1. Scope and audience
Befona ("Befona," "we," "us," or "our") provides tools that help adults preserve family moments and turn them into personalized illustrated stories. This Privacy Policy covers the Befona mobile application, website, support services, and related services (the "Service").
Befona is not directed to children. If you believe a child has provided personal information directly to us without appropriate authorization, email privacy@befona.com.
When you submit information or media about another person, you confirm that you have the authority and any consent required to provide it and ask us to process it as described here.
2. Information we collect
Account and contact information
Your name, email address, profile image, authentication provider, account identifiers, and information you provide when contacting support.
Family profiles
Names or nicknames, ages or age ranges, gender selections, relationships, characteristics, avatar preferences, and photos you choose to provide about yourself or family members.
Memory and creative content
Memory titles and text, dates, selected family members, photos, prompts, style choices, generated stories, avatars, comics, dialogue edits, share-card content, and reports about generated results.
Voice transcription
If you choose voice-to-text, your device's speech-recognition service converts speech into text. Befona stores the resulting text as part of your memory and does not intentionally keep a separate microphone recording after transcription. Your operating-system provider may process audio under its own privacy terms.
Purchases
Product identifiers, subscription and entitlement status, credit balance and use, transaction identifiers, and purchase history. Apple or Google processes payment credentials; Befona does not receive your full payment-card number.
Technical and usage data
Device or installation identifiers, operating system, app version, push token, IP address, request logs, app launches, screens viewed, feature interactions, generation status, referral and attribution events, and diagnostic or performance information.
Analytics services may help us understand navigation and interaction patterns. We work to mask or exclude passwords, payment details, family photos, and memory content from analytics recordings.
3. How we use information
We use information to:
- create, operate, maintain, and secure accounts;
- save family profiles, memories, and generated assets;
- generate and personalize stories, avatars, illustrations, and suggestions;
- process purchases, maintain entitlements, and administer credits;
- send requested service and generation-completion messages;
- provide support and respond to privacy, safety, and deletion requests;
- improve reliability and design, measure attribution, and prevent fraud or abuse;
- filter generated content, review reports, and enforce our Terms; and
- comply with law and protect Befona, our users, and others.
Our legal bases may include your consent, performing our contract with you, legitimate interests in providing and improving the Service, and compliance with legal obligations.
4. AI-assisted processing
Befona sends the text, selections, and images needed for a requested creative feature to our backend and AI service providers. They process that material to return suggestions, story text, avatars, illustrations, or comics.
We do not authorize AI providers to use private Befona account content to train general-purpose models unless we first clearly disclose that practice and obtain any consent required by law.
AI-generated results can be unexpected. Review each result before saving or sharing it. Report an inappropriate result through the app or email safety@befona.com.
5. Face data
What face data the app collects. When you choose a photo to create an avatar, Befona runs an on-device face check to confirm the photo contains exactly one clearly visible face. That check produces only a count of detected faces and their rectangular positions within the image. It runs entirely on your device using Google ML Kit, exists only momentarily in memory, is never written to storage, and is never transmitted to Befona or to anyone else. Befona does not create, derive, or store a faceprint, face template, face geometry map, or any other biometric identifier, and does not perform facial recognition, identity matching, age estimation, or emotion analysis.
The photo itself. The photo you select contains an image of a face, and we treat it as face data. It is uploaded over an encrypted connection to Befona’s private cloud storage and is readable only through short-lived signed links. We use it for a single purpose: generating the stylized cartoon avatar and the illustrated stories you ask us to create. We do not use it to identify you or anyone else.
Sharing and storage. Photos are stored in Befona’s private Amazon Web Services (S3) storage. To generate an avatar, we send the photo to OpenAI, which acts as our service provider and processes it only to return the generated image. We do not sell face data, we do not share it for advertising, and we do not disclose it to data brokers. Any third party with whom Befona shares face data is contractually required to provide the same or equal protection for that data as described in this policy, to use it only to deliver the feature you requested, and not to use it to train general-purpose models.
Retention. We keep your uploaded photo and the generated avatar for as long as the associated family profile exists in your account, so your avatars and stories stay visually consistent over time. We delete them when you remove that photo or family member, and when you delete your account. Residual copies in encrypted backups are purged within 30 days.
Deletion and revoking consent. You can withdraw consent at any time. Remove the photo or the family member in the app, or delete your account from Settings → Delete Account in the app or at befona.com/account-deletion. Deleting your account removes your uploaded photos and generated avatars from our database and our cloud storage. You can also email privacy@befona.com to request deletion of your face data.
7. Retention and deletion
We retain account and creative content while your account is active and as needed to provide the Service. After we verify an account-deletion request, we delete or de-identify associated data from active systems within 30 days.
Time-limited backups may retain deleted information for up to 90 days before being overwritten. We may keep limited transaction, security, fraud-prevention, dispute, tax, accounting, or legal records for the period required by law. Content you shared outside Befona is not retrieved by deleting your account.
Delete from Settings > Delete Account or use our web deletion request.
8. Your choices and rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, receive a copy of, restrict, or object to processing; withdraw consent; opt out of targeted advertising; or appeal our response.
- Manage photo, camera, microphone, speech, notification, and tracking permissions in device settings.
- Manage or cancel subscriptions through Apple App Store or Google