Child Data Policy

1. Scope

This policy describes how YouVerseBooks handles personal data about children when a parent or legal guardian commissions a personalized book.

YouVerseBooks is a service for adults purchasing a product for a child. We do not direct our service at children, we do not allow children to create accounts, and children do not interact with our website or app at any point. This distinction matters legally (COPPA applies to services directed at children) and operationally (we have no chat, social, or feedback features that children could use).

2. What We Collect About a Child

To personalize a book, we ask the purchasing parent or legal guardian for:

• The child's first name (or chosen nickname)
• The child's approximate age range, used to select age-appropriate text and themes
• The child's gender, used to depict the character and personalize the story text
• One photo of the child, used as art reference for the illustrated character
• Optionally, a dedication message

We do not collect: last name, date of birth, address (the shipping address belongs to the purchaser), school, medical information, or any data the child generates themselves.

3. Lawful Basis

We process child-related data on the basis of explicit parental consent. Photos of people are processed on our server when selected. We store and use those photos for personalization only after the adult creating the book attests to permission and consent, and we confirm that attestation before an order is placed. The adult creating the book gives the attestation. The child is the data subject for purposes of the photograph and personalization data, which the adult provides on the child's behalf.

Under GDPR our processing relies on Article 6(1)(a) (consent) and Article 6(1)(b) (performance of the purchase contract). Because the child does not directly interact with our service and the consent is given by the holder of parental responsibility, the Article 8 child-consent thresholds are not the operative provision here.

Under COPPA (where applicable) we operate outside the regulation's scope because our service is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from children themselves. All personalization data, including photographs, is submitted by the adult creating the book on behalf of a child; that adult may be signed out when the photo is uploaded and may sign in or create an account later in the flow.

4. How the Photo Is Used

The uploaded photo is used as visual reference for an illustrator working with AI image-generation models. The output is an illustrated character, not a photographic likeness. The finished book contains illustrations only. The original photo is not printed, embedded, or distributed in any form.

Photos are passed to two categories of processor:

• Image-generation API providers. Section 8 lists the providers that receive photos or face references and what each receives. Several providers we use publish restrictions on training with customer content:

  xAI's API data terms, OpenAI's Services Agreement (section 4.2), Together.ai's API privacy policy, and DeepInfra's inference data policy prohibit training or model improvement with customer content unless the customer explicitly agrees. fal.ai's API Services terms (section 2.4) prohibit training and development use, subject to the excluded-model exception below.

  OpenRouter's privacy policy states that OpenRouter does not use inputs or outputs for model training. The model providers it routes to have separate terms. For our image quality shadow checks, our code explicitly requests zero retention and denies data collection, routing only to DeepInfra without fallback, using OpenRouter's provider privacy controls.

  We rely on these published terms and do not independently audit provider compliance. These are conditional provider restrictions, not a guarantee covering every provider, model, account setting, or tier.

  Known gaps and exceptions: WaveSpeed's privacy policy publishes no equivalent short-term retention limit; it allows retention as needed for service, legal, and legitimate-interest purposes. Google's Gemini API terms differ between paid and unpaid tiers: paid-service content is not used to improve its products, while unpaid-service content may be, subject to regional exceptions. We have not verified which billing terms apply to our production account.

  fal's commitment excludes models marked "Pending Enterprise Ready" or otherwise designated as excluded by advance notice. Our image service calls InstantID LCM, FLUX.2 Pro Edit, FLUX PuLID, and Cartoonify; backend asset scripts also call FLUX.2 Edit, FLUX.2 Flex Edit, FLUX Dev, FLUX Dev Image-to-Image, and ESRGAN. We have not established whether any of these are Excluded Models, so we cannot confirm that fal's restriction covers every model we call.

• Print fulfillment partners receive final print files and shipping details to produce and deliver the book. They do not receive the source photo. Section 8 names them.

We never use the photo to train models, and we never use it for marketing material, sample galleries, social media, public display, or any purpose outside producing the specific book that was ordered. This is a commitment about what we do; it is not a statement about our providers, whose terms govern their own handling.

