Privacy policy

The short version

• We collect what AskKin needs to send questions and keep answers: not more.
• A Private answer can only be read by the person who wrote it. Their family can see that it was answered, never the words.
• If someone answers by voice, the recording is turned into text. AskKin does not keep the recording.
• No adverts, no selling your data, no third-party tracking on our website.
• You can delete your answers, and you can delete your account from inside the app.

Who we are

AskKin is an app for asking your family questions and keeping their answers. In this policy, “AskKin”, “we” and “us” mean James Cheng, trading as AskKin, an individual based in the UK. We are responsible for (the “controller” of) the personal information described here. AskKin is currently in a small private beta.

Contact: hello@askkin.co.uk

What we collect

If you use the AskKin app

• Your account. AskKin starts you with an anonymous account, with no email needed, so you can try it. If you save your account, we store your email address and use it to send you sign-in codes.
• About you. Your first name, so your family knows who is asking. If you choose to add it, your date of birth.
• The people you add. Who they are to you (for example, Dad), the name you call them and, if you add them, a photo and details such as their full name, date of birth, place of birth, where they grew up and where they live now. Everyone connected to that person in AskKin can see and edit these details.
• Questions. The questions you send, including any you write yourself. To count the free custom questions you have used, we keep a one-way fingerprint of each one you write, even if you later delete it. The fingerprint cannot be turned back into the words.
• Answers and stories. Answers written in the app, or sent through a link, and whether each one is Shared or Private.
• Notifications. If you turn them on, a code that lets us send notifications to your device.
• Interest in paid questions. Payments are not available yet. If you tap to unlock a question pack, we record that you were interested, which product it was and how many times you tapped. Nothing is charged.
• How AskKin is used. Simple events such as “a question was sent” or “an answer was submitted”, with the ids of the person profile and question involved. These never include the words of a question or answer, names, emails or dates of birth.

If you answer a question through a link

You don’t need the app, an account, a name or an email address.

• Your answer, typed or spoken, and whether you chose Shared or Private.
• Voice. If you tap to speak, your browser records the audio and sends it to our transcription service, which turns it into text for you to check. AskKin does not store the recording. We limit how much each link can be used for transcription.
• Your browser. We save a private key in your browser so you can come back later to read, edit or delete your answer, and we save an unsent draft so it isn’t lost if the page closes. These stay in your browser.
• Simple events, such as the link being opened, an answer started or submitted, whether it was spoken or typed and a rough length. Never the words.

If you visit askkin.co.uk

Our website does not use cookies, analytics or advertising trackers. Like any online service, our providers process technical information such as IP addresses to deliver pages and keep the service secure.

If you sign up for launch updates

If you enter your email in “Be the first to know” and tick the box, your email address goes directly to Loops, the email service we use. Loops records it with the date you signed up and that it came from our launch signup, and we use it only to tell you when AskKin is available to download and to send the occasional AskKin update. We only email you about this because you ticked the box to agree. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and you can also ask us to remove you at any time.

Shared and Private answers

• Shared: people connected to that person in AskKin (for example, the family member who asked) can read the answer.
• Private: only the person who answered can read it. Others only see that the question was answered. Our database enforces this rule; it is not just hidden in the app.
• Only the person who answered can edit, delete or change the privacy of their answer.

The people who run AskKin can technically access the database to keep the service working and to fix problems. Our internal tools show account emails, counts and dates, not answers or stories.

How we use your information

• To run AskKin: create links, deliver questions, save answers and show them to the right people.
• To sign you in, and to keep accounts and links secure, including limits that prevent misuse.
• To send notifications you have turned on.
• To understand, in aggregate, which parts of AskKin work and which questions people value.

We don’t sell your information, use it for advertising or use your answers to train AI models.

Under UK data protection law, we rely on:

• providing the service you asked for (contract) to run your account, send your questions and save and show answers;
• our legitimate interests in keeping AskKin secure, preventing misuse and understanding, in aggregate, how it is used;
• your consent for launch-update emails and notifications. You can withdraw it at any time by unsubscribing or turning notifications off.

Notifications

Notifications go through Expo’s push service and Apple. A notification can include the name of the person and the question that was asked or answered. It never includes the words of an answer.

Who helps us run AskKin

• Supabase: our database, sign-in system, photo storage and server functions. Our Supabase project is hosted in the EU (Ireland).
• Vercel: hosts the askkin.co.uk website.
• OpenAI: turns voice answers into text. It receives the recording only for that purpose, under its own terms for its API service.
• Loops: sends our sign-in code emails and, if you sign up for launch updates, stores your email address and sends those updates.
• Expo and Apple: deliver notifications. Apple also distributes the app (TestFlight and the App Store) under its own privacy policy.
• ImprovMX: forwards emails you send to our askkin.co.uk address to our inbox.

Some of these companies are based in the United States, so your information may be processed outside the UK. If you’d like to know more about how a particular transfer is protected, contact us.

How long we keep information

• Your account and its information are kept until you delete your account.
• Launch-update signups are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you.
• Answer links stop accepting answers after 30 days, or sooner if the sender withdraws them. Family invite codes expire after 14 days.
• Voice recordings are not stored by AskKin.
• We have not yet set automatic deletion periods for usage events or other records. We’ll add them here when we do.

Deleting things

• The person who answered can edit or delete their answer at any time.
• You can delete your account in the app, under Account. This removes your account, your sign-in details, your memberships, the questions you sent, your custom questions, your notification codes, your record of interest in paid questions and any answers you wrote in the app.
• Deleting your account does not delete other people’s answers. Person profiles you created, with their details and photo, are not deleted automatically, so anyone who joined keeps access. To remove a person you added, remove them in the app first, or contact us.
• Usage events are kept, but no longer linked to your account.
• If you answered through a link, you can delete your answer from the same browser. If you no longer have access to it, contact us.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask to see the information we hold about you, correct it, delete it, object to or limit how we use it, or receive a copy of it. To make a request, contact us using the details above.

If you’re unhappy with how we handle your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk). We’d appreciate the chance to put it right first.

Cookies and storage on your device

We don’t use cookies or tracking technologies. We use your device’s own storage only to make AskKin work:

• to keep you signed in to the app;
• on an answer link, to remember your answer key and unsent draft;
• on our website, to remember whether you chose the light or dark theme.

Children

AskKin is designed for adults and isn’t intended for children. If you think a child has given us their information, please contact us so we can remove it.

Changes

If we change how we use information, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. For significant changes, we’ll also tell you in the app.