Privacy Policy

Last updated: 20 October 2026

1. Who we are

We provide the Tribe app and the opentribe.ai website. Tribe is a private family archive. Keepers store photos, letters, voice recordings and other personal content, and share that archive only with people they invite.

For UK GDPR, we are the controller of the personal data described in this policy. This policy covers people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and India, which are the countries where Tribe is offered on Google Play.

2. What data we collect

• Account data — your email address. Sign-in uses a one-time email code. Clerk stores the sign-in identity.
• Profile data — your first and last name, as you enter them when you join or create a tribe.
• Content you upload — photos, videos, audio recordings, letters and documents you choose to add.
• Family member data — names, dates, places and relationships you enter for people in an archive, including living people and children.
• AI output — transcripts, descriptions, tags and answers produced from content and questions you submit.
• Messages you send the app — questions you ask in Tribe Chat, including voice questions you choose to record.
• Server logs — technical logs our servers write so we can keep the service secure and fix faults. A log can include the time of a request, the network address it came from, the path requested, and error details. We do not use an analytics service, and we do not record a profile of which screens you open.
• Purchase data — which subscription or credit pack was bought, and the store’s transaction identifier. Google Play handles payment. We never see your card details.
• Email preferences — whether you have opted in to notification emails about new keepers or new records.

We do not collect contacts from your device, precise location from your device, or advertising identifiers.

3. Why we collect it

We use personal data for these purposes:

• The archive — to store, organise and search the content you and your tribe add.
• AI features — speech-to-text, image analysis, and the Ask feature, when you use them.
• Your subscription — to manage the tribe subscription and your AI credit balance.
• Service emails — sign-in codes, invites, and notification emails you have turned on.
• Security and reliability — to protect accounts, investigate faults, and keep the service working, using server logs.
• Legal records — to keep purchase records where tax or accounting law requires it.

We do not use your data for advertising. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share personal information for targeted advertising.

If you are in the United Kingdom, the legal basis for each purpose is:

• Contract — the archive, AI features you use, your subscription and AI credits, and service emails needed to run the account (sign-in codes and invites).
• Legitimate interests — server logs for security and debugging, and telling you in the app when this policy changes. We do not rely on legitimate interests for advertising. You can object, as described in section 7.
• Legal obligation — keeping purchase records for tax and accounting.
• Consent — optional notification emails, which you turn on in Settings and can turn off at any time. Creating an account is also your confirmation that you have read this policy. You can withdraw consent by turning the option off, by emailing admin@opentribe.ai, or by deleting your account. Withdrawal does not undo processing that has already happened. We may still keep purchase records where the law requires them.

4. Who processes your data, and where

These providers process personal data only so we can run Tribe. They are not allowed to sell it or to use it for their own advertising.

• Microsoft Azure, United Kingdom (UK South) — the database, uploaded files, and search index.
• Azure OpenAI Service (Microsoft) — AI processing: transcripts, image descriptions, embeddings and Ask answers. Your content is not used to train models. Microsoft may keep a prompt or output for a limited time to detect abuse, under the Azure OpenAI terms. Some deployments are Global Standard, so Microsoft may process a particular AI request in another Azure region. We do not send archive content to the consumer ChatGPT service.
• Clerk, United States — sign-in. Clerk receives your email address, name and sign-in events.
• Azure Communication Services (Microsoft) — notification and invite emails. The production email service sits with the rest of the UK South service.
• Google Play — purchases. Google processes payment under its own terms. We receive the product and a transaction identifier, not your card number.

5. International transfers

The archive (database, files and search) is stored in the United Kingdom. Sign-in data is transferred to the United States because Clerk is based there.

The safeguard for that transfer to the United States is standard contractual clauses in Clerk’s data-processing terms. Where Clerk is certified under it, the UK–US data bridge (the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework) also applies.

AI processing is carried out by Microsoft under the Azure OpenAI terms described in section 4. If you are in India, section 11 explains what this means for overseas processing.

6. How long we keep it

We keep personal data only for as long as we need it for the purposes in section 3.

• Active account and archive content — kept until you delete your account, or until the tribe that owns the content is deleted.
• Deleted account — deleted when you confirm it in the app, after you have transferred or deleted any tribe you lead. We also delete the Clerk sign-in identity. Content you added to a tribe you do not lead stays in that tribe, because the lead keeper controls that archive. Your membership in that tribe ends.
• Deleted tribe — deleted when the lead keeper confirms deletion.
• Deleted record — the file, transcript, tags and search entry are removed when the record is deleted.
• Invites — kept until accepted, declined, cancelled, or the inviting account is deleted.
• Purchase history — transaction identifiers are kept for up to 7 years for tax and accounting.
• Server logs — kept for up to 90 days for security and debugging, then deleted or anonymised.

