Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

MyBiography BV ("MyBiography", "we", "us") creates personal biography books from recorded interviews. We are registered in the Netherlands, at Laan van Vlaanderen 141B5, 1066 MP Amsterdam. For any privacy question, or to exercise your rights, write to us at support@mybiographybook.com. We do not have a Data Protection Officer; privacy matters are handled directly by us at that address.

This policy explains what personal information we collect, why, how we protect it, who helps us process it, and the rights you have over it. We've written it to be readable — but it's also the formal notice required under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and you can rely on it.

2. The two people this policy speaks to

MyBiography often involves two different people:

• The buyer — the person who purchases a biography and holds an account with us.
• The subject — the person whose life story is recorded. Sometimes the buyer and the subject are the same person (someone capturing their own story). Often they are different (for example, an adult child commissioning a parent's biography).

This matters because the subject's life story is the most personal information we handle, and the subject is fully protected by this policy and by data protection law — whether or not they have an account with us, and whether or not they paid. Where a right or a rule applies differently to the buyer and the subject, we say so.

3. What we collect

From the buyer:

• Name and email address (used to create your account, send order updates, and contact you about your biography).
• Payment information — processed directly by our payment provider; we receive confirmation of payment and a reference, not your full card details.
• Delivery address, for physical books.
• Optionally, your relationship to the subject (e.g. parent, grandparent), used only to make the wording you see warmer.
• Basic technical data when you use our website (see section 12).

From the subject (the interview):

• The recordings of the interview — the subject's spoken answers.
• The written transcript of those recordings.
• Any photographs the subject or buyer adds.
• The finished biography produced from all of the above.
• Setup details that help structure the interview: name, birth year, interview language, and optionally birthplace, parents' names, current location, and other family names and details the buyer chooses to provide so the interviewer spells them correctly.
• If the subject contacts us for help — by email or WhatsApp — whatever they send us, and the address or phone number they send it from. Support conversations are covered in section 16.
• If the subject reports a technical problem during the interview: a short report about their device — browser and operating system, whether the microphone was allowed, whether audio played — without the question, the answer, or the page address.

4. Sensitive information in life stories

A life story naturally touches on subjects that data protection law treats as special categories of personal data — for example health, religious or philosophical beliefs, political opinions, or details about someone's sex life or origins. By their nature, biographies may contain this kind of information.

We process it on the basis of the subject's explicit consent, given before the interview begins. Before recording starts, the subject is told plainly what is being recorded, who processes it, what the person who set up the book can and cannot see, and that they can stop or withdraw at any time — and the subject confirms they are happy to continue. The subject can ask us to delete their information at any point (see section 8).

5. Why we use your information, and our legal basis

We do not use interview content, recordings, transcripts, photos, or finished books for advertising, and we do not sell personal information to anyone.

6. We do not use your story to train AI models

The interview is conducted and the biography is written using AI services (see section 7). Our AI providers process your information only to deliver your biography. Under the terms on which we use them, Anthropic, OpenAI and AssemblyAI do not use the content we send them to train or improve their models.

AssemblyAI converts the subject's spoken answers into text on servers in the EU and deletes both the audio and the transcript within one day of transcribing them. ElevenLabs produces the interviewer's spoken voice: it receives the questions to be read aloud, not the subject's recordings.

7. Who helps us process your information (our processors)

We work with trusted service providers who process personal information on our behalf, under contracts (data processing agreements) that require them to protect it and use it only on our instructions.

• Anthropic — runs the interview and writes the biography (transcripts, life-story content).
• OpenAI — additional AI processing that may be used in producing the biography (interview content).
• AssemblyAI — converts the subject's spoken answers into text (raw audio and transcripts; EU servers; deleted within one day).
• ElevenLabs — the interviewer's spoken voice (the questions to be read aloud; not the subject's recordings).
• Supabase — our database, login system and file storage; stores account and interview data (hosted in the EU, Ireland).
• Render — hosts our application servers (EU, Frankfurt).
• Stripe — payment processing (payment and billing details).
• Our print partners — printing and shipping physical books (delivery address and the finished book file): Lulu, and Book Vault for books printed in the United Kingdom.
• Resend — sending our emails (recipient email and message content).
• Sentry — error monitoring, to keep the service working (technical data, configured for the EU region).

Website visit counts are produced by Plausible Analytics (EU servers). It sets no cookies and receives no personal data — it counts visits, nothing more — so it is not a processor of your personal data; we name it here for completeness.

