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Privacy Policy

HootPODS LLC · Effective date: 10/14/2026

HootPODS LLC (“HootPODS,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use the HootPODS website, the HootPODS iPhone app, and the HootPODS Sight Words iPhone app (together, the “Service”).

1. Information We Collect

Account Information

  • Parent/guardian name
  • Email address
  • Sign-in details, handled by AWS Cognito, including Sign in with Apple or Google if you use them
  • Optional profile photo

Child Profile Information (Optional, Provided by Parent/Guardian)

  • Child’s first name or nickname
  • Birthdate, which we use to calculate age
  • Interests
  • Grade or reading level
  • Sight-word lists you add for early readers
  • Optional profile photo

Important: Only parents or guardians may provide child information. Children under 13 are not permitted to create accounts.

Usage Information

  • Topics you enter
  • Web addresses (URLs) you submit, and the article text we fetch from them to write the episode
  • Generated episodes: title, script, audio, cover art, any coloring page you request, word timings for read-along, and the parent summary
  • A record of which AI prompt version and model produced each script, so we can investigate any concern about an episode
  • Credit balances and purchase history (payments are processed by Stripe or Apple; we do not store card numbers)
  • Your consent to sharing information with AI services, with the date you gave or withdrew it

Photos Used for Topic Ideas (Not Stored)

  • When you use the optional “Photo → Topic” feature in the iPhone app, the photo is sent to OpenAI only to suggest topics. It is not stored by HootPODS. We save only the text topic you choose — never the image.

Technical Information

  • IP address, browser type, and device type
  • A push-notification token for your device, if you allow notifications in the iPhone app
  • Crash reports from the iPhone app (via Sentry)
  • Sign-in session data stored in your browser or app

HootPODS Sight Words app

  • Sight words and practice progress. When you’re signed in, the sight words you add, and schedules you paste or scan, are saved to your HootPODS account so they’re kept across your devices. The HootPODS app may use the same words for that child, and if you create HootPODS episodes, they may be sent to OpenAI as described in Section 3, “AI Services (Only With Parent Consent).” When your child learns a word, it moves to their “Already know” list, which is saved the same way. Your child’s stars and practice history stay on your device and aren’t uploaded.
  • Microphone and speech. When your child reads a word out loud, speech is recognized on your device by Apple’s on-device speech recognition. The audio is never recorded, stored, or uploaded.
  • Photos of word lists. If you scan a word list or school schedule, the photo is read on your device and never uploaded. Only the words you choose to save are kept.
  • Practice sentences. Where available, Apple Intelligence writes short practice sentences on your device. Nothing is sent to Apple or anyone else to write them.

2. How We Use Information

We use information to:

  • Provide and improve the Service.
  • Write, narrate, and illustrate personalized episodes.
  • Check generated content for safety.
  • Suggest related books.
  • Manage accounts, credits, and purchase history.
  • Send notifications you have turned on, such as when an episode is ready.
  • Communicate with parents/guardians about accounts, purchases, or updates.
  • Investigate concerns about an episode, enforce our Terms of Service, and protect against misuse.

3. Sharing of Information

We do not sell or rent personal information. We share it only as described below.

AI Services (Only With Parent Consent)

A parent or guardian must agree to the following sharing before we create anything:

  • To write each episode: your topic (or the text of an article you link) and, for each child you choose, their first name, age, interests, reading level, and any sight words, including ones you add in the HootPODS Sight Words app. Sent to OpenAI.
  • To narrate and check it: the finished script, which includes your children’s first names. Sent to OpenAI (Standard voices) or ElevenLabs (premium voices) for audio, and to OpenAI for safety checks and the parent summary. To write the episode title, we send OpenAI the script with your children’s names removed.
  • To suggest books: part of the script, which may include your children’s first names. Sent to HootRated, our book-rating service, which runs on Supabase.
  • For cover art and coloring pages: the topic and episode title with your children’s names removed, and an age range. No photos. Sent to Google (Gemini).
  • Photo → Topic (iPhone app): the photo plus each chosen child’s age, reading level, and interests — not their names. Sent to OpenAI.

We do not send these services your name, your email address, your children’s birthdates, or their profile photos. You can withdraw consent at any time in Profile → AI & Your Data; this stops future sharing but cannot recall information already sent.

Sight Words Reading Voice (Only With Parent Consent)

Sight Words reads every standard sight word, and its built-in sentences, with recordings that come with the app. To read words you add yourself, and new practice sentences that use them, in the app’s reading voice, a parent or guardian must first agree to this sharing:

  • To record them: the words you add, the short practice sentences that use them, and words from those sentences. These may mention your child’s interests. Sent through our servers to ElevenLabs, our voice service. A word you add may be a name, such as your child’s.

