Privacy Policy

The TailTots for Parents Alexa skill

“TailTots for Parents” (invocation: “tail tots parent”) is a general-audience, parent-facing Alexa skill. It is not directed at children. It helps a parent or guardian hear which missions are awaiting approval, approve missions by voice, add parent-assigned missions, review children's progress and Kid Bank balances, and ask for activity ideas that help children build life skills such as responsibility, kindness, confidence, money skills, independence, patience, teamwork, and honesty.

In demo mode — the mode the skill ships in — the skill collects no personal data through Alexa:

• No account linking. You never sign in to a TailTots account from the skill.
• No Alexa permissions are requested. The skill does not ask for your name, email address, phone number, or location.
• No voice recordings are stored by us. We receive only the text of your requests through the Alexa platform; we do not record or keep audio.
• Mission, approval, and Kid Bank data in demo mode is sample data and is not tied to your identity.

If the AI activity-idea feature is ever connected to a live AI service, the only information sent to that service with a request is the child's first name, age band, and the requested life skill (for example, “kindness”). Nothing identifying is sent, no family profile is transmitted, and the skill always shows you the suggested ideas and asks before saving anything as a mission. AI-generated suggestions are disclosed to you when they are offered. The skill never offers an open-ended chat with a child — the AI feature is parent-facing only.

The Alexa skill has no advertising, no in-app purchases, no paid content, and no links to external sites.

The TailTots mobile and web apps

TailTots collects only what a family types or uploads itself:

• Parent-provided contact details (for example, an email address and city on the launch-interest form).
• Family profile information a parent enters: household name, parent names, children's names and ages, and pet details.
• Photos a family chooses to add, such as pet passport photos and family profile pictures.
• App activity a family creates: missions, Kid Bank ledger entries, badges, growth-log moments, and parent approvals.

Where this information is stored depends on which side of the app you are using. Thekids' side of the app always stores everything only on your device (in the app's local storage) — it has no account, no sign-in, and no cloud sync. Parents can also create an optional parent account: sign-in is by email magic link only, and we never store a password for you. When a parent is signed in, the family's account data — the family profile, missions, Kid Bank ledger entries, badges, growth-log moments, approvals, and photos a parent adds — is stored in our secure backend database (Supabase Postgres). That database is protected by row-level security, so one family's data can never be read or changed by another family.

The parent-gated AI section of the web app includes an activity-idea helper for parents, powered by Cloudflare Workers AI. When a parent asks for ideas, the only information that reaches the AI model is the requested life skill and the child's age band(for example, “kindness”). Suggestions are disclosed as AI-generated when they are offered, and a parent reviews every suggestion before anything is saved as a mission. The helper does not engage in open-ended chat, gives no medical, mental-health, financial, or other professional advice, and is never shown to children — it lives behind the parent passcode gate.

Pet readiness

TailTots helps families practice pet-care responsibility through the Pet Readiness Journey. The following are always true:

• A pet is a living commitment — never a prize for completing missions.
• Completing missions or a readiness journey does not guarantee adoption or mean a family is entitled to a pet.
• Parents make the final decision about whether, when, and how to welcome a pet.
• TailTots readiness practice does not replace shelter screening or veterinary guidance.

Children's privacy

TailTots is designed for children to use with a parent or guardian's permission and involvement. Parent-only areas of the app — family setup, approvals, and account features — sit behind a parent passcode gate, and the microphone requires a separate, explicit parent permission before it can be used by a child (see Voice above). The Alexa skill is parent-facing and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children without a parent's involvement, and we never sell children's data.

Verifying the parent. US children's-privacy law (COPPA) requires us to verify that an adult approved the collection of a child's information. Parents can complete a card check in Family Setup → Privacy & permissions: a temporary $1 authorization is placed on the card and immediately refunded — the card is never charged. Card details are handled by our payment processor (Stripe); TailTots never sees or stores full card numbers. We keep only the proof of verification (card brand, last 4 digits, and date) with the consent record.

Parents may review their children's information in the app at any time, and may delete it by removing the relevant profiles or clearing the app's data on the device. For a signed-in parent account, the Privacy & permissions card also deletes the family's data from our cloud database. To request help with access, correction, or deletion, contact us at hello@tailtots.com.

What we never do

• No advertising in any TailTots product, and no behavioral advertising to children.
• No analytics SDKs, tracking pixels, or cross-app tracking.
• No precise location collection.
• No social sign-in providers and no in-app purchases. Parent sign-in is by email magic link only, and we never store a password for you.
• No public profiles, stranger messaging, public rankings, or open child chat.
• No sale or rental of family data to anyone.

Camera and photos

In the mobile and web apps, if you choose “Take Photo” when adding a pet or profile picture, the app asks for camera access solely to capture the photo you requested. If you choose a photo from your library, the system photo picker is used. Photos added on the kids' side stay on your device as part of your family's local data; photos a signed-in parent adds are stored with the family account in Supabase, as described above. The Alexa skill does not use the camera.

Voice

The mic button lets a child (or parent) speak commands and play voice quizzes. A parent must approve before the mic turns on for a child — the first tap opens a permission sheet for the parent, and the permission is recorded with its date. Under COPPA, a child's voice counts as personal information.

• We never store audio recordings. Speech is transcribed, the text is used only to understand the request or score a quiz answer, and the audio is discarded immediately.
• Where transcription happens depends on the browser: on Safari it happens on the device itself (audio never leaves the device); on Chrome, the browser sends audio to Google's servers for transcription. The permission sheet tells you which applies before you approve.
• Transcripts are sent to our AI backend (Cloudflare Workers AI) only to understand the request or score a quiz answer. They are processed transiently and never stored by TailTots — there is no transcript database, so there is nothing to retain. TailTots never uses transcripts for advertising, never sells them, and never uses them to train models.
• Voice is never used for advertising and is never shared with sponsors.
• You can turn voice off anytime in Family Setup — turning it off removes the voice permission immediately.

Data security and retention

Data on the kids' side of the apps stays on the device, so keeping it safe means keeping your device itself secure (device passcode, OS updates); deleting the app or clearing its data removes it. Data in a signed-in parent account is stored in Supabase with row-level security so families are isolated from one another, and is protected in transit with encryption. We keep parent-account information only while the account is active; a parent may ask us to delete the family's account data at any time by contacting hello@tailtots.com. The Alexa skill in demo mode retains nothing about you or your family. Voice transcripts are never stored by TailTots, so there is nothing to retain; turning voice off in Family Setup removes the voice permission immediately.

Data retention schedule

We keep children's information only as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose it was collected — never indefinitely:

• Voice transcripts and audio: never stored by TailTots. Audio is discarded immediately after transcription; transcripts are processed transiently and discarded.
• Child profiles, missions, Kid Bank, badges, moments: kept while your family uses TailTots. Deleted from your device when you remove the profile or use “Delete children's data”; deleted from our cloud database when a signed-in parent uses the same control, or within 30 days of a deletion request to hello@tailtots.com.
• Photos: kept with the profile they belong to; deleted with the profile.
• Consent records: kept while the family account is active (they are the proof of permission); deleted with the account on request.
• Parent account data: kept while the account is active; deleted on request.
• Card-verification proof: card brand, last 4 digits, and verification date are kept with the consent record; full card numbers are never seen or stored by TailTots.

Changes to this policy

If we change how TailTots handles information — for example, if the kids' side of the apps ever gains cloud features, or when a live AI service is connected to the Alexa skill — we will update this policy and note the new effective date before the change takes effect.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or about your family's information: contact Tailtots at hello@tailtots.com.