Photo Licensing & Usage Policy

Why this policy exists

When you upload photos of your child or family to make a Little Story Keepers™ book, you are trusting us with images that matter. We take that trust seriously. This policy explains, in plain language, how we use your photos, what we do not use them for, and the rights and choices you keep at every step, subject to the limits described in this Policy, our Terms of Service, and our Privacy Policy.

We've written this in plain English so you can read it once and understand it. If anything is unclear, write to us at privacy@littlestorykeepers.com and we will explain.

At a glance

• You own your photos. Always. Uploading them does not transfer ownership to us.
• We use your photos only for limited Service-related purposes. That includes creating your book, supporting and fulfilling your order, troubleshooting issues, preventing fraud or misuse, complying with law, maintaining reasonable order records, and supporting eligible reprints, refunds, or quality-issue resolutions.
• Uploaded Photos are retained for 12 months after your last account activity, with that period resetting each time you log in. We will notify you 30 days before deleting Uploaded Photos due to inactivity, subject to limited legal, security, fraud-prevention, payment, support, reprint, or operational needs.
• You can request deletion any time by emailing support@littlestorykeepers.com or privacy@littlestorykeepers.com with the subject line "Data Deletion Request," subject to verification and limited legal or operational exceptions.
• We do not use your photos or book files for AI model training. We currently use Anthropic for story text generation and fal.ai for AI illustration generation through their APIs, and we do not use Uploaded Photos, prompts, AI Illustrations, generated text, previews, or completed book files to train, improve, or fine-tune AI models.
• The Service is currently U.S.-only. Little Story Keepers™ is intended for and available only to customers located in the United States, and books are shipped only to eligible U.S. shipping addresses.

1. Your photos belong to you

Uploading a photo to Little Story Keepers™ does not transfer ownership of the photo to us. You retain the rights you have in the original photo, including the ability to use it for other purposes, share it with others, or request deletion of our copy, subject to the limitations and exceptions described in this Policy, our Terms of Service, and our Privacy Policy.

You should only upload photos that you own or have all legally required rights and permissions to use. If a photo includes a child, you confirm that you are the parent or legal guardian of that child, or that you have obtained permission from the child's parent or legal guardian. If a photo includes any other identifiable person, you confirm that you have any legally required permission to use that person's likeness in your book.

2. U.S.-only availability and shipping

The Little Story Keepers™ Service is currently intended for and available only to customers located in the United States. We ship books only to eligible shipping addresses in the United States. If you are located outside the United States, or if you request shipment to an address outside the United States, the Service may not be available to you.

3. The permission you give us

To make your book, we need limited permission to do specific things with your photos. When you upload a photo, you give us permission to:

• Store the photo securely on our servers.
• Run the photo through our AI illustration system to generate the artwork in your book.
• Show you the resulting illustrations in your preview.
• Send the finalized book file to our print partner so they can print and ship your book.
• Provide customer support, troubleshoot technical or order issues, prevent fraud or misuse, comply with law, maintain reasonable order and business records, and provide reprints or replacement copies.
• Retain and use the photo as described in our retention and deletion rules so we can support reprints, resolve issues, comply with law, protect the Service, and maintain appropriate records.

That permission continues only as reasonably necessary for the limited purposes described in this Policy, our Terms of Service, and our Privacy Policy, including legal compliance, dispute resolution, fraud prevention, payment processing, accounting, customer support, reprints, and other legitimate operational purposes. You are not granting us permission to use Uploaded Photos, AI Illustrations, book previews, completed book files, Customer Content, testimonials, names, likenesses, finished outputs, first name, or related non-sensitive order details for marketing, advertising, social media, portfolio, promotional, or similar purposes unless you provide explicit opt-in consent.

In legal terms

What we just described is what lawyers call a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, process, transform, store, transmit, display, and create derivative works from your photos and related Customer Content solely as reasonably necessary to create your Book, process and fulfill your order, provide customer support, support eligible reprints, refunds, or quality-issue resolutions, detect or prevent fraud or misuse, maintain records reasonably related to your order, comply with legal obligations, and operate the Service as described in our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

4. What our AI does with your photos

Our AI illustration system processes your uploaded photo and related prompts to generate illustrated artwork for your book. The resulting illustration may reflect visual characteristics from the photo, such as hair, eyes, glasses, clothing, or other distinguishing details, but AI-generated outputs may differ from the original photo and may not be error-free.

