TaleHive Get the app

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: October 9, 2026

1. Who we are

TaleHive is made by Smartbee LLC ("we", "our", or "us"). It creates personalized bedtime storybooks for children, with stories, illustrations and narration made by AI from the details and photos you provide.

TaleHive is designed for parents and guardians to use. This policy explains what information TaleHive uses, why, who helps us process it, and the choices you have.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Your Account

You sign in with Sign in with Apple. We store the stable identifier Apple gives us; we don't store your name, email address or Apple password.

2.2 Your Child

To personalize stories, you can tell us about your child — such as their name, birthday and gender — and add photos of their face so the illustrations look like them from page to page. From these photos we create a short written description of your child's appearance. You can add more than one child.

2.3 Family Members

You can also add family members — their name and relationship (for example "Mom" or "Grandpa") and their face photos — so they can appear in the illustrations too. Please only add people who have agreed to it (for a child, their parent or guardian).

2.4 Photos and Photo Details

The photos you upload — of your child, your family and the moments you want in a story, plus any art-style reference photo you choose — are stored on our servers so they can be used across your stories.

With each photo, the app also sends the date it was taken and a place name worked out from the photo's location — such as a park, landmark, street or city — so a story can mention the season and setting. These details are stored with the photo and used in the instructions we give the AI. The location and other hidden data (EXIF) are removed from the image file itself before it's uploaded.

2.5 Face Photos and Face Matching

Face photos help the illustrations look like your child and family. When you add photos, the app finds the faces in them and asks you to choose which face is your child's and, if you like, who else is in the photos.

To recognize the same person across your photos, the app creates a numerical description of each face using Apple's on-device image tools and compares them on your device. These numerical descriptions stay on your device; they aren't sent to our servers. The face images you choose are stored on our servers with your child's or family member's profile.

We use face photos and face images only to create your stories and illustrations. For that purpose they're sent to the AI providers listed in section 4: your uploaded photos and the face images you choose go to Google Gemini, which describes each photo and finds your child and family in it, and face images (or, if there isn't one, one of your uploaded photos) go to OpenAI as reference images for illustrations. We don't sell them or use them for advertising. We keep them until you delete them, the story they belong to or your account, as described in section 7. When you add photos to TaleHive, they're processed as described here.

2.6 Stories You Create

The stories, illustrations, translations, narration audio and PDFs we make for you are stored so you can read them again and on your other devices. So is any dedication letter you write, which also appears on shared links.

2.7 Purchases and Credits

Story credits are bought through Apple In-App Purchase. Apple handles payment and we never see your card details. We keep a record of your purchases, credits used and returned, and any coupon you redeem.

2.8 Notifications

If you allow notifications, we store your device's push token so we can tell you when a story is ready.

2.9 Usage Analytics

The app records which features are used (for example "book created" or "page viewed") along with a random installation ID, your account ID once you sign in, app and iOS version, device model (for example "iPhone17,1") and language. The installation ID is created on first launch and kept in the device's Keychain, so it may stay the same if you reinstall the app; it is also sent with requests to our server. When you delete your account, the app replaces it with a new one so later activity isn't connected to your deleted account. Analytics don't include your photos or your child's name, birthday or photos (only the age range chosen for a book), aren't shared with other companies, and are kept for up to 180 days. We don't use the advertising identifier (IDFA), the vendor identifier (IDFV) or your device's name, and we don't track you across other apps and websites.

2.10 Technical Data

Like most online services, our servers keep logs of requests (such as time, IP address, account identifier and error details) to run and secure TaleHive.

3. How We Use Information

  • To create, illustrate and narrate stories for your family
  • To keep your library available on your devices
  • To process purchases, return credits and prevent abuse of sign-up offers
  • To send notifications you asked for
  • To understand how the app is used, fix problems and improve TaleHive

We don't sell your information, and we don't use it for advertising.

