Privacy policy

The short version for grown-ups

Kidwio AI is an AI chatbot for children aged 5 to 12. A parent or guardian sets it up, and we verify parental consent before a child can use it.
We collect only what Kidwio needs to work: your email, your child's first name and age, their chats and whiteboards, wellbeing check-ins, and a few technical tokens.
No ads. No tracking. No third-party analytics. We never sell or rent anyone's data, and we don't use it to build marketing profiles.
The guardians in your family can read your child's chats. Our admin tools never show them. There is one exception, explained in section 9.
You can see, export and delete your child's data in the app at any time.

1. Who we are

Kidwio AI ("Kidwio", "we", "us") is provided by [legal entity name], [registered address]. We are the data controller for the personal data described here. You can reach us at support@kidwio.com.

[If required: our UK representative / EU representative under Article 27 GDPR is …]

2. Who this policy covers

This policy covers the Kidwio AI app on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and this website, kidwio.com. Kidwio is made for children aged 5 to 12 and is set up and managed by a parent or legal guardian, who must be an adult. Children can't create an account on their own.

We wrote this policy for parents and guardians. The box at the top is a short version for children.

Under the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), UK GDPR and the EU GDPR, we need a parent's or guardian's permission before we collect personal information from a child under 13.

When you sign up, we ask you to verify that you're an adult parent or guardian through an independent consent service [vendor to be confirmed, for example PRIVO or k-ID]. The consent service handles the verification method you choose and tells us the result. We keep a record of your consent.
Until your consent is verified, your child can't use Kidwio and we collect nothing from them.
We tell you here, before you consent, exactly what we collect from your child and why. If we ever want to collect something new or use it in a new way, we will ask you again first.
You can withdraw consent at any time by deleting your child's profile or your account. We then stop collecting from your child and delete their data as described in section 10.
We never ask a child for more information than they need to use Kidwio.

4. What we collect

From you, the parent or guardian

Account details: your email address and password (stored only as a secure hash), or the details Apple shares if you use Sign in with Apple, which can be a private relay address.
Consent record: the result of your parental consent check, when it happened and which method was used. We don't receive or store identity documents or card numbers from the consent service.
Family settings: your children's profiles, buddy choices, topics to avoid, notification preferences, your parent PIN (stored only as a secure hash) and your country, which we use to choose the right helplines.
Second guardian: if you invite another guardian, their email address.
Subscription records: which plan you have, its status and Apple's transaction identifiers. Apple handles payment. We never see your card details.
Messages to us: anything you send to support.

About your child

First name and age. You enter these. We use the age to pitch answers at the right level. We don't ask for a surname, birthday, school, photo or address.
Chats and whiteboards: what your child types or taps, the buddy's replies, and the whiteboards it draws, including answers your child taps on the board.
Wellbeing check-ins: moods your child shares, topics that came up, and any safety flags from our screening.
Stars and progress that your child earns on the board.

About devices

A device check token. To make sure the free allowance is used once per family, the app uses Apple's DeviceCheck service. It lets us mark a device as having used the allowance without learning who uses it. We don't collect advertising identifiers.
Push notification tokens for guardians' devices, so we can send safety alerts and summaries.
Basic technical logs: IP address, app version, device type and error reports from our own servers, used to keep Kidwio secure and working.

5. What we don't collect or do

No advertising of any kind, and no ad networks.
No tracking across other apps or websites, and no third-party analytics or tracking tools.
No selling, renting or sharing of personal data for advertising. We don't "sell" or "share" personal information as US state privacy laws define those terms.
No marketing profiles of children, and no automated decisions with legal or similar effects.
No photos. Children can't upload images in this version.
No voice recordings from children. The microphone is switched off at launch. If we turn it on later, we'll update this policy and ask for your consent first.
No precise location. We only use the country you choose.
No drawings. What your child draws on the board stays on the device.
No public profiles, and no way for children to contact each other.
We don't use your child's chats to train AI models.

6. How we use data, and our legal bases

What we do	Data used	Legal basis (UK and EU)
Run your account and family	Account details, family settings	Contract with you
Answer your child at their age, in chat and on the board, with their buddy's voice	Child's first name, age, chats	Your consent as parent
Screen every message and reply for safety	Chats	Your consent; legitimate interest in protecting children
Show helplines and alert you when your child may be at risk	Chats, safety flags, push tokens, email	Your consent; vital interests where a child may be in danger
Show you transcripts, the wellbeing view and summaries	Chats, wellbeing check-ins	Your consent; contract with you
Apply the free allowance once per family	Device check token, account	Legitimate interest in preventing misuse
Manage subscriptions	Subscription records	Contract with you
Keep Kidwio secure and fix problems	Technical logs	Legitimate interest in a secure, working service
Understand how Kidwio is used overall	Counts only, such as chats per day. Never chat content.	Legitimate interest
Keep tax and legal records, and answer lawful requests	Subscription records, consent records	Legal obligation

We use children's data only to provide Kidwio to that child and their family.

7. Who can see your child's data

The guardians in your family can read your child's chats, boards and wellbeing view in the app, except as described in section 9.
Our admin tools never show children's chats. They show counts, settings and account status only. A very small number of engineers have technical access to our servers to keep them running. They are bound by confidentiality, and their access is limited and logged.
Service providers process data for us under contract, as listed in section 8.
Authorities, only where the law requires us to disclose data, or where it is necessary to protect a child from serious harm. [Counsel to confirm wording and process.]
If Kidwio is ever sold or merged, this policy would continue to apply to your data, and we would tell you first.

