choose to upload a photo — of your child, a family member or a pet — so we can draw a cartoon character that looks like them. See Photos below for exactly how we handle it.
• Made for you: the stories we write, the pictures and cartoon characters we draw, the read-aloud narration, how far each story is read and the choices made in it, and any feedback taps (loved it / ok / not for us). Over time we build a light “taste” profile from what your child reads, so future stories fit better.
• What you tell us: emails you send us, and any report you make about a story.
• Technical and preferences: server and security logs, which include IP addresses; your region and your child's time zone (to set English spelling and when stories arrive); and your choices about notifications and emails. Notifications and occasional product-news emails are both optional and off unless you turn them on.

We do not ask for surnames, exact dates of birth or precise location. Some fields are free text — your child's interests, and things to avoid — so please only put in what you're comfortable sharing, and leave out anything you'd consider sensitive.

Photos

Uploading a photo is always optional, and we ask for your clear OK first — each time you upload one. We send the photo securely to OpenAI, and to no one else, and it's used only to draw the character; if a drawing needs another try, we send it again for that. OpenAI doesn't use your photo to train its AI.

We don't keep the original photo — once the character is drawn, it's discarded, and only the cartoon is saved. Anthropic, which checks our pictures, receives that cartoon but never your photo. The real photo never appears in any story. You can delete a family character at any time, and your child's own cartoon is deleted with their profile.

Speaking an answer

Some Dream Weaver stories stop to ask what should happen next. In our app, whoever is listening can answer out loud instead of tapping — the app asks for permission to use the microphone first. Your phone or tablet's own built-in speech recognition turns the words into text, and the app matches them to one of the choices on the screen. Depending on the phone or tablet, that happens on the device itself, or the sound is sent to the company that provides its speech recognition, such as Apple or Google, to be turned into words under that company's own privacy terms. We never receive the recording or the words — only the choice that was picked.

How we use it

Only to run Talefern: to write age-appropriate stories for your child, draw their pictures and record their narration; to deliver them by email, on our website and in our app; to run safety checks; to learn what your child enjoys so future stories fit better; to read and answer your messages and story reports; to keep the service secure; and to manage your account and payments.

If you opt in, we also send occasional emails about new features. You can turn these off at any time on your account page; they're separate from the sign-in and story emails the service needs. We don't show advertising, and we don't use advertising or analytics trackers.

Why we're allowed to use it

• To provide the service you signed up for — your account, your children's stories, the emails and notifications that deliver them, and your payments — because that is what our agreement with you is for.
• Your child's details are used only to make the stories you've asked us for. You give them to us as their parent or guardian, and we use them under our agreement with you and our legitimate interest in making those stories right for your child.
• Photos are used only with the OK you give us each time you upload one.
• Product-news emails and notifications are sent only if you turn them on, and you can turn them off at any time.
• Payment records are kept because UK tax and accounting law requires it.
• Logs and story reports are used because we have a legitimate interest in keeping Talefern safe and secure.

Who we share it with

We never sell your data or your child's data. These companies help us run Talefern, and each receives only what it needs to do its part:

• Anthropic — writes the stories, from the details in your child's profile (such as their first name, age, interests, and the names of family members or characters you've added), and runs an automatic check on each story before it reaches you. We also send it the pictures we draw — including your child's cartoon likeness — so it can check them automatically for anything unsuitable. It never receives a photo you upload.
• OpenAI — draws the pictures and cartoon characters. It receives a description of each scene and of the characters in it, such as your child's first name, age and how they look, and any photo you upload, which is used to draw the character (see Photos).
• ElevenLabs — reads the stories aloud. It receives the story text, which includes your child's first name.
• Resend — sends our emails. It receives the address each email goes to and what the email says: for a story email, that's your child's first name, the story's title and a link to read it. Story reports reach us through Resend too.
• Stripe — takes payments on our website. It receives your email address, your payment details (which we never see) and, for a gift, the recipient's email address and your message.
• RevenueCat — keeps track of purchases made in our app and tells us about them. It knows your purchases by a random account number, not by your name or email address.
• Expo — delivers notifications to our app, passing them on to Apple or Google. It receives your device's notification token and the words of each notification, which are always general (“Tonight's story is ready”) and never include a child's name.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) — hosts our website and our database, in its London (UK) region.

People you choose. Grown-ups you invite to help can see your children's profiles and stories and help look after them, with the access you give them, until you remove them. And anyone you forward a story link to can read that story until the link expires.

If you turn on notifications in a web browser, they're delivered by your browser's own service (Google's, for Chrome). They're encrypted on the way, so that service can't read them — and, like app notifications, they never include a child's name.

Apple and Google. If you subscribe or buy stars in our app, you're buying through the App Store or Google Play. Apple or Google take the payment and handle renewals, cancellations and refunds under their own terms, and they look after your payment details themselves. We're told about your purchase, but never your payment details. And if someone answers a story out loud in our app, the phone or tablet's speech recognition may send the sound to Apple or Google to turn it into words (see Speaking an answer).

How they look after it. Anthropic, OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Resend, Stripe and AWS work for us under written data-processing agreements. Those agreements let them use what we send only to do their part for us, and require them to protect it to the same standard we do.