4. Who Helps Us Run TaleHive

Creating a story relies on AI providers. To make a story, we send them what that step needs — including photos — for processing:

  • OpenAI — illustrations (your child's and family members' face images are sent as reference images — or, if there isn't one, one of your uploaded photos — along with any art-style reference photo you choose)
  • Anthropic — story planning, story writing, translation and quality checks (your child's name and age group, descriptions of your photos including their dates and place names, story text, and illustrations to check)
  • Google — describing the photos you upload (your photos and the face images you choose are sent to Google Gemini, which describes each photo and finds your child and family in it)
  • OpenAI or Google — narration (text-to-speech), depending on the voice service we currently use
  • Apple — sign-in, purchases, push notifications, and turning a photo's location into a place name
  • Cloudflare — storage of photos, face images, illustrations and audio
  • Cloud hosting provider — hosting of our servers, database and processing queue
  • Telegram — internal alerts to our team when something goes wrong (technical details such as error messages and story IDs)

Each provider processes data under its own terms and privacy policy.

5. Sharing a Story

If you share a story, we create a link that anyone who has it can open. Shared links expire 90 days after you last share them. The shared page shows the story, its illustrations, your child's first name and any dedication letter you wrote. People who open the link can save a copy of the story to their own TaleHive library, and that copy stays with them after the link expires, even if you later delete your account. To end a link early, email us.

6. Children's Privacy

TaleHive is made for parents and guardians to use. Our Terms of Service require you to be at least 18 years old (or the age of majority where you live) and the parent or legal guardian of any child whose information you add.

Information about a child — their name, birthday, gender, photos and the photo details described above — is entered by the parent or guardian; TaleHive doesn't ask children to provide it. We use it only to create that family's stories, share it only with the providers listed in section 4 for that purpose and with people you choose to share a story with (see section 5), and never sell it or use it for advertising.

A parent or guardian can review a child's information in the app, change it or remove a child's profile there (names and photos already used in a story stay with that story until you delete the story or your account), or delete the account in the app. You can also email us at [email protected] to review or delete your child's information.

If you believe a child has used TaleHive without a parent or guardian and given us information, email us and we'll delete it.

7. Keeping and Deleting Information

We keep your account, profiles, photos and stories until you delete them or your account. Shared links expire 90 days after you last share them. Usage analytics are kept for up to 180 days.

When you delete a story, photo or your child's face image, or your whole account, we delete it from our database and start deleting its files from our storage right away. If a temporary error gets in the way, we retry automatically, and we aim to finish within 30 days. Deleting your account removes your account record, child and family profiles, photos, face images, art-style photos, stories with their illustrations, audio and PDFs, share links and the usage analytics linked to your account. Family members' face images and art-style photos are removed when you delete the story they belong to or your account. Information already sent to the providers in section 4 is handled under their own policies.

Copies already saved on a device or in a browser cache aren't affected by deletion on our servers.

Even after you delete your account, some information remains, including:

  • Sign-up offer record — to prevent the welcome bonus or free first book from being claimed again, we keep a one-way cryptographic hash of your Apple sign-in identifier and the dates those offers were given. It can't be used to restore your account or any other data.
  • Coupon records — records of coupons you redeemed, linked to an internal account ID.
  • Operational records — internal usage-cost records that refer to a story only by an ID (no story content or account information), and server logs used to run and secure the service.
  • Copies others saved — copies of stories you shared that other people saved to their own library stay with them.

8. Your Choices

  • Child and family profiles — edit them, or remove face photos, from the app.
  • Delete your account — in the app under Settings › Account › Delete Account, or by emailing us. ("Delete All Local Data" only clears this device.)
  • Permissions — photos, camera and notifications are optional and can be changed in iOS Settings at any time.
  • Purchases — managed through your Apple ID.
  • Questions or a copy of your data — email us.

9. Security

Data sent between the app and our servers uses HTTPS. No method of storing or sending information is perfectly secure.

Photos you upload, face images of your child and family, art-style reference photos and the PDFs of your stories can only be opened through a link our server generates, which contains a secret signature and is given only to the app after you sign in. The illustrations, covers, character portraits and narration audio of a story can be opened by anyone who has their web address, because shared pages and the reader use them. These addresses contain long random IDs and don't point to your original photos or face images. Neither kind of link expires.

10. Changes to This Policy

If we update this policy, we'll post the new version here and change the date at the top. Significant changes will also be announced in the app.

11. Contact Us

Questions? Email [email protected] · Smartbee LLC