5. Retention Schedule

What the 24-hour sweep does not cover yet. The automatic 24-hour deletion applies to guest uploads on a session where checkout was never started. Two cases fall outside it today: a photo uploaded while signed in to an account, and a session where checkout was started but never completed. If that session later completes an order, the photo follows the 90-day rule above. Otherwise it is kept until you ask us to delete it (section 7) or delete your account. Extending automatic deletion to cover both cases is open work, and we will update this policy when it ships.

When automatic deletion takes longer. For orders recorded as paid or refunded, the standard windows run from the recorded delivery date: 90 days for source photos and 365 days for illustrated art (the 12-month window above). Without a recorded delivery date, the windows instead run from the recorded payment date: 270 days for source photos and 545 days for illustrated art. An order with neither date, or a status other than paid or refunded, does not qualify for this automatic deletion, so its media can remain without a fixed deletion date.

Photos shared across orders. Source photos belong to an upload session and may serve more than one order. Automatic deletion requires at least one paid or refunded order past its photo window, and every order on that session must also be past its own photo window. The only other orders that stop blocking photo deletion are pending or failed checkouts that were never paid and never delivered, once 270 days have passed from their creation date. A newer order can therefore keep all photos on the session longer, even after an earlier order passes its window. Missing dates or other order statuses can block deletion without a fixed end date; a session containing only abandoned checkouts does not qualify for this order-based sweep. Illustrated art is evaluated separately for each order.

Open payment disputes. An unresolved payment dispute awaiting a response or under review holds that order's illustrated art and all source photos on its upload session. This hold has no fixed time limit. Once the dispute closes, automatic deletion still requires the eligibility conditions above. These conditions apply to automatic deletion only. You can ask us to delete your photos or illustrations sooner at any time (section 7).

6. Storage and Security

• All uploaded photos are stored in Cloudflare R2, encrypted at rest, with access restricted to our production worker processes.
• Our database is encrypted at rest and accessible only via authenticated application code.
• Backups are encrypted and follow the same retention schedule.
• We do not store payment information. Payments are processed by our payment provider, which is PCI-DSS compliant.

7. Parental Controls

A parent or legal guardian may at any time:

• View the photos and illustrations associated with their account, in-app
• Request deletion of any uploaded photo, generated illustration, or the entire account, by emailing support@youversebooks.com or using in-app account deletion. Confirmed within 7 days.
• Withdraw consent for further processing. The underlying order can no longer be reprinted, but already-shipped books are unaffected.
• Request a portable copy of the data we hold, per GDPR Article 20

8. Sub-Processors

Providers used depend on the book, selected generation route, enabled features and configured credentials. Listing a provider does not mean every child's data is sent to it. OpenRouter and DeepInfra receive the images described above only when our optional illustration quality checks are enabled and configured.

Headquarters and operating locations do not guarantee exclusive processing in that country. Location information is described in OpenRouter's terms, DeepInfra's privacy policy, Hetzner's hosting locations, Telegram's privacy policy, Lulu's terms and RPI Print's terms. Lulu uses print facilities in multiple countries.

We will update this list before adding any new sub-processor that touches child-related data.

9. Breach Notification

In the event of a security incident affecting child-related data, we will notify affected parents by email within 72 hours of confirming the incident, and provide: scope of data affected, mitigations taken, and any recommended action.

10. International Transfers

Data may be transferred between the US, UK, EU and other locations described in section 8 as part of normal operations. Where personal data is transferred outside the EU or UK, we use providers that offer recognized transfer safeguards, such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the UK Addendum, under their data processing terms. Customers in jurisdictions with stricter data-localization requirements should contact us before ordering.

11. Updates to This Policy

Material changes to this policy will be announced by email to all account holders at least 30 days before taking effect. Non-material changes (clarifications, sub-processor list updates) will be reflected in the "Last updated" date above.

12. Contact

For any question about this policy, or about a child's data specifically, contact:

Email: support@youversebooks.com

For escalated concerns, the same address with subject line DPO request will route to the founder directly.