8. How long we keep your information, and deletion

• Finished biography (PDF and print file): kept for as long as the buyer's account is open, so reorders and reprints are always possible. Deleted when the account is closed or on request.
• Interview transcript: kept for as long as the account is open, so the book can be corrected, re-edited, or reprinted later. Deleted when the account is closed or on request.
• Original interview recordings: the subject's recorded interview answers are deleted no later than 90 days after the book is finalised, and sooner on request. We keep them only for this short window so the book can be re-transcribed or checked if a question is raised about it; after that, only the written transcript and the finished book remain. They are the most personal information we handle, so we hold them for the shortest time we reasonably can.
• The optional recorded voice message: if the subject records a short spoken message for the end of the book — the one the QR code printed in the book links to — we keep it for as long as the buyer's account is open, so that QR code keeps working. When the buyer closes their account they can choose to keep that recording available, so the code in the printed book goes on working; in that case we keep only the recording, the name it is filed under and the code printed in the book, and nothing else from the interview. The subject can ask us to remove it at any time — the page the QR code opens has a link for that — and otherwise it is deleted with the account.
• Account and order records (name, email, payment references): kept while the account is open. Accounting and tax records are kept for the period required under Dutch law.
• Long-inactive accounts: if an account remains inactive for a long period (no less than 3 years), we may contact the buyer before deleting or anonymising the information held in it, so that intimate interview material is not kept indefinitely without purpose.

Your rights. You have the right to access the information we hold about you, to correct it, to have it deleted, to object to or restrict certain processing, to withdraw consent at any time (without affecting what was done before), and to receive a copy in a portable format. To exercise any of these, email support@mybiographybook.com and we will handle your request personally.

For subjects without an account: you do not need an account to exercise your rights. Email support@mybiographybook.com and we will action your request directly.

When a buyer deletes an order: the subject's interview content — recordings, transcript, and biography — is deleted along with it, because it exists only to serve that order.

When a subject asks us to delete their information: we honour that request and stop processing the subject's information, even if a buyer commissioned the book. If a book has already been printed and shipped, we cannot recall the physical copy already in someone's possession, but we delete the information we hold. We handle any related order or payment matters with the buyer separately.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Dutch data protection authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) if you believe we have mishandled your information.

9. What the buyer can and cannot see

Where the buyer and the subject are different people, the buyer holds the interview link too and can open the interview from their account: they can see the exchange on screen — the questions asked and what has been answered — and continue it, which is how a buyer sits beside the subject and helps with the device. The subject is told this before the interview begins, and chooses what to say. The buyer cannot play back the recordings of the subject's spoken answers, and no draft of the biography is shown to anyone before the book is produced.

At the personalisation stage, where the buyer finalises the book, the buyer does see the photographs added during the interview, and can review, remove, or add photos to decide how the finished book looks. The subject is told this before the interview begins. The recordings themselves stay out of the buyer's reach: they are kept only to make and check the book, and deleted on the schedule in section 8.

10. Other people mentioned in a biography

A life story naturally mentions other people — family members, friends, partners, and others from the subject's life — and photographs may show them too. We use this information only to create the biography. We ask subjects and buyers to share only what they are comfortable including, and to upload only photographs they have the right to use.

11. How we protect your information

We use technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including access controls, encryption of data in transit, restricted staff access, secure hosting, and monitoring for errors and misuse. We limit access to interview content to the people and providers who need it to deliver or support the service. No system can be guaranteed perfectly secure, but we take the protection of life-story material seriously and design for it.

12. Website data, cookies and analytics

When you visit our website, we collect basic technical data needed to keep the site working and secure (such as server logs), on the basis of our legitimate interest. To understand how the site is used we use Plausible Analytics, a privacy-first tool hosted in the EU: it sets no cookies, does not identify you, and keeps only aggregate counts — pages visited, country, device type. Because it involves no cookies and no personal data, it runs on the basis of our legitimate interest and needs no consent. Visiting the website is separate from the interview and does not involve the interview recordings.

We use only essential cookies and similar browser storage — the ones the site cannot work without. They do not track you, and we do not show a cookie banner because there is nothing to choose: nothing non-essential is set.

13. International transfers

Our database, login system and file storage are located in the EU (Ireland), our application servers in the EU (Frankfurt), and the subject's recordings are transcribed on EU servers. However, some of our providers process information in the United States — including our AI, voice, payment, and email providers. This means some of your information is transferred outside the EU. Where a provider is certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, we may rely on that framework. Where it is not, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and, where required, additional safeguards, so that your information is protected to EU standards.

14. Age

MyBiography is for adults. Both the buyer and the subject of a biography must be at least 18 years old, or older if the age of majority in their country is higher. By using the service, the buyer confirms that they and the subject (where different) meet this requirement.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our product evolves. When we make a material change, we will update the date at the top and, where appropriate, notify account holders.

16. Contact

Questions, requests, or complaints: support@mybiographybook.com, or write to MyBiography BV, Laan van Vlaanderen 141B5, 1066 MP Amsterdam, Netherlands.