Privacy Policy
The short version
We collect the minimum needed to make your book: your account email, the child's first name, age, gender and interests you choose to share, and the photo you upload. The photo is deleted as soon as the illustrated character has been drawn from it - usually within a minute of upload - and everything after that is made from the illustration, not the photo. We never sell personal data, we build and train no AI models of our own, and the only advertising tools we use (Meta and Pinterest) stay switched off unless you accept cookies.
Children's privacy
Hero of You is a service for parents and guardians (18+). It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly let children create accounts or upload their own information. A child's first name, age and photo are provided by the adult making the book, who confirms they are the parent or guardian (or have their permission).
If you believe a child has provided us information directly, contact us at shushanran@gmail.com and we will delete it.
Your child's photo and details
Photos are uploaded by you - the parent or guardian - never collected from children directly. We do not build or train AI models ourselves. The illustrations are generated by an external provider - Google's Gemini API - which receives the photo once, in order to draw the illustrated character.
We do not train any model on your photo or your child's details, and we do not sell them or share them with anyone except the processors listed below, strictly to provide the service. We use Google's Gemini API on a paid plan, under terms in which Google states it does not use the prompts or files we send - including images - to improve its products.
Then we delete it. The photo exists only long enough to draw the character - as soon as that illustration is saved, the photo is erased from our storage automatically. Your book, its cover and every chapter are generated from the illustration, and so is the file we send to the printer, so we never need your child's photo again and we do not keep it.
What we collect
Account: email address, name (optional), a hashed password (never the password itself) or your Google account id.
Book creation: the child's first name, age, gender/pronouns, interests, occasion, dedication text, and the uploaded photo.
Orders: the shipping name and address you enter for printed books, and your order history. Card details go directly to Stripe - they never touch our servers.
Technical: basic, privacy-friendly, cookieless page analytics (Vercel) - no cross-site tracking and no advertising identifiers.
With your consent only: advertising measurement (Meta Pixel and Pinterest tag) and product analytics that record how pages are used, including mouse movement, clicks and scrolling (Microsoft Clarity). They all write cookies, they are all off until you accept, and none of them is loaded at all if you decline. The photograph you upload is masked out of those recordings.
Also with your consent only, and only if you are signed in: we send Meta a one-way scrambled version of your account email (a SHA-256 hash), so Meta can tell that a purchase came from someone who saw one of our ads. Your actual email address is never sent - the scrambling happens in your browser before anything leaves it, and a hash cannot be turned back into an address. Decline cookies, or stay signed out, and none of this happens.
How we use your data, and our legal basis
We use your data to create and deliver your book, process payments and shipping, provide support, honor the guarantee, keep the service secure, and meet legal and accounting obligations.
Where the law (such as the EU/UK GDPR) requires a legal basis, we rely on: performing our contract with you (making and delivering the book); your consent (uploading a child's photo for illustration); and our legitimate interests (running, securing and improving the service). Because the photo is erased as soon as the character is drawn, it is held only for that single step.
Who processes data for us
Stripe (payments), Gelato (printing and shipping of physical books - receives the book file and shipping address), Google Gemini API (story text and illustrations - receives the photo and personalization details), Vercel (hosting, file storage, analytics), Neon (database), Resend (transactional emails such as order confirmations). Each acts on our instructions to provide the service.
Only if you accept cookies: Meta and Pinterest (advertising measurement) and Microsoft (Clarity product analytics). Meta additionally receives the scrambled form of your email described above when you are signed in. Decline and none of them receives anything.
International data transfers
Hero of You is operated from Israel, and our providers may process data in the United States, the EU and other countries. Where data is transferred internationally (for example from the EU/UK), we rely on appropriate safeguards, such as our providers' standard contractual clauses, to protect it.
How we keep data safe
Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS), passwords are stored only as salted hashes (never in plain text), sign-in uses a secure HttpOnly session cookie, and access to systems is limited. No method is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information.
Faces, and what we do not do with them
A photo of your child is used for exactly one thing: our AI illustrator looks at it once and draws an illustrated character. We do not create a faceprint, a facial-recognition template, a biometric identifier or any mathematical map of facial geometry. We do not use a face to identify anyone, to match one person against another, or to search for them anywhere. We never sell or share a photo, and we never use it to train an AI model.
The original photograph is deleted as soon as you have approved how the character looks - from that point on, every page of the book is drawn from the illustration, never from the photo again. You can also delete your photos, books and account yourself at any time from your account page, which removes the images for good.
If you are in a place with specific biometric-privacy laws (for example Illinois, Texas or Washington), this is our disclosure to you: we do not collect or store biometric identifiers or biometric information as those laws define them. If you believe we hold something you did not intend to give us, write to shushanran@gmail.com and we will delete it.
Emails and communications
We send transactional emails only - things like order confirmations, print approvals and shipping updates. We do not send marketing emails without your consent, and any such email would include an unsubscribe link. Support replies go to the address you write from. Questions: shushanran@gmail.com.
Cookies
One essential HttpOnly session cookie keeps you signed in. It is always on, because without it you cannot stay signed in, and it carries no advertising identifier.
The optional sets need your agreement first: the advertising cookies from Meta and from Pinterest, and Microsoft Clarity's (_clck, _clsk) for the session recordings described above. In the UK, Ireland and the EU/EEA we ask before loading any of them, and "Decline" is as easy to click as "Accept". Elsewhere they run unless you tell us otherwise, and you can change your mind at any time by emailing us.
Your rights
You can access, correct, download or delete your data. "Delete my account" on the account page erases your books, pages, child profiles, uploaded photos and generated art, and scrubs your account details.
Depending on where you live (for example under the EU/UK GDPR or the CCPA in California), you may also have rights to portability, to object to or restrict certain processing, and to lodge a complaint with your data-protection authority. We do not sell personal information. To exercise any right, email shushanran@gmail.com.
Retention and deletion
The uploaded photo is deleted automatically once the illustrated character has been created from it. Your books, illustrations and child profiles stay in your account until you delete them. Order records (amounts, shipping details) are kept as required for accounting and disputes, then removed when no longer needed.
Changes and contact
We may update this policy as the product evolves; material changes will be shown here with a new "last updated" date. Privacy questions or requests: shushanran@gmail.com.