Privacy Policy

Version tos-v4.4 · Last updated October 4, 2026

The short version

• Calls are never recorded. Live audio is processed in the moment to translate it, then discarded. Only transcripts, the messages your family sends, and the moments your family chooses to save are kept — visible only inside your family.
• No ads, no advertising or analytics SDKs in the apps, no selling or sharing data with data brokers — ever. Our public website, grandkins.com, uses Google Analytics to count visits; it never sees your family or your account (see "Our website").
• We never use your family's content to train AI models. Which translation providers receive it, and why, is explained below.
• The organizer can download everything or permanently delete everything, any time, in Settings. Any member can delete their own account.

What we collect

• Account and family data: names, emails, phone/WhatsApp numbers, the languages each person speaks, other names the family uses for someone (like "Appachan"), dates of birth you add for children, optional profile photos, each person's time zone (for scheduled calls), and settings such as who can call whom and whether calls are answered automatically.
• Sign-in data: one-time sign-in codes and invite codes (stored only as scrambled hashes, and short-lived), and a password only if you choose to set one (also stored only as a hash).
• Content your family creates: transcripts of calls, live captions and their translations, moments someone chooses to save, voice, video, text and photo messages (with the original recordings and their translations), and family-room posts, stored in your family's private archive.
• Call and usage data: who called whom, when, and for how long; translated minutes used; scheduled calls; help requests sent to the organizer; and AI cost metering.
• Purchase data: your plan, top-ups, and subscription status, as reported by Apple, Google or Stripe. Payment cards are handled entirely by Apple, Google or Stripe — we never see or store card numbers.
• Consent records: what notice was shown, in which language, which text version, when, and from which IP address — kept as legal evidence of consent.
• Technical data: notification tokens for devices that allow notifications, and short-lived server logs for security and debugging.
• Visits to our website: when you visit grandkins.com (not the app), Google Analytics records which pages are viewed and how visitors found us — see "Our website".

How translation works (and where your voice goes)

During a call, what each person says is sent to a translation provider, which turns it into text, translates it, and speaks the translation. Voice, video, text and photo messages and family-room posts are translated the same way. Which provider does it depends on the languages and on whether your family includes anyone under 18:

• Sarvam AI (an Indian company) handles Indian languages (for example Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu or Hindi, with each other or with English), for calls and messages — it receives the audio or text, recognises the speech, translates it, and creates the translated voice. This means your family's audio and words may be processed outside the United States.
• Microsoft (Azure AI Speech and Translator) handles the other languages for every family that includes anyone under 18 — calls and messages. Those families' calls and messages are never sent to Google's AI.
• Google (the Gemini API) handles the other languages for families with no one under 18 — calls, and transcribing and translating messages. If a person has turned on "Sound like me", Google also uses their voice during the call to make the translation of their words sound like them.
• When a message is read aloud and neither of the above makes the voice, Microsoft's read-aloud service receives the translated text and returns the spoken version.

These providers process your family's audio and text to provide the translation. Because translation happens on servers, calls are encrypted in transit (not end-to-end encrypted — no live-translation service can be). No one at Grandkins — and no contractor — listens to or reads your family's conversations; the only exceptions are content you share with us yourself when asking for help, or when the law requires it.

What we never do

• No voiceprints or biometric identifiers. Grandkins never creates or stores a voiceprint, and never keeps a copy of anyone's voice in order to imitate it.
• No imitating anyone without their own yes. "Sound like me" is off unless the person whose voice it is turns it on themselves, after being told what it does; nobody can turn it on for someone else. Their voice is used for it only while they are speaking on a call, and only to make the translated voice. It is never sold, never used for anything else, and never offered to anyone under 18. Turning it off in Settings stops it straight away, and we keep a record of each yes and no.
• No selling or sharing family data; no advertising use; no advertising or analytics SDKs in the apps.
• We never use your family's content to train AI models.
• Platform administrators see operational information only (counts, plans, spend) — never recordings, transcripts, captions, or messages.

Our website (grandkins.com)

Our public website, grandkins.com, uses Google Analytics so we can see how many people visit, which pages they read, and how they found us (for example, a Google search or a link from another site). It is only on the public website — not in the Grandkins apps and not at app.grandkins.com — so it never sees your calls, messages, family or account.