We currently use Anthropic for story text generation through its API and fal.ai for AI illustration generation through its API. Based on our current vendor terms and documentation, Anthropic does not use API customer inputs or outputs to train its models, and fal.ai processes customer photos to provide the requested illustration-generation service and does not train models on raw customer data. fal.ai may use anonymized or aggregated usage data for service improvement where permitted by its terms. We require AI vendors that process Customer Content on our behalf to use that content only as needed to provide the requested service, comply with law, maintain security, or meet other limited contractual obligations.

• Use Customer Content only as needed to provide the requested service, comply with law, maintain security, or meet other limited contractual obligations.
• Not use Uploaded Photos, prompts, AI Illustrations, generated story text, order previews, or completed book files to train, improve, or fine-tune AI models.
• Maintain appropriate confidentiality, security, retention, and deletion practices for Customer Content processed on our behalf.
• Follow retention and deletion requirements that are reasonably consistent with our Privacy Policy and instructions, subject to applicable law and limited operational requirements.

We list current vendors and related data-handling practices in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service and may update those documents when our practices or legal obligations materially change.

5. We do not train AI on your photos

This is important enough that it gets its own section. We do not use Uploaded Photos, prompts, AI Illustrations, generated story text, order previews, or completed book files to train, improve, or fine-tune AI models. We also do not authorize our AI vendors to use that content for model training.

Uploaded Photos are processed to generate your book and are handled under the retention and deletion rules below. AI Illustrations, generated story text, order previews, and completed book files may remain in your account library as an intentional product feature to support future reprints, customer keepsakes, and continued access to your book library unless you request deletion and no legal or operational exception applies.

We require AI vendors that process Customer Content on our behalf to use that content only as needed to provide the requested service, comply with law, maintain security, or meet other limited contractual obligations.

6. How long we keep your photos, and when we delete them

There are different retention rules for original Uploaded Photos and for AI Illustrations, generated story text, order previews, completed book files, and related order records.

Your original uploaded photos

• We retain original Uploaded Photos for 12 months after your last account activity, with the retention period resetting each time you log in.
• We will notify you 30 days before deleting Uploaded Photos due to inactivity.
• Abandoned drafts and related Uploaded Photos may be deleted after 60 days of account inactivity.
• Longer retention may apply where reasonably necessary for customer support, reprints, legal compliance, fraud prevention, security, payment issues, backups, vendor systems, or other operational requirements.
• You may request deletion at any time by contacting support@littlestorykeepers.com or privacy@littlestorykeepers.com with the subject line "Data Deletion Request" and the information needed to identify your account and order.

Your AI-generated illustrations

• AI Illustrations, generated story text, order previews, and completed book files may be retained indefinitely while your account remains active.
• This supports future reprints, customer keepsakes, and continued access to your book library.
• You may request deletion of AI Illustrations, generated story text, order previews, completed book files, and other personal information at any time, subject to verification and limited legal or operational exceptions.
• Deletion requests may not apply to information we are required or permitted to retain for security, fraud prevention, payment processing, dispute resolution, accounting, tax, legal compliance, protection of legal rights, or other legitimate operational purposes.

7. Your rights to access, change, and delete

You can ask us, at any time, to:

• Request access to Uploaded Photos and related personal information we maintain about you.
• Request access to AI Illustrations and completed book files associated with your account, where available and legally required.
• Request deletion of photos, illustrations, completed book files, or other personal information, subject to verification and legal or operational exceptions.
• Ask questions about the AI vendors, print partners, and other service providers that process Customer Content on our behalf.

Email privacy@littlestorykeepers.com or support@littlestorykeepers.com from the email address on your account. For deletion requests, please use the subject line "Data Deletion Request" and include the email address associated with your account, your order number if applicable, and a brief description of the information you want deleted. We may ask for information reasonably necessary to verify your identity and authority to make the request. We will review and respond to requests as required by applicable law; in practice, most responses go out within 5 business days.

The exception: active orders

If your book is already being previewed, made, shipped, or actively supported, deletion may affect whether we can finish the order. Where deletion would affect an active order, we will explain your options and, where legally and operationally permitted, offer to cancel the order and delete the relevant information before production begins or finish the order and delete eligible information promptly after delivery.

