Chapterling

Privacy Policy

Effective On publication
Chapterling is a story that remembers your child. The details you share stay yours. You, the parent, are our customer and the only account holder. We collect the little we need to write your child's story, we never collect anything from your child directly, we never sell or share it, we never use it to train AI, and you can delete everything in one click, anytime.

Who this is for

Chapterling is bought and managed by a parent or guardian (you). You are our customer, the account holder, and the only person we collect information from. We are MBD Media LLC, a California limited liability company (doing business as Chapterling), 2108 N ST STE N, Sacramento, CA 95816. Questions: support@chapterling.com.

What we collect, and what we don't

From you, the parent:

  • Your email, so the story can arrive in your inbox, and so we can reach you about your account.
  • Payment, handled by our payment processor, Stripe. We don't store your card; they do.
  • The details you choose to share about your child, so the story can picture them.

About your child, only what you give us:

  • Required: your child's first name (spelled exactly as you write it) and an age band (0-2, 3-4, or 5-7; never a date of birth).
  • Optional, and only if you choose: a few things they love; how they look (skin tone, hair, eyes); who's in their family; anything from your culture you'd like reflected; a big moment coming up. You can skip any of these and still get a wonderful story.

What we never collect: anything directly from your child; precise location; voice recordings or other biometrics; your child's date of birth; anything we don't need to tell the story.

How we use what you share

We use it for one thing: to write and illustrate your child's story, and to let that story remember them (the characters, the choices, the milestones), so it grows with your child instead of starting over. We do not profile your child, advertise to your child, or ask your child to tell us anything.

These optional appearance details become how the story pictures your child, held as story art-direction, not a record of who your child is. We use them to create your child's storybook hero, then keep only what the story needs to stay consistent. The story remembers; the details stay yours.

What we keep, and for how long

We practice data minimization: we keep as little as we can, for only as long as we need it.

The story (its characters, choices, and milestones) and the details you share about your child are kept while your subscription is active, because that continuity is the whole point: it's what lets the story remember your child instead of starting over. We delete your child's personalization details and the story within 30 days of cancellation, account closure, or whenever you ask, and you can delete everything in one click, anytime, from your account. If you start but don't finish signing up, anything you entered is deleted within 14 days. Billing records are kept only as long as tax and accounting law require.

Who we share it with

We never sell, rent, or share your information, and we never share your child's information with anyone for their own use. We use a small set of trusted service providers only to run Chapterling, under contracts that bind them to protect your information and use it only for us:

  • Stripe processes payments. We never see or store your card number.
  • Supabase, our encrypted database and private file storage for the story and illustration.
  • Postmark delivers your emails.
  • Anthropic (Claude) and Google (Gemini), the AI tools that help write and illustrate the story. Under their business terms, your information is not used to train their AI models.
  • Plausible, privacy-friendly, cookieless website analytics (no personal data, no tracking across other sites).
  • Vercel hosts the website and app.

Cookies & analytics

We keep this simple. We use privacy-friendly, cookieless analytics (Plausible) to understand general site traffic; it sets no cookies, collects no personal information, and never tracks you across other sites. We don't run advertising trackers.

Your choices and rights

You can see, download, correct, or delete your information, and cancel anytime, from your account or by emailing support@chapterling.com. We'll always email you before any charge; no surprise renewals. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights (for example, under state privacy laws that treat details like a child's race or ethnicity as sensitive, which is why those fields are always optional and never required).

We do not sell or share your personal information, and we do not use it for targeted or cross-context behavioral advertising.

Children's privacy (COPPA)

Chapterling is designed so that the parent is always the account holder, the consent-giver, and the data subject. We follow the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Because a paid subscription is involved, your purchase transaction serves as verifiable parental consent (your payment processor notifies you of each charge), and we collect details about your child only after that step. We collect no more than is reasonably necessary to provide the story, and we never condition your child's participation on sharing more than that. You may review or delete your child's information at any time from your account or by emailing support@chapterling.com.

Security

We protect your information with the safeguards in our internal Information-Security Program, including encryption in transit and at rest, strict access limits, and data minimization. No system is perfectly secure, but we hold as little as possible precisely to keep the risk to your family small.

Changes & contact

If we change this policy we'll post the new date here and, for material changes affecting your child's information, email you. Contact: support@chapterling.com - MBD Media LLC, 2108 N ST STE N, Sacramento, CA 95816.