• Google Analytics sets cookies and records the pages viewed, the site that sent you, your browser and device type, and your approximate location (city and country), which Google works out from your IP address.
• We have turned off Google's advertising features for it: no ad personalization and no Google signals. We don't use it for ads, and we don't connect website visits to Grandkins accounts.
• Visitors in the EU, the UK and Switzerland get no analytics cookies; their visit may still be counted without them.
• Detailed visit records are deleted after 2 months. We keep only summary totals, such as visits per page.
• To opt out, block cookies in your browser or install Google's opt-out add-on: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

The website is written for parents and families deciding whether to use Grandkins; it is not directed to children.

Who we share data with

Only service providers that Grandkins needs to run, processing on our instructions:

• Amazon Web Services — hosting and storage (United States), and our live-call server in Mumbai, India
• Sarvam AI — translation of calls and messages in Indian languages
• Microsoft — translation of calls and messages in other languages for families that include anyone under 18 (Azure); spoken versions of some translated messages
• Google — translation of calls and messages in other languages for families with no one under 18 (Gemini); notifications on Android phones (Firebase Cloud Messaging); Google Play purchases; visit statistics for our public website (Google Analytics)
• Apple — notifications on iPhones; App Store purchases
• RevenueCat — keeping track of App Store and Google Play purchases
• Stripe — payments on the web
• Cloudflare — relaying call connections when two phones can't connect directly (the relay passes encrypted traffic)
• Resend — email, such as sign-in codes and renewal reminders
• Meta (WhatsApp) and Twilio — sending the invites, sign-in codes and notifications you ask us to send by WhatsApp or text message

We may also disclose data if the law requires it. There are no other recipients.

Children

Children under 13 are added only by a parent or legal guardian, who gives explicit consent and confirms it's them with their password or a code we email them (COPPA). What we collect from a child is the same as any member: name, date of birth, languages, and the call and message content described above. Children don't sign up themselves; a parent may send a child an invite code so the child can use Grandkins on their own device, inside the family only. While a family includes anyone under 18, none of its calls or messages are sent to Google's AI; Sarvam AI or Microsoft translates them instead (see "How translation works"). The parent can review or permanently delete a child's information at any time in Settings.

Retention and deletion

• Your archive is kept until you delete it — that's its purpose.
• Export: the organizer can download everything we hold about the family in Settings → Help & account → Export family data.
• Delete a call: the organizer can delete any call from Memories, permanently.
• Delete one person: any member other than the organizer can delete their own account in Settings. Their sign-in, photo, messages and posts, and their words in saved call transcripts are erased straight away; consent records are kept without their name.
• Delete everything: the organizer can delete the whole family in Settings → Help & account → Delete everything, with a typed confirmation. After a 7-day grace period, database records and files are permanently erased from our live systems. Copies in our encrypted backups are deleted within 60 days.
• Expired join links, dead notification tokens, and server logs are cleaned up automatically.

Your rights

• Access, export, correct, or delete your family's data any time in Settings — no request forms, no waiting.
• California residents: the rights above cover CCPA access/deletion; we do not sell or share personal information as defined by the CCPA.
• India: the notice every member sees before their first call, and again when joining a call, is our purpose-limited notice for processing under the DPDP Act. It is shown in English.
• Questions or requests we can help with directly: hello@grandkins.com.

Security

TLS everywhere; passwords, sign-in codes and invite codes stored only as hashes (passwords with scrypt); codes that expire quickly and allow only a few wrong guesses; archive features that stay off until consent is recorded, enforced on our servers; per-family data isolation; and nightly encrypted backups. Your family's account, archive and files are stored in the United States (Amazon Web Services, Ohio). Audio and words sent for translation are processed where our translation providers operate — for Indian languages, by Sarvam AI in India — and some calls may run through our call server in Mumbai, India, which carries the live call only.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date above and, for material changes, tell you in the app or by email. We will not reduce your rights under this policy without your explicit consent.

Grandkins · Webiske LLC, Louisville, KY · hello@grandkins.com · Terms of Service