8. Marketing and consent

We do not use Uploaded Photos, AI Illustrations, book previews, completed book files, Customer Content, first name, related non-sensitive order details, testimonials, names, likenesses, or finished outputs for marketing, advertising, social media, portfolio, promotional, or similar purposes unless you provide explicit opt-in consent through an optional marketing-consent checkbox or other consent mechanism made available in the Service. This consent is optional and is not required to create an account, place an order, receive the Service, or purchase a Book. This includes:

• Photos you uploaded as source material for your book.
• AI-generated illustrations made from those photos.
• Pages or scenes from your finished book.

If you provide marketing consent, the consent applies only to the materials and uses described at the time consent is requested or otherwise approved by you. You may withdraw consent for future marketing use by contacting support@littlestorykeepers.com. Withdrawal will apply prospectively and will not require us to remove materials already printed, distributed, published, displayed, or otherwise used before we received and processed your withdrawal request, except where required by applicable law.

If you share your book on social media

If you choose to share your finished book publicly and tag us, we may reshare that public post as permitted by applicable law and platform functionality. This limited resharing permission applies only to the public post you chose to publish and does not authorize us to independently use your source photos, AI Illustrations, previews, book pages, first name, related non-sensitive order details, or finished outputs to create our own marketing materials without your explicit opt-in consent.

9. How we protect your photos

We use commercially reasonable security practices designed to protect photos you upload. These measures may include:

• Encryption in transit using Transport Layer Security (TLS).
• Encryption of sensitive data at rest where appropriate.
• Access controls that limit which employees can see customer photos — strictly need-to-know.
• Security assessments, monitoring, and periodic review of relevant vendor practices.
• Confidentiality, security, and data-handling requirements for service providers that process Customer Content on our behalf.

No system is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we determine that a security incident requires notification under applicable law, we will provide notice to affected individuals and, where required, regulators or other authorities in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

10. Photos of children and other people

Most of our customers upload photos of their own children — that's the heart of what we make. A few notes about how we handle this responsibly:

• Our Service is sold only to adults (18+). Children do not create accounts or place orders.
• By uploading a photo of a child, you confirm that you are the child's parent or legal guardian, or that you have obtained all legally required permission from the child's parent or legal guardian.
• By uploading a photo of any other identifiable person, you confirm that you have obtained any legally required permission to use that person's likeness in your book.
• We treat Uploaded Photos that depict children and related story context information as sensitive Customer Content and apply the protections described in this Policy, our Terms of Service, and our Privacy Policy.

11. Personal use of your finished book

Your finished Little Story Keepers™ book is your personal copy to read, keep, gift, photograph, share, and treasure for personal, family, gift, and other noncommercial purposes. Subject to the limits below, you can:

• Display it however you like.
• Photograph it and share images of your own copy for personal, noncommercial use.
• Read it aloud in a personal, noncommercial setting.
• Give it as a gift.
• Order authorized reprints or additional copies through the Service while available.

Your use of the purchased Book, including the illustrations, narrative text, design, and related Company content, is for personal, family, gift, and other noncommercial purposes only. You may not reproduce, distribute, sell, license, merchandise, or otherwise commercially exploit any Book, illustration, narrative text, design, Company content, standalone illustration, or character artwork without our express written permission. Little Story Keepers™ retains its rights in the underlying story, illustration style, character artwork, software, design, and other Company content except as expressly permitted for your personal, noncommercial use.

12. Changes to this policy

If we update this policy, we will update the "Last updated" date, post the updated version on our website, and, where appropriate, provide notice through the Service or by other reasonable means. For significant changes affecting how we handle photographs, children's information, Customer Content, AI processing, marketing consent, or dispute-resolution terms, we may provide more prominent notice, including email notification where possible, and will obtain consent where required by applicable law. Changes will apply prospectively unless otherwise stated.

13. How to reach us

We will respond to privacy inquiries and verified privacy requests within the time required by applicable law. In practice, most responses go out within 5 business days.

A final note from our family

We're parents. The photos you upload to make your book are the same kind of personal family photos we keep ourselves. The way we handle your photos is the way we'd want a small family business to handle ours. If anything in this policy ever falls short of that standard, write to us. We'll review it and make appropriate corrections.

Donny and Esther Trieu · Founders, Little Story Keepers™