Your stories belong to you.

Last updated October 20, 2026 · How we handle your family’s stories

This page says plainly what we keep, who else touches it, what we do not do with it, and how to take it back or have it erased. We have kept off this page anything we cannot actually deliver.

What we keep.

We keep only what we need to build your book and run your account:

Your conversations, your chapters and the transcripts they come from: the raw material of your book.
Your settings: your preferences and your sharing choices.
Billing basics: if you subscribe, our payment processor (Stripe) handles your payment, and we keep a record that you are a subscriber, your billing status, and a partial reference to your card (such as the last four digits and card type) so you can recognise it. We never see or store your full card number.
Basic usage records: when you signed in, how much you have used the service (including live-talk minutes, so we can apply the monthly fair-use limit), and technical error logs. We keep these on our own systems to run the service.
Anonymous page-view counts: our hosting provider runs a privacy-preserving analytics service that counts how often pages load. It uses no cookies and does not follow anyone across other sites.

We keep your conversations and chapters for as long as your account is open, so that Maddie can remember what you have told her and keep building your book, and we keep them even after you cancel your subscription, so they are waiting for you if you come back. When you ask us to erase them, we erase them.

Talking as a guest.

You can talk with Maddie as a guest, with no email and no password. A guest conversation lasts up to 10 minutes. We keep it for about a week so that you can save it: add your email, and it becomes part of your story with Maddie. If you do not add your email, the conversation is deleted. To stop automated misuse of guest conversations, we also keep a scrambled (hashed) form of the internet address a guest conversation came from.

Off the record.

Some of what you tell Maddie is not meant for the book. Here is exactly what “off the record” does today, and what it does not do yet.

When you say “off the record” (or “keep this out”, or “don’t put that in the book”), Maddie keeps what you say next out of your chapters and your book until you say “back on the record”. If you say neither, she goes back on the record by herself about 30 minutes after the last thing you said off the record.

What it does not do today:

It is still saved. Words you say off the record are kept in your account with the rest of the conversation, marked as off the record, and Maddie still hears and answers them.
It is in your full transcript. Every chapter comes with the full word-for-word transcript of your conversations, and that transcript includes what you said off the record. Only you receive it, unless you choose to share it.
There is no gap marker yet. Nothing in your chapters shows where an off-the-record passage was left out.

If you want an off-the-record passage removed completely, email support@formaddie.com and we will delete it from your account and confirm in writing.

We do not offer two other things yet: a restricted passage that is kept but closed to everyone until a date you choose, and a separate de-identified copy of your story (names replaced by codes) kept apart from your own copy for researchers. If we build either one, this page will describe it before anyone is asked to rely on it.

Who else touches your words.

Being honest about this matters more to us than sounding self-sufficient. Maddie is not a person, and she is not built entirely by us. These are the providers we work with, and exactly what each one receives:

Our hosting and AI provider, Cloudflare. The service runs on Cloudflare’s network, where your recordings, transcripts and chapters are stored in North America. The artificial intelligence that powers Maddie also runs on Cloudflare’s network (Cloudflare Workers AI), reached through our own model router: speech-to-text for live talk (a Deepgram model) and for voice memos (OpenAI’s Whisper model), the language models that work out what Maddie should say (open models such as Meta’s Llama), and the voice she speaks with (a Deepgram model). Your audio and the text of your conversation are processed there for that purpose only.
Our payment processor, Stripe, Inc., which handles your subscription payment and your card. Stripe never receives your conversations.
Our email provider, Resend, which delivers your sign-in links, your account and billing emails, and, when you ask for them, your chapters. Your chapter and transcript pass through it on the way to your inbox.

That is the whole list. Nobody else receives your words. If we add or change an AI provider (for example, a different company’s model for Maddie’s replies), we will update this page before your words are sent to it.

What we do not do.

We do not sell your data. Your words, your stories, and your email are not sold, rented, or handed to a data broker.
We do not use it for advertising. There are no ads on formaddie, and we do not place third-party advertising or analytics trackers that follow you around the web.
We do not read your conversations for our own purposes. We look at your content only when you ask us for help with something, or when we are legally required to.

Family can help without reading a word.

Often it is an adult son or daughter who sets formaddie up, and who may pay for it. Setting it up, or paying for it, does not give them your words. They do not own your data, and they cannot read your conversations or chapters unless you choose to share them.

Export or delete.

Everything we hold about you is yours to take or erase. To request an export, a partial deletion (such as one conversation, or one off-the-record passage), or full account deletion, email support@formaddie.com. We will confirm in writing when it is done, and deletion covers your recordings, transcripts and chapters, not only your account record.

Questions.

Reach us at support@formaddie.com for any privacy or data-handling question not covered here. formaddie is operated by Obsidian Delta Corp., a Canadian company.