Privacy Policy

Effective November 12, 2026. Covers the Life. Documented app for iPhone and iPad, and this website.

The short version

  • We don’t collect your data. There is no account, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking.
  • Your recordings, photos, transcripts and films stay on your device unless you choose to back them up or share them.
  • If you use iCloud, the app keeps some details in your own private iCloud so they appear on your other devices. Apple stores that data. We can’t see it.
  • We don’t sell or share your information, because we never receive it.

Who we are

Life. Documented is published by Life Documented LLC (“we” or “us”). This policy explains what happens to information when you use the app and this website. The app is built so that your family’s stories stay with your family.

What the app keeps on your device

To do its job, the app stores what you create in it:

  • The people you add: their names, what they are to you, and when they were born, if you enter it.
  • Interviews: questions, notes, and the video or audio recording of each answer.
  • Transcripts the app makes from those recordings, including the timing of each word.
  • Photos you add to a person or place in a film.
  • What you make from all of this: films, highlights, the Life Story Book and other files.
  • Where an interview took place, only if you allow location access. You can edit or remove it.
  • Your settings.

All of this lives in the app’s private storage on your device, which iOS protects with data protection. None of it is sent to us.

Where your information goes

Your private iCloud

When your device is signed in to iCloud, the app syncs its details, such as names, questions, transcripts and written stories, through your own private iCloud database using Apple’s CloudKit, so they appear on your other devices. Apple stores this data in your iCloud account under Apple’s Privacy Policy. We have no access to it. If you aren’t signed in to iCloud, the app still works and everything stays on the device.

Backups you choose

For each interview, you choose where its recordings are kept:

  • On this iPhone only, the default. Nothing leaves the device.
  • iCloud Drive. The whole interview is copied to the app’s folder in your iCloud Drive, so you can open it on another device or after reinstalling. Photos of a person are copied there too while one of their interviews uses iCloud Drive.
  • Photos. The finished film is saved to your Photos library. The answers stay on the device.

These copies are stored in your own iCloud account or Photos library, not with us.

When you share

Nothing is shared unless you tap Share, AirDrop, Save to Files or a similar action. What you share goes to the people, apps or services you pick, and their own privacy practices apply. If you have the Life Story Book printed, you send the PDF to a printer of your choice yourself.

AirPlay to your TV

When you play a film on your TV with AirPlay, the app sends it over your home Wi-Fi to that TV. It doesn’t leave your local network, and the app records nothing about the TV or the session.

Place names

If you allow location access, the app reads your location to note where an interview took place, and asks Apple’s map service to turn it into a place name, such as a town. Apple handles that request under its own privacy policy. The app keeps only the place name with the interview, and we never receive it.

Permissions the app asks for

iOS asks for each permission the first time the app needs it, never all at once. You can change any of them later in the Settings app.

Camera
To film each answer, and to take a photo for an interview if you choose.
Microphone
To record the voices in the interview: your questions and their answers.
Speech recognition
To write out each answer as a transcript on your device, for captions and search.
Location, while using the app
Optional. To note where an interview took place.
Photos
To add photos you pick with the system photo picker, which shows the app only the photos you choose. Saving a film asks for permission to add to your library, not to read it.
Local network
To play a film on your TV over your home Wi-Fi with AirPlay.
Notifications
Optional. Reminders from your device, such as when a transcript is ready or a weekly My Story question. They are scheduled on the device, not sent from a server.

On-device intelligence

Transcription uses Apple’s speech recognition on your device. Telling speakers apart uses models that come inside the app, with downloading turned off. On devices with Apple Intelligence, optional writing help, such as tidying a transcript or suggesting questions, uses Apple’s on-device language model. None of these send your recordings or transcripts to us or to any other company.

What we collect

Nothing. The app has no account system, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking, and no third-party code that collects data. We don’t run a server that the app talks to.

Two things come from Apple, not from the app. If you turned on Share With App Developers in iOS Settings, Apple may send us crash reports and usage statistics that don’t identify you; you can turn this off in Settings, under Privacy & Security, then Analytics & Improvements. If the app ever offers purchases, Apple handles payment through the App Store, and we never receive your payment details.

Children

The app doesn’t collect personal information from anyone, including children under 13. Parents and guardians can record interviews with children, such as the Children’s interview. Those recordings stay on the family’s own devices and iCloud, and we have no access to them.

The people you record

The recordings you make are yours. Please ask the people you interview before you record them, and before you share what they said.

Deleting your data

  • Delete an interview or a person in the app. Deleted interviews wait in Recently Deleted before they are removed for good, and the app also removes the copies it made in iCloud Drive.
  • Deleting the app removes everything it stored on that device.
  • To remove the app’s data from iCloud, open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, and manage the storage for Life. Documented.
  • Films you saved to Photos, files you saved elsewhere, and anything you shared stay until you delete them there.

Because we hold none of your data, we have nothing to look up, correct or delete on your behalf. You stay in control of it on your devices and in your iCloud account.

This website

This website uses no cookies, no analytics and no third-party services. Its fonts and images are served from the site itself. Like any website, our hosting provider may keep standard server logs, such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested, for a short time to keep the site running and secure. We don’t use them to identify you.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we’ll post the new version here and update the date at the top. If a future version of the app adds an optional feature that sends anything off your device, it will be off unless you turn it on, it will say so where you turn it on, and this policy will describe it before it ships.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Write to Life Documented LLC at hello@lifedocumented.com.