8. Service providers

We use these providers to run Kidwio. Each may use the data only to provide their service to us.

Provider	What they do	Data they handle
AI model providers, reached through OpenRouter	Write the buddy's replies and boards, run the AI safety check, and write parent summaries	Your child's messages, first name and age band. Every request is sent with zero data retention: providers may not store it or train on it.
Voice providers [names to be listed]	Turn the buddy's replies into speech	The text of the buddy's reply only. Never your child's voice.
Parental consent service [vendor to be confirmed]	Verify that you're an adult parent or guardian	Your details and the verification method you choose
Email delivery provider [name to be listed]	Send sign-in emails, safety alerts and summaries	Your email address and the email's content, which can include your child's first name and topics they asked about
Hosting provider [name and location to be listed]	Run our servers and database	All of the data in this policy, encrypted in transit
Apple	App Store purchases, Sign in with Apple, push notifications and DeviceCheck	Subscription records, Apple's sign-in details, push tokens and device check tokens. Apple's own use is covered by Apple's privacy policy.

9. Safety alerts and abuse disclosures

If your child says something that suggests they're upset, scared or at risk, the buddy shows them helplines for your country straight away, and we send you an instant alert. This includes a child talking about hurting themselves.

There is one exception. If a child tells the buddy that someone at home is hurting them, the buddy shows them helplines straight away, but we don't alert parents and that part of the conversation is left out of every parent view: transcripts, summaries, the wellbeing view, emails and data exports. We do this because the person causing harm could be a parent or someone close to one, and telling them could put the child at greater risk. [Counsel to confirm how this interacts with a parent's right to review their child's data under COPPA, and whether and when any report is made to authorities.]

Those messages are deleted on the same schedule as the rest of the chat, and when you delete the chat or your child's profile.

10. How long we keep data

Data	How long
Chats, boards and wellbeing check-ins	Until you delete them, or delete your child's profile or your account. If a family account is unused for 24 months, we delete it after emailing you first.
Your account and family settings	Until you delete your account
Consent records	While your account exists, then 3 years, so we can show that consent was given
Record that a safety alert happened (type and time, never the message)	2 years
Free allowance record for a device	3 years from first use
Push notification tokens	Until you sign out on that device, or the token stops working
Subscription records	While your subscription is active, then as long as tax law requires (up to 7 years)
Technical logs	30 days
Support emails	2 years after the conversation ends

When you delete something, it's removed from our live systems straight away and from our backups within 30 days. AI providers are not permitted to store or train on your child's messages, because every request is sent with zero data retention.

11. Your rights and choices

You can do all of this yourself in the app, in your grown-up corner, or by emailing support@kidwio.com:

See your child's information, including their chats (except as described in section 9) and the wellbeing view.
Export your child's data as a file you can keep.
Correct your child's name or age, or your own details.
Delete a chat, a child's profile or your whole account.
Stop further collection from your child by deleting their profile, or withdraw consent at any time.
Turn off summaries and choose how you get notifications.

If you're in the UK or the EU, you also have the right to object to some processing, to restrict it, and to data portability. You can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) or your local data protection authority. We'd like the chance to help first.

Children have rights over their own data too. An older child can contact us directly, and we'll help them in a way that suits their age.

We reply to requests within one month. To protect your family, we may need to confirm that a request really comes from you, usually by asking you to make it from inside the app.

12. UK Children's Code

We designed Kidwio around the UK Age Appropriate Design Code. In practice:

Best interests: safety comes before engagement. There are no streaks, no pressure to keep playing and no paid features that affect safety.
High privacy by default: no sharing, no public profiles, no location, and the microphone is off.
Data minimisation: we collect only what's listed in section 4.
No profiling for marketing, and no nudges to share more.
Parental controls are visible to the child: when your child first opens Kidwio, their buddy tells them, in simple words, that their grown-ups can see their chats.
Clear information: this policy has a version for children, and the app explains things in plain words.
Impact assessment: we keep a data protection impact assessment for Kidwio and review it when we make changes. [DPIA to be completed before launch.]

13. Where data is stored

Our servers are located in [country]. Some service providers process data in other countries, including the United States. Where data leaves the UK or the EU, we use safeguards approved by the UK and EU authorities, such as the International Data Transfer Agreement and Standard Contractual Clauses.

14. Security

We keep a written security programme. Data is encrypted in transit, passwords and PINs are stored only as secure hashes, admin access needs a second factor and every admin action is logged, and staff access to servers is limited and recorded. If a breach affects your data, we'll tell you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

15. This website

kidwio.com sets no cookies, uses no analytics and loads nothing from other companies. Our web server keeps minimal access logs, including IP addresses, for up to 30 days to keep the site secure.

16. Countries and language

At launch, Kidwio is available in the United States, the United Kingdom and Pakistan, in English. We apply the protections in this policy to every family, wherever they live.

17. Changes to this policy

If we make a change, we'll update the date at the top. If the change affects children's data or how we use it, we'll tell you in the app and by email before it takes effect, and ask for your consent again where the law requires it.

18. Contact us

Email support@kidwio.com with "Privacy" in the subject line, or write to [legal entity name and postal address].

For kids: the short version