7. United Kingdom and Europe

If you are in the UK, the UK GDPR applies. If you are in the EEA, the EU GDPR applies. You can:

• Access your personal data. Email admin@opentribe.ai.
• Correct it. You can change your name in the app. For anything else, email us.
• Delete your account in Settings, under Delete your Tribe account. You confirm deletion in the app.
• Restrict processing in the circumstances the law allows.
• Export a tribe you lead via Settings, then Data export. That download is the archive for that tribe.
• Object to processing based on legitimate interests.
• Withdraw consent where we rely on consent, including optional notification emails in Settings.

You can complain to a supervisory authority. In the UK, that is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

8. United States

If you live in the United States, you can ask us to:

• Know the personal information we hold about you, and how we use it.
• Delete that personal information, using Settings, then Delete your Tribe account, or by email.
• Correct inaccurate personal information. You can change your name in the app.

We do not sell or share personal information for targeted advertising.

We do not discriminate against you for using these rights. We will not deny Tribe, charge a different price, or give you a lower quality of service because you made a request.

To submit a request, email admin@opentribe.ai from the address on your account. Say whether you want to know, correct or delete, and include the country and state where you live. We may need to confirm it is you.

If we refuse a request, we will tell you why. You can appeal by emailing admin@opentribe.ai with the subject “Privacy request appeal”, the date of the refusal, and why you disagree. We will review the appeal and reply. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact the attorney general or privacy regulator in your state.

9. Canada

If you live in Canada, you can ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, and withdraw consent to optional processing (including notification emails) subject to legal or contractual limits. Email admin@opentribe.ai.

The person responsible for the protection of personal information, including under Quebec’s Law 25, can be reached at admin@opentribe.ai.

You can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. If you live in Quebec, you can also complain to the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec.

10. Australia

If you live in Australia, the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles apply to the way we handle your personal information.

We disclose personal information to overseas recipients when we run the service:

• Microsoft, in the United Kingdom, for the database, files, search, AI processing and notification emails (Azure and Azure OpenAI Service).
• Clerk, in the United States, for sign-in.
• Google, for Play purchases, which Google may process in connection with your Google account.

You can ask for access or correction by emailing admin@opentribe.ai. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

11. India

If you live in India, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 applies to our processing of your digital personal data. We are the data fiduciary.

You can ask us for:

• a summary of the personal data we are processing and the processing we are doing;
• correction, completion or updating of that data;
• erasure, where the Act requires us to erase it;
• withdrawal of consent. Turning off optional emails in Settings, emailing us, or deleting your account is how you withdraw. We will not make withdrawal harder than giving consent. Withdrawal does not affect processing that was already lawful. If we must keep some data, such as purchase records for tax, we will tell you;
• nomination of another person to exercise these rights if you die or can no longer exercise them. Email the nomination to admin@opentribe.ai.

For a grievance, email admin@opentribe.ai. We will acknowledge the grievance and aim to resolve it within 15 days. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

Your archive is stored in the United Kingdom and your sign-in data is processed in the United States, as section 5 describes. We do not transfer personal data to a country the Government of India has restricted under the Act. You must be 18 or older to use Tribe if you live in India.

12. Other people’s information

You may add details of relatives, including living people and children, when you have the right to share those details with your tribe. You are responsible for having that right before you upload.

Anyone who is not a Tribe user, including a person named in an archive, can ask us to remove their information by emailing admin@opentribe.ai. We will review the request and remove or restrict the information where we should. The lead keeper of that tribe may need to be told that something was removed.

13. Sample tribes

A new account joins sample family tribes as a viewer, so you can try Tribe before your own archive has anything in it. Those tribes are the Gilroy family and the Callanan family. Names, dates and places in them have been changed. They are not your family.

As a viewer you can see the sample archive, and the keepers who run that tribe. Other viewers cannot see your name or email address. The lead keeper of a sample tribe, and any contributor, can see your name, email address and role. That lead keeper is the Tribe operator account. Do not put your own family’s records into a sample tribe. Viewers cannot upload. Your own tribe is separate.

14. Children

Tribe is not for anyone under 16. If you live in India, you must be 18 or older. Do not create an account if you are under the age that applies to you.

Tribe is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13. The Google Play listing is aimed at the same ages: not at children under 13, and not at anyone under 16. If you believe a child has created an account, email admin@opentribe.ai and we will delete it.

An adult keeper may still record a child relative in a family archive, where that keeper has the right to do so. Section 12 explains how someone can ask for removal.

15. Security

Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest on Azure. A tribe’s archive is available only to keepers of that tribe. Uploaded files are not public. The app receives short-lived links when it needs to show a file.

16. Changes

We may update this policy. We will change the date at the top when we do. Continued use after the date changes means you accept the updated policy.

17. Contact

Privacy questions and requests: admin@opentribe.ai