AudioTalesAudioTales is an app that reads picture books aloud: you photograph the pages of a book you own, and a synthetic storyteller voice reads them to you. This policy explains what the app and this website handle, why, who helps us process it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. We've written it to be read.
AudioTales is operated by Advection Software LLC, a limited liability company in Wyoming, USA (“we”, “us”). We are the controller of your personal information. Contact: support@tales.audio, or Contact support in the app.
The short version
- We collect only what the app needs to make and play your books: an account identifier, the photos of the pages you take, the words read from them, the narration made from them, and a record of what you used.
- Page photos and text are processed by Google's Gemini AI to read the words, translate them and make the narration. Google processes them for us and doesn't use them to train its models.
- Your books are private to your account. There's no public library and no sharing.
- No advertising, no advertising identifiers, no third-party analytics or tracking. We don't sell or share your personal information.
- AudioTales is for adults — parents and carers. Children can listen, but they shouldn't use or manage the account.
- You can delete books, and your whole account with everything in it, in the app at any time: see deleting your account.
1. What we collect, and why
| What | Details | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | A random account identifier, created automatically the first time you open the app — no name or email needed. If you sign in with an email address instead, that email address. | To keep your books attached to you and let only you open them. |
| Page photos | The photos of the cover and pages you take or choose. We store a resized copy (at most 1600 pixels wide) and a small thumbnail, not the full-size original. Resizing normally removes the camera's metadata, such as where the photo was taken. | To read the words, show each page while it's read, and let you add pages or narrate the book again later. |
| Text | The words read from each page, any corrections you make, translations, the book's title, and the directions you give the storyteller (for example “a slow, sleepy pace”). | To narrate the book, show the words while it plays, and translate it. |
| Audio | The narration made for each page and language, the narrated title, and any whole-book audio files you export. | To play your book and let you take it with you. |
| Book settings | Your chosen voice, languages, music and reading settings, and a colour taken from the cover (worked out on our own server). | To play the book the way you set it up. |
| Usage and credits | Your credit balance, when credits were added and when they expire, a history of what each narration cost (which includes the first few words of the page), and simple events such as “a book started playing”, “a book finished”, “the sleep timer stopped playback” or “a narration started or finished”, linked to your account identifier. | To keep your balance correct, show you what you've used, and see which parts of the app work and which don't. |
| Notifications | If you allow notifications, a push token for your device. | To tell you when a book is ready. |
| Support messages | When you contact us from the app: the email address you give us, your message, its topic, and the app's version, platform (iOS or Android) and language. When you email us: your email and message. | To answer you. |
| Technical logs | Our server records each request it receives, including your IP address, the time and the address requested, and any errors. | To keep the service running, secure and free of abuse. |
What we don't collect: your contacts, your location, recordings from your microphone (the app doesn't record audio), advertising identifiers, or payment card details. If you subscribe, the payment is handled by Apple or Google; we only receive confirmation of your subscription.
On your device, the app keeps a copy of your books' details, your place in each book, and your preferences (language, appearance) so it opens quickly. This stays on your phone or tablet.
Please photograph only book pages. If a photo happens to include a person, it is processed like any other page photo.
Legal bases (for people in the EU, UK and similar places): we process your information to provide the service you ask for (contract); to keep it secure, prevent abuse and improve it (our legitimate interests); with your consent for notifications, which you can withdraw in your device settings; and where the law requires it.
2. How your book is processed
Turning photos into a narrated book takes several steps, run by our server with Google's Gemini models:
- the resized page photos are sent to read the words on each page and the title on the cover;
- the page text is sent to detect its language, to translate it if you ask for another language, to choose music that fits, and — if you ask — to suggest a direction for the storyteller;
- the page text and your directions are sent to make the narration, with the voice you chose.
Google processes this content on our behalf to return the result. Under the Gemini API terms for paid services that we use, Google does not use it to improve its products or train its models, and may keep it for a limited time only to detect abuse and meet legal obligations. The storyteller voices are synthetic — made by AI — not recordings of real people. Narration is machine-made and can contain mistakes; you can correct a page's words and narrate it again.
