Privacy Policy

BooklyBot (“we”, “us”) turns a photo and a few choices into a personalised children's storybook, delivered as a digital edition and/or a printed book. For the personal data described in this policy, BooklyBot is the data controller.

We operate from the United Kingdom and process personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018, and the EU GDPR where it applies. Our founder acts as our data protection lead and can be contacted using the details at the end of this policy.

When you create an account we collect your name and email address. When you order a printed book we collect a delivery address. Payment is handled by our payment provider — we never see or store your full card number.

To personalise a story we collect the details you enter about the child: their first name, age, interests and the story choices you make. If you upload a photo to guide the illustrations, we collect that image.

We store the books you create so you can view, reprint and download them from your library.

We also collect basic technical information automatically — such as your device type, browser and general location from your IP address — to keep the service secure and working.

What we deliberately don't hold: uploaded photos (never stored — see the next section), payment card details, the child's surname or date of birth, any special-category data, and no behavioural or advertising profile on you or your child.

Uploading a photo is optional. When you do, it is used solely to help the AI illustrate a character that resembles the child. We do not use uploaded photos to train AI models, and we do not share them for advertising.

You can delete an uploaded photo, and the book it belongs to, from your library at any time. When you do, we remove it from active storage.

By design, the result is always a stylised illustration — never a photo-realistic likeness — so the finished book evokes your child without reproducing an identifiable photographic image of them.

We use your information to provide the service and nothing you wouldn’t expect:

• To generate, illustrate and store your personalised books.
• To take payment, produce and fulfil your printed orders.
• To ship your book and keep you updated on its progress.
• To send order confirmations, delivery updates and account emails.
• To answer your messages and help when something goes wrong.
• To keep the service secure and prevent fraud or abuse.
• To understand how the service is used and make it better.

Our legal bases under UK GDPR are: performance of a contract (creating your books, taking payment, fulfilling orders); our legitimate interests (securing the service, preventing fraud, improving how it works); your consent (marketing emails and analytics cookies); and legal obligation (keeping the records tax and accounting law requires).

We’ll only send marketing emails if you opt in, and you can unsubscribe from any of them with one click.

We share data with a small set of processors who act on our instructions:

• Stripe — to process payments securely.
• AI providers — to generate story text and illustrations from the details you enter.
• Our print partner — to print and post your book (they receive your delivery address).
• Our email provider — to send transactional and, if you opt in, marketing emails.
• Our hosting and database providers — to run the site and store your data.
• Our cloud database provider — stores your account, orders and library on our behalf, encrypted and access-controlled.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of our users.

We never sell your personal data, and we never sell or share your child’s details.

Some of our processors are based in the United States. When personal data leaves the UK or the European Economic Area, we rely on recognised safeguards: the UK–US Data Bridge and the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum and the EU Standard Contractual Clauses otherwise.

Whichever mechanism applies, every processor remains contractually bound to protect your data to the standard described in this policy.

We use a small number of essential cookies for things the site cannot work without: keeping you signed in, remembering your basket and language, and protecting against fraud. These do not require consent.

We use Vercel Analytics to understand, in aggregate, how the site is used. It runs only if you accept analytics in our cookie consent banner, and you can opt out there at any time. The full list of cookies is in our Cookie Policy.

We keep your account and the books in your library for as long as your account is open, so you can reprint and revisit them.

Order and payment records are kept for as long as tax and accounting law requires. When you delete your account, we remove your personal data except where we are legally required to retain it.

Data is encrypted in transit, access is restricted to what’s needed to run the service, and payments are handled by a certified provider.

No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information and will let you know if a breach ever affects you.

Our service is intended to be used by parents and guardians. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children.

The details about a child that appear in a book are provided by the adult account holder, who is responsible for having the right to share them.

Depending on where you live, you have rights over your data, including to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct information that is wrong or out of date.
• Ask us to delete your data.
• Receive a copy of your data in a portable format.
• Object to or restrict certain processing.
• Withdraw consent, such as unsubscribing from marketing.

You can manage most of this from your account, or ask us to help at any time.

If you believe we have mishandled your data, you also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) or your local supervisory authority — though we would welcome the chance to put it right first.

If we make meaningful changes to this policy, we’ll update the date at the top and, where appropriate, let you know by email.

For any privacy question, or to exercise your rights, email us at support@booklybot.com.