Family Books / Privacy
Privacy
What we ask for, what we do with it, who else sees it, and how long we keep it.
Last updated November 8, 2026.
The short version
We ask only for what the book needs, and we use it only to make your book.
Your answers, and any recordings you make, are stored on our own server. The text is drafted with Anthropic’s Claude. If you use our phone line, the call goes through Retell, an outside phone service, with Claude. The pictures are made with AI image tools on our own computer, and Claude checks them. A person at Family Books looks over every book before you get the link, and sees it again if you send it back or ask for help. No photograph of anyone is given to an AI.
Ask us at any time and we delete your answers and recordings.
Who this covers
This page covers books.hermeswrite.com and the books we make from it. Family Books is part of HermesWrite. The HermesWrite writing app has its own privacy policy.
What we ask for
The story form asks for:
- the child’s first name, age and how they look, in words;
- a little about the child, the story in your own words, and who else is in it, with what the child calls them and how they looked, typed or recorded;
- who you are to the child, your email, and a name to call you if you want to give one;
- whether you’d like the book by Christmas, and two confirmations: that you may share this story, and that you understand how AI is used;
- if you choose to tell us more: the words your family uses, anything to leave out or handle with care, small details, and how the book should feel and look.
The form doesn’t ask for surnames, home addresses, birthdates, school names or photos. Please don’t send them, or say them in a recording. A family story can name a country and a year, but we don’t need anyone’s immigration or medical details.
Later, we also keep what you give us on your private pages: your answers to any questions on your first page, what you tell us there about names and looks, every change you make to your book, and any notes and voice notes you send it back with. If you order, Stripe gives us the name and shipping address you enter there.
If you join the waitlist, we ask only for your email, and, if you like, a name and a line about the book.
When a form arrives, our server also notes the kind of browser it came from and a scrambled version of your internet address (not the address itself), so we can stop the form being flooded.
What we use it for
Only to make your book: to draft the text and make the pictures, to show you your first page and your book on private pages of this site, to email you their links, and to write to you about your book.
Where your answers go
Your answers are stored on our own server, only to make your book. Our own computer fetches them from there to make your first page and your book. When a form arrives, we get an email with its reference number and a few facts about it, such as whether you asked for Christmas, but none of your words. Recordings are stored on our server with them, and are never emailed.
If you write to us, a person at Family Books reads it, and we delete your emails when we delete your answers.
Like most websites, the server that runs this site keeps request logs: for each visit, the IP address, the page asked for, the time, the kind of browser and the page you came from. We use them only to keep the site running and safe.
Your private pages
Your first page and your book are on private pages of this site. The links are private and are in our emails to you. The device that sends the form is remembered, and so is the first device that opens a link from our emails within a week. Any other device gets a code, which we email to the address you gave us, before the page opens. Your book’s link stops working 30 days after it is delivered or refunded. Every change you make to your book is kept, so you can undo it, until we delete the book.
Voice recordings
Some questions on the story form let you talk instead of typing. A recording stays in your own browser until you press Send, and then comes to us with your answers. We turn it into text on our own computer, and use the text like your typed answers, so the text of your book is drafted from it with Claude.
The story form takes typed answers only, for now. If you sent a recording before, it stays with your answers until we delete them, and if your story is only in a recording, your first page asks you for a few typed lines.
Recordings made on this site are stored on our own server with your answers, and are never given to an outside AI service. The text we make from a recording is stored with it on our server, and deleted with it. We delete both when we delete your answers, and you can ask us to delete them at any time.
Please record it yourself, not your child, somewhere quiet where your child can’t hear.
Phone calls
When our phone line is open, you can answer the story form’s questions on a call instead of typing them. The line is answered by an AI voice, not a person, and nobody at Family Books works it.
The call goes through Retell, an outside phone service, and the AI voice uses Anthropic’s Claude. Retell records the call to turn what you say into text, including any email address you spell out, and Claude reads that text to take your answers down. After the call, Retell has Claude write a short automatic summary of it, a step Retell runs on every call.
Retell is set not to keep the recording or the transcript: it deletes them, with its working files, about 10 minutes after it finishes processing the call. For one day it keeps basic details of the call, such as its time and length, which may include that summary. It also keeps a contact record of your phone number and when you called. Retell handles all of this under its own privacy terms. Its terms may let it use calls to improve its services.
At the end of the call, Retell sends our server the call’s text along with its record of the call. Our server reads only the call’s length, its cost and how it ended, and keeps none of the text. We don’t receive or keep a recording.
What we keep is the answers you confirm on the call, as a draft on our server, for you to check and send on this site. Nothing goes into making your book until you press Send. The draft is deleted when you send the story form or press Clear my answers in the same browser, and in any case 7 days after it was made. Once you send the form, your answers are kept like any other form’s.
Your phone company and Retell see your phone number, as with any call. We don’t store it.
If you call without the form open, you can give an email address on the call. It’s read back to you, and we use it only to email you a link to your answers, which works for 7 days.
Please make the call yourself, somewhere children can’t hear. We don’t take answers from a child, and answers a child gave before we knew are removed during the call.
We never ask for payment on the phone.
AI
The text is drafted with Anthropic’s Claude from your answers, and the book is made with automatic checks before a person looks it over. The Claude account we use to make your book has model training turned off. A phone call uses Claude through Retell, under Retell’s terms (see Phone calls).
The pictures are made with AI image tools on our own computer, from written descriptions. Claude also looks at the pictures we make, to check them against the descriptions: who is in each picture, their sizes, faces and hands, and no stray writing. If an outside image service is ever used, it receives a written description, never a photo.