We do not send ElevenLabs your name, your email address, your children’s birthdates, your child’s voice, or any photos. Before sending, we check each word and sentence against HootPODS’s child-safety rules, at their strictest level. Recording them doesn’t involve OpenAI. Separately, the HootPODS app may use your sight words in episodes, which sends them to OpenAI as described in “AI Services” above. You can withdraw consent at any time in Sight Words → Grown-ups → Settings → Recorded voice. Withdrawing stops future sharing but cannot recall information already sent; until you agree, those words use your device’s built-in voice.

Episode Links

Each episode has a link that plays it — its share page, audio file, and cover image. A coloring page, once you request one, also has its own link. Links contain a long random ID and are not listed or published anywhere, but anyone who has an episode’s link can play it. Profile photos are never reachable this way.

Other Service Providers

  • Amazon Web Services — hosting, storage, and sign-in.
  • Stripe and Apple — payments and subscriptions.
  • Apple and Google — sign-in, if you choose them; Apple also delivers push notifications.
  • Resend — sends account-linking emails to your email address.
  • Sentry — receives crash reports from the iPhone app.

Other Cases

  • Legal Compliance: If required by law, court order, or government request.
  • Business Transfers: If HootPODS LLC is acquired, merged, or sold, your information may transfer as part of the business.

4. Children’s Privacy (COPPA Compliance)

  • Only parents/guardians may create accounts and provide limited child profile data.
  • We do not knowingly collect direct contact information from children.
  • A parent or guardian must agree before we share child information with AI services, and we can’t create episodes until they do. We keep a record of that consent and its date, and you can withdraw it at any time in Profile → AI & Your Data.
  • Before agreeing, the parent or guardian enters their date of birth so we can confirm they are an adult. We check it and keep only the result — never the date itself.
  • Parents can delete their child’s profile, or their whole account, at any time in the app or on the website (see Section 6).
  • If we discover child information submitted without parental consent, we will promptly delete it.

5. Data Security

We use industry-standard safeguards, including:

  • Encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS)
  • Secure storage in AWS DynamoDB & S3; profile photos are private, and episodes are reachable only through their link (see Section 3)
  • Authentication with AWS Cognito
  • Stripe and Apple for secure payments

No system is 100% secure, but we minimize risk by sharing only what each service needs.

6. Data Retention & Deletion

  • We keep your account data, child profiles, and episodes for as long as your account is active.
  • You can delete your account in the app or on the website: open your Profile and choose Delete Account. With the 30-day option, your account stays usable and you can cancel at any time; after 30 days, it is deleted permanently. On the website you can also delete immediately.
  • Deletion permanently removes your account, child profiles, episodes (scripts, audio, cover art, coloring pages, and read-along timings), profile photos, and push-notification tokens.
  • In the Sight Words app, recordings made for your own words and sentences are kept with your account so they don’t need to be made again, and are deleted with your account. Copies saved on your device are removed when you delete the app. Stars and practice history stay on your device and are removed when you delete the app.
  • AI providers may keep information they received for a limited time under their own policies, and our deletion does not reach those copies. We have turned off OpenAI’s optional storage of our requests; OpenAI may still keep them for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring.
  • We keep internal records of billing, credit, consent, and deletion events, tied to your account’s internal ID, for accounting, legal, and security purposes. A small number of administrative records from account maintenance also contain account details such as an email address or child profile information.
  • Deleted information remains in our automatic database backups for up to 35 days. We also hold two database backups taken in October 2025.
  • Our service logs, which can include episode topics and titles, are kept to operate, secure, and troubleshoot the Service.
  • Stripe and Apple keep payment records as their own legal obligations require.
  • You can also ask us to delete your data by contacting support@hootpods.com.

7. Your Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have rights to:

  • Access your personal data
  • Correct inaccuracies
  • Request deletion of your data
  • Restrict or object to processing
  • Withdraw consent to sharing with AI services

Requests can be sent to privacy@hootpods.com.

8. Cookies & Tracking

We use cookies and browser storage to keep you signed in and remember your preferences. We do not use advertising trackers.

You can disable cookies in your browser, though some features may not work properly.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Updates will be posted with a revised Effective Date. If we change what we share with AI services, we will ask for your consent again before creating anything new.

10. Contact Information

  • privacy@hootpods.com
  • support@hootpods.com