Privacy

Your family’s photos, and what we do with them.

Last updated September 29, 2026

Our Kind of Story is run by Thought Continua LLC, a California company (“we”). This policy covers ourkindofstory.com and the books we make. You can reach us at hello@ourkindofstory.com.

Right now: the waiting list

Ordering is not open yet. Today the only personal information this site collects is what you type into the waiting list form: your email address, and if you choose, your first name, the book you are interested in and a note. We use it to tell you when ordering opens and to answer your note. We do not sell it or share it for advertising. You can ask us to delete it at any time.

We do not use advertising trackers on this site. The name you type into the story shelf stays in your browser tab and is never sent to us.

When you make a book

What we collect

• Your account details: email address, and your name and shipping address when you order.
• Photos of the people and pets in your book, and the details you tell us about them (names, ages, pronouns, glasses, hearing aids, a wheelchair and so on).
• Your choices and approvals: which characters and pages you approved, and when. We keep this record because it is how a made-to-order book is fairly handled.
• Payment is handled by Stripe. We never see or store your full card number.

Who can use this service

Books are ordered by adults, for their own families. You must be 18 or older, the parent or legal guardian of every child in your book, and have permission from every adult pictured. This site is written for parents and grandparents. It is not directed to children, and children cannot have accounts.

How your photos are used

• Your photos are used only to draw the characters in your book. That is the only step that ever sees them. Every page after that is painted from the drawn characters you approved.
• We never compute a face scan, face template or face embedding from your photos. Our automatic quality checks compare pages only to your approved drawn characters, never to the photos.
• We remove location and camera data (EXIF) from photos when you upload them.
• Photos are kept in private storage and are shown, to you and to the people making your book, only through links that expire.
• We never use your photos, your characters or your book to train any AI model, and we only use paid services that do not train on what we send them.

How long we keep things

• Photos: deleted 30 days after you approve your cast, or sooner if you ask. We keep a record that each photo was deleted, and when.
• Drawn characters and your book: kept so you can order reprints. You can ask us to delete them at any time.
• Orders and approvals: kept as long as tax and consumer law require.

Showing books publicly

We never show your family, your photos or your book on this site or anywhere else unless you separately and explicitly say yes. Every family on this site today is made up, drawn from a written description, except our founder’s own family in the two founder books, shown with their permission.

The companies that help us

To make and deliver a book, we use a small number of service providers. They process your information only to do that work for us.

• fal.ai, which runs the image models (including ByteDance Seedream and OpenAI image models) that draw your characters and pages
• Anthropic, whose Claude models check photos for quality and help draft stories
• Lulu, which prints and ships the hardcover
• Stripe, for payment
• Supabase and Cloudflare, for accounts and storage
• Vercel, which hosts this site, and our email provider, for order emails

Your choices and rights

You can ask us to show you what we hold about you, correct it, or delete it, including your photos, characters and book, by writing to hello@ourkindofstory.com. We answer every request, wherever you live, and we will not treat you differently for asking.

California

Photos of faces can be sensitive personal information. We use them only to make the book you asked for, which is the use California law allows without a separate opt-out. We do not sell or share personal information, and we do not use it to profile you.

Washington: consumer health data

Washington’s My Health My Data Act can treat face images, and details such as a hearing aid or a wheelchair, as consumer health data. If you live in Washington, we will ask for your separate consent before you upload photos. We use that data only to make your book, we do not sell it, and you can withdraw consent and have it deleted at any time by writing to us.

Security

Photos and books are stored privately, access is limited to the people making your book, and links to images expire. No system is perfect; if something ever goes wrong we will tell you promptly.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will update the date above and, if you have an account, email you before the change applies to your photos.