You approve the finished book before it is printed. Before you get the link, a person at Family Books looks over the whole book: the text, the pictures, the cover, the title and end pages, and who is in it. They see it again if you send it back with notes or ask us for help.
No photograph of anyone is given to an AI. We don’t ask for photos.
If you send your book back
A person at Family Books reads your notes, listens to any voice note, and looks at your book, to fix it. We turn voice notes into text on our own computer. Claude reads your notes and drafts a plan for the fix; the person decides what is done.
Who else sees it
- Anthropic, whose Claude model drafts the text from your answers and the text we make from any recordings. Claude also checks the pictures we make, and if you send the book back, reads your notes and the text we make from any voice notes. On a phone call, it reads the call’s text through Retell, including any email address you say. It never receives your recordings, voice notes or any photo. It handles what it receives under its own privacy terms.
- Retell, if you use our phone line. It carries and records the call, turns speech into text and back, runs the AI voice with Claude, and has Claude write a short summary of the call. It sees your phone number and keeps a contact record of it. It does this under its own privacy terms, as Phone calls describes.
- Our email provider, which sends our emails to you and holds our mailbox.
- Stripe, if you order. You pay on Stripe’s page, through the Order button on your first page, not on this site. We give Stripe your email address so its form is filled in, and it collects your card details and shipping address under its own privacy terms. We don’t see your card number.
- RPI Print, our printer, if you order and approve the book. It receives the approved book files, and the name and shipping address to send the copies to. It also receives the phone number Stripe asks for at checkout, for delivery only.
- Microsoft, through the Clarity analytics described below.
- Google, which serves the typefaces on these pages, so it sees your browser ask for them.
In your browser
While you fill in the story form, your answers and any recordings are saved in your own browser so you can close the page and come back. Nothing is sent to our server until you press Send. The one exception is our phone line: pressing Get a code makes an empty draft on our server, and the answers you confirm on a call are kept there (see Phone calls). This browser keeps the key to that draft beside your saved answers, and clears it when you send the form or press Clear my answers, or once the draft is gone. The saved answers are cleared when you send the form. Each recording is cleared once it reaches us, or when you choose to finish without it. Clear my answers on the form removes everything at once. If you leave them for more than 30 days, they are cleared the next time you open the form. Some browsers, Safari among them, clear them sooner if you don’t come back to this site for about a week.
After you send, the browser tab keeps your reference number, and which questions’ recordings didn’t reach us if any, so the thank-you page can show themit. It also keeps your child’s first name, so the page can say which email to look for. They are gone when you close the tab. If you close the tab while recordings are still sending, the browser keeps your reference for up to 2 hours, so they can finish sending when you open the form again.
On a device where you open your first page or your book, we set one cookie for that book. It is only there to remember that device, so we don’t ask for a code each time. It lasts 90 days from the last time you use it on that device, and “Forget this device” on the page makes us forget it sooner. We keep a scrambled record of the device and of each sign-in code we email you, not the code itself. A code lasts 10 minutes. Apart from that cookie, your first page and your book’s page keep nothing in your browser after you close the tab.
Analytics
We use Microsoft Clarity to see how visitors use these pages: clicks, scrolling, and how far people get through the form. Clarity records visits and uses cookies to tell one visit from another. We ask Clarity to mask the story form, which is meant to keep what you type there out of its recordings. Clarity doesn’t capture sound, so it never hears your voice recordings. Clarity runs only on books.hermeswrite.com, under Microsoft’s own privacy terms. Clarity doesn’t run on your first page or your book’s page, and their links are never sent to Clarity. Clarity also doesn’t run when you open the link we email after a phone call, and that link is never sent to Clarity.
How long we keep it
- You can ask us to delete your answers and recordings at any time.
- If you don’t order within 60 days of your free first page, we delete your answers, recordings and first page.
- If we ask you questions before we draw your first page and you don’t answer them within 60 days, we delete your answers and recordings.
- If we can’t make your book, we delete your answers and recordings 30 days after we tell you.
- If you order and don’t approve the book or send it back within 60 days of it being ready, we refund you in full and delete it 30 days later.
- If we refund your order for any other reason, we delete the book, your answers and recordings 30 days after the refund. If the reason is an address our printer can’t deliver to, we keep your first page instead, so you can order again.
- If you order, we keep the finished book’s files and your shipping address for one year after delivery, so we can replace a copy that arrives damaged or misprinted, or doesn’t arrive, unless you ask us to delete them sooner. We delete your answers, recordings, notes and every version of your book at the same time.
- The record of a device you have opened your book on is kept until 90 days after you last use it there, or until we delete the book’s data if that comes first. A sign-in code is kept for 10 minutes.
- If you join the waitlist, we keep your email only to tell you when a place opens, and remove it once we’ve written to you. Ask us and we remove it sooner.
- A draft from a phone call is deleted when you send the form or press Clear my answers in the same browser, and in any case 7 days after it was made.
- A draft that no call ever reached is deleted about 2 hours after its code runs out.
- If you call without the form open and don’t confirm an email address, the answers from the call are deleted when the call ends.
Deleting means removing your answers and recordings from our server, our backups (they roll over within 7 days), our own computer and our mailbox, and anything we made from them, including your first page, and every version of your book, and the text of your recordings and voice notes. Stripe and our printer keep their own order records, under their own terms.
Children
This site is for grown-ups. The form is for a parent or guardian, or a relative with their permission. We collect information about a child from the grown-up who fills in the form, not from children. Children shouldn’t fill in the form or be recorded on it.
Your choices
To see what we hold about you, to correct it, or to have it deleted, write to admin@hermeswrite.com.
Changes to this page
If we change this page, we’ll change the date at the top.
Contact
Questions or requests: admin@hermeswrite.com.