Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 4, 2026
Stories We Carry is a small, independently-run app that helps people record their personal memories and stories through guided conversation. It is operated by Stories We Carry LLC, a Washington limited liability company ("we," "us"). This policy explains what information the app collects and how it's used.
What we collect
- Account information: the email address you sign in with, and your name, as given when your account was set up. The app may ask what you'd like to be called and remember your answer.
- Your voice: audio captured during an interview session, which is transcribed to text. If you agree, we also keep recordings of your spoken answers (see "Recordings of your voice" below).
- Your time zone: the time zone set on your phone, so the app knows the date and time of day when you talk.
- Transcripts and summaries: the text of your answers, and summaries derived from them (such as names or relationships you mention), so the app can remember context across sessions.
What we don't collect
We don't use analytics or advertising SDKs, and we don't track your device, location, or behavior outside of the app. The only data collected is what's needed to run the interview and produce your saved memories.
How your information is used
Your audio, transcripts, and summaries are used solely to conduct your interview sessions and generate the memories you've asked the app to capture. They are not sold, shared with advertisers, or used for any purpose other than providing this service to you.
How AI is used
Stories We Carry uses artificial intelligence to hold a natural conversation with you. Before your first interview, the app explains this and asks for your permission. Three Amazon Web Services (AWS) services are involved:
- Speech to text: your spoken answers are converted to text by Amazon Transcribe.
- The interviewer: that text is sent to Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, which runs inside AWS through Amazon Bedrock. Claude uses it to ask thoughtful follow-up questions. Anthropic does not receive your data, and Amazon Bedrock does not store it or use it to train models.
- The interviewer's voice: each question is turned into speech by Amazon Polly.
Our AWS account is configured to opt out of AWS using any of this content to improve or train its AI services. Your stories are never used to train AI models.
Recordings of your voice
Before your first interview, the app asks, out loud, whether it may keep recordings of your voice as you answer, so your family can one day hear your stories in your own voice. You can say no. If you do, nothing is recorded or kept, only the written words, and everything else works the same.
If you say yes:
- Each spoken answer is saved as an audio file on your phone and then uploaded to Amazon Web Services. Until an upload succeeds, the recording stays on your phone so it isn't lost.
- Recordings are encrypted and stored separately for each person. Only your own account can add recordings to your interviews.
- Recordings are kept long-term, because preserving your voice is the point. They are never sold, shared with advertisers, or used to train AI. You can ask us to delete any of them at any time (see "Deleting your stories" below).
Emailing a copy of a conversation
At the end of a conversation, you can ask the app to email you a written copy. It goes only to the email address on your own account, and the app asks first. Once it's in your inbox, it's outside the app's protection, so anyone who can open that inbox can read it.
Where it's stored
Data is stored using Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. Access is restricted to what the app needs to function.
Deleting your stories
You can ask us to delete a single answer, a whole conversation, or everything. Email privacy@storieswecarry.app from the address on your account, and tell us what you'd like deleted. A family member can write for you, but we'll confirm with you before deleting anything.
When we delete something:
- It's gone from the app right away. You and anyone you've shared your stories with won't see or hear it again, and the interviewer won't bring it up.
- Recordings of your voice are permanently deleted within 7 days.
- Backups age out within 35 days. We keep short-term backups so a mistake or an outage can't erase your stories. Deleted words can remain in those backups for up to 35 days, where no one uses them, and then they're gone.
- Copies you emailed yourself are in your own inbox, so only you can delete those.
If you delete everything, the app's notes about you are deleted too. If you delete a single answer, notes the app made from it (like a name you mentioned) can remain. Tell us if you'd like those removed as well, and we'll remove them.
Deleting can't be undone, so we'll repeat back what we're about to delete before we do it.
For questions about this policy, contact us at the address below.