Privacy Policy

Information collected

• Account information — your email address, and a display name. If you sign in with Google, Google provides your basic account details to create the session.
• Family data you enter — member names, genders, dates of birth/death, relationships, and any optional details you choose to add (nicknames, occupation, education, contact details, places, notes, biographies), plus photos, documents, stories, events and map locations.
• Sign-in records — when you sign in, a record may be stored including the sign-in method, time, your browser's user-agent string, and IP address, to help you review account activity and for security.
• Preferences — theme, language and the currently selected family, stored locally in your browser.

How your data is stored and protected

• Accounts and family data are stored in a secure database with row-level security, so a record is only accessible to people who have been given access to that family.
• Uploaded photos and documents are kept in private cloud storage. They are not public — they are served only through short-lived signed links, generated for users who already have access to the family. Storage credentials are kept on the server and never exposed to the browser.
• No security measure is perfect. While the app is designed to keep your data private to your family, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Who can see your data

Your family's data is visible to people you invite to that family, according to the role you give them (viewer, contributor, editor or owner). If you connect your tree to another family, members of that connected family get read access to the connected tree. Otherwise your data is not shared with other users.

Cookies

The app uses cookies needed to keep you signed in, and a temporary cookie when you explore the read-only demo. It also stores preferences in your browser's local storage. It does not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Information about other people

A family tree naturally contains information about relatives, who may include living people and children. Only add information about others where you are entitled to, and use appropriate discretion and consent. You are responsible for the content you add.

Keeping, exporting and deleting data

You can edit or delete members and content at any time; deletion is permanent. You can export a backup of a tree from Settings, and you can delete your account from Settings → account security (you may first need to transfer or delete families you own). Any backups you download are stored by you and are your responsibility.

Changes & contact

This policy may be updated; the "last updated" date above reflects the latest version. For privacy questions, contact us at support@the-familytree.com. If a relative invited you, they administer your tree and are your first point of contact.