What they keep. Deleting your Talefern account doesn't reach into these companies' systems. The ones that work for us keep what they already have for as long as their agreements with us allow. Stripe also keeps its own records of payments made on our website, such as invoices, under its own rules, because payment and tax law requires it. Apple and Google keep their own records of purchases made through them, under theirs.

International data transfers

Some of these providers are based in the United States. When we transfer personal data outside the UK, we rely on appropriate safeguards under UK data-protection law — the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, held in each provider's data-processing agreement, and where applicable a provider's certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension.

• Anthropic and OpenAI (stories and pictures) — protected by the EU Standard Contractual Clauses as amended by the UK Addendum.
• ElevenLabs and Resend (narration and email) — protected by the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum.
• Stripe (payments) — protected by the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and UK Addendum, and Stripe's certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension.
• Amazon Web Services (hosting) — your data is stored in the UK (London) region; for any access from outside the UK, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses as amended by the UK Addendum apply.

How long we keep it

Stories. How long a child's stories are kept depends on the plan they're on now: 7 days on the free trial and Storyteller, 30 days on Adventurer, and 365 days on Dream Weaver, counted from each story's date. After that, the story is deleted along with its pictures and narration.

⚠️ Because the window follows the plan a child is on now, moving to a smaller plan, pausing a child or a plan ending shortens it for stories they already have, and older ones are deleted soon afterwards. The one exception is a story you've turned into a Dream Weaver adventure with stars: it's kept until 365 days after its original date, whatever plan the child is on.

If you cancel on our website (Account → Manage billing), your plan carries on until the end of the period you've paid for, and stories are kept for that plan's usual time until then. When it ends, your children move to the free tier and its 7-day window applies. The same happens when an App Store or Google Play subscription ends.

For now, changing a plan that's already running — including pausing a child — is something we do by hand: email us and we'll make the change with you. A paused child gets no new stories, and their stories are kept for 7 days, as on the free trial.

Everything else. Your account, your children's profiles and their cartoon characters are kept while your account is open. Our server logs are deleted automatically after 30 days.

Deleting your data

You can delete your account whenever you like, from your account page or by emailing us — here's how, and exactly what's deleted. You can also delete a single child's profile, with all their stories.

When your account is deleted, your account, every child profile, every story with its pictures and narration, your cartoon characters and your stars are removed from Talefern straight away. A few things are kept, and here's why:

• Our payment records. If you bought a gift, used a discount code, or we made a refund or billing change for you, we keep a record of it for our accounts — with your email address and any gift message removed — for at least six years, because UK accounting and tax law requires it.
• App Store and Google Play purchases. We and RevenueCat keep a record of them, linked only to a random account number, not your name or email address.
• Your Stripe billing profile (your email address and any saved card) isn't removed automatically — email us and we'll delete it.

Our database is backed up automatically, in encrypted form, and those rolling backups are replaced as they age, so anything deleted with your account drops out of them within 30 days.

Cookies

We use only the cookies the service needs to work: to keep you signed in, to remember a story you've opened from one of our emails so you can rate it or steer tomorrow's, and to remember things like your currency, a discount or referral code, or a caregiver invitation while you sign up. Your browser may also remember small settings on your device, such as a tip you've dismissed. We don't use advertising or analytics cookies.

Children's privacy

Talefern is used by an adult on a child's behalf. A parent or guardian sets up and controls the account, chooses each child's plan and manages payments — a child can never reach account settings or payment details, and can never buy anything.

The one thing a child can spend, if you have given them their own sign-in, is stars you have already bought. Stars are tokens for small extras, like redrawing a picture or turning a story into a Dream Weaver adventure. No money changes hands and nothing is charged to your card — a child can only ever use up a balance you chose to buy, and can never top it up. This is switched on by default for each child, and you can switch it off for any child at any time on their settings page. If you have notifications turned on, we tell you when a child spends stars (the notification itself doesn't say how many or on what), and the details and your remaining balance are always on your account page.

A parent can choose to give a child aged 13 or over their own sign-in on the child's own device, using a one-time code. Signed in, a child can:

• read their own stories, and listen to them where their plan includes narration;
• give simple feedback — a “loved it” tap, a choice within a story, or a pick for what tomorrow's story is about;
• choose characters from a story to bring back in future ones;
• describe how they look, in their own words, and redraw their own cartoon character with your stars — their description is saved to their profile and used to draw them, just like one you write;
• turn one of their stories into a Dream Weaver adventure, with a free preview or your stars;
• tell us a story wasn't right, with Report this story. A child picks a reason from a short list and can't type anything else, and the report comes to a real person at Talefern.

We use their feedback and picks to shape their future stories, and, as for any reader, we note how far they read. We also keep a simple record of what they do — ratings, picks, redraws and upgrades, including where they used your stars — and when they last used their sign-in, so you can see their activity and end their sign-in at any time. We don't collect anything else from them, and none of it is used for advertising. Children under 13 can't have their own sign-in; their stories are managed entirely by the parent.

A child can't upload photos. Only a grown-up can, and only after giving their OK.

Your rights

You can ask to see, correct, get a copy of, or delete your data and your children's data, and you can object to how we use it or ask us to limit it. You can delete your account yourself from your account page; for anything else, email us. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us — and you can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk), the UK's data protection regulator.

Contact

Questions? Email hello@talefern.com.