Music comes from our own library of public-domain and CC0 recordings; choosing it doesn't involve anyone else.
3. Who processes it
We use a small number of service providers, each receiving only what its job needs and each bound to use it only to provide its service to us:
- Google Cloud and Firebase (Google LLC): our servers (Cloud Run), database (Cloud Firestore), file storage (Cloud Storage), sign-in (Firebase Authentication), server logs (Cloud Logging) and this website (Firebase Hosting).
- Google Gemini API (Google LLC): the AI processing described in section 2.
- Expo (650 Industries, Inc.), with Apple Push Notification service and Firebase Cloud Messaging: to deliver notifications, which contain the book's title and how far its narration has got.
- Apple and Google as app stores: they distribute the app and, if you subscribe, handle payment under their own privacy policies.
We don't sell your personal information and we don't share it for advertising. We may disclose information if the law requires it, to protect people's rights and safety, or as part of a sale or reorganisation of our business — in which case this policy would continue to apply to it.
4. Where it is stored
We are based in the United States, and your information is stored and processed there: our servers and file storage are in Google Cloud's us-east1 region (South Carolina) and our database in its United States multi-region. If you use AudioTales from elsewhere — for example the EU or UK — your information is transferred to the US. We rely on our providers' safeguards for that, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and Google's certification under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and its UK and Swiss extensions.
5. How long we keep it
- Your books — photos, text, audio and settings — for as long as your account exists, so you can listen again, add pages or narrate them again.
- When you delete a book, it disappears from your library and its stored page photos, narrations and exported audio are deleted from our servers straight away.
- Usage and credit history for as long as your account exists, to keep your balance correct.
- Support messages for as long as we need to help you and keep a record of the conversation. Those sent from the app are deleted with your account.
- Server logs for about 30 days.
- Database backups are made daily and kept for 7 days.
- When you delete your account in the app (Profile → Delete account), the account and everything in it are deleted at once; if you ask us by email instead, we do it within 30 days of your request. Copies in backups disappear within 7 days after that. We keep only a note that the account was deleted — the date, the account identifier and how many books and files were removed — for up to 12 months.
6. Your choices and rights
- In the app you can correct a page's words, delete pages, languages and whole books, export a book's audio, and delete your whole account and everything in it (Profile → Delete account). You can turn notifications off in your device's settings.
- Ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, to delete it or your whole account, or to stop or limit a use of it. Write to support@tales.audio or use Contact support in the app. We answer within 30 days.
- Proving it's you: because most AudioTales accounts aren't linked to an email address, the surest way to make a request about your account is from inside the app (Contact support), which tells us which account it is. If you signed in with an email address, email us from that address.
- In the EU, UK and similar places you have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection, and you can complain to your local data protection authority.
- In California and other US states with privacy laws you have the right to know what we collect, to have it deleted or corrected, and not to be discriminated against for asking. We don't sell or share personal information as those laws define it.
7. Children
AudioTales is made for parents, carers and other adults to use with children. It is not directed to children, and children should not create, manage or use an account on their own: the adult chooses the books, takes the photos and controls the app, and the child listens. You must be 18 or over to use AudioTales (see our terms).
We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 — or under the age that applies where you live, such as 16 in some EU countries. The app has no chat, no social features, no public profiles, no advertising, and doesn't record audio. If you believe a child has given us personal information — for example in a support message — contact us and we'll delete it.
8. Security
Information travels to and from our servers encrypted (HTTPS) and is stored encrypted at rest on Google Cloud. No system is perfectly secure, so if we ever learn of a breach that affects your information, we'll notify the people affected and the relevant authorities as the law requires.
9. This website
This website uses no cookies, no analytics and no trackers. It remembers whether you chose the light or dark look in your own browser's storage, which never leaves your device. Its fonts, pictures, audio and video are served from this site itself. Our hosting provider (Firebase Hosting) receives your IP address to deliver the pages and keeps standard server logs.
10. Changes and contact
If we change this policy we'll update the date at the top. For significant changes we'll give notice on this page, and in the app where we can, before they take effect.
Questions or requests: support@tales.audio, or Contact support in the app. Advection Software LLC, Wyoming, USA.