Owl Pod Stories is a video storytelling app that lets members record and share short personal stories with trusted people. This policy explains how we handle your data in the live Owl Pod Stories service.
Who we are
Owl Pod Stories is operated by Owl Pod Tech. Questions about privacy, access, correction, deletion, or abuse can be sent to support@owlpodstories.com.
What we collect
- Account data: email address and password for sign-in (handled via Cognito).
- Media you choose to record: video, audio, prompt selections, captions, and story metadata you create in the app.
- Profile and community data: display name, profile photo, connections, invites, chats, and notification preferences.
- Purchase and credit data: App Store purchase records and story-credit / gift ledgers needed to operate gifting.
- Push and device data: push notification tokens, device metadata such as OS version and app build, and app settings needed to deliver notifications and support the service.
- Analysis and transcription data: transcripts, titles, summaries, themes, and related processing metadata generated from your stories by Owl Pod Stories systems and enabled processing providers.
- App diagnostics: crash logs, device metadata such as OS version and app build, and upload status logs to improve reliability.
What we do not collect
- No location data.
- No advertising identifiers or third-party ad tracking.
- No contacts or photo-library access beyond the media you explicitly choose to save or upload.
How we use the data
- To let you record, upload, store, share, and play back your stories.
- To operate community, gifting, notifications, and account features.
- To generate transcripts, summaries, titles, themes, and related story insights using on-device and cloud processing pathways that support the product.
- To operate, secure, and improve the service, including diagnosing upload failures and abuse prevention.
- To provide support when you contact us.
Sharing
- We do not sell your data.
- We store and process data with essential service providers that help us run the app, including AWS-hosted infrastructure and storage, Amazon Cognito for authentication, Apple for App Store transactions and platform services, Firebase/APNs-related push delivery services, and enabled video/transcription processing providers that support story analysis workflows.
- We may disclose data if required by law or to protect the security of the service.
- We do not share your stories or messages with other members beyond the people you have connected with and chosen to share them with.
Moderation and reported content
If you report a story or a conversation, our support team reviews what you reported so we can act on it. This means a member of our team may read the content in question, including private chat messages, when a report has been made about it.
- An open report is what permits this access. Our team cannot browse accounts or conversations that have not been reported.
- Access is limited to the conversation between the person who reported and the person reported. Other conversations either person has are not opened by that report.
- When a report is closed, access ends with it.
- Every review of a reported conversation is logged with the reviewer's identity, the report it relates to, and who took part in the conversation. Refused attempts are logged too.
- Reviewers can hide a story from other members while a report is assessed. Hidden stories remain visible to the person who recorded them.
We use this access only to assess reports, enforce our Community Guidelines, and keep the service safe. We do not use it for advertising, analytics, or model training.
Retention
Account, profile, story, and community data are generally kept while your account is active. If you request deletion, we remove or de-identify data according to our deletion workflow, but we may retain limited purchase, support, fraud-prevention, accounting, and security records for longer when legally required or operationally necessary.
Messages you send are part of the other person's record of the conversation. A chat message is kept for as long as the account of the person who received it exists. If you delete your account, messages you sent to someone else remain in that person's copy of the conversation; messages other people sent to you are removed with your account. Removing a connection or blocking someone does not delete the messages either of you already received.
Security
Media and API traffic are sent over HTTPS. Stored assets live in access-controlled buckets. No security can be perfect; we work to safeguard your data with reasonable technical and organizational measures.
Your choices
- Update your profile, notification preferences, and upload settings inside the app.
- Choose who each story is shared with when you record it.
- Block another member from your profile, your connections list, or a chat. Blocking stops them contacting you or sending you new connection invitations, and they are not told that you have blocked them. You can review and undo blocks in Settings.
- Report a story or a conversation from the app if you think it breaks our Community Guidelines.
- Request permanent account deletion from the in-app Settings screen.
- Contact us if you need access to, correction of, or help with your data.
- Depending on where you live, you may have rights to request access, correction, deletion, or information about how your personal data is used.
Children and age-appropriate use
Owl Pod Stories is intended for people who are legally allowed to manage an account under applicable law. If a parent, guardian, or other authorized adult believes data was provided improperly, contact us so we can review and respond.
Contact
Email: support@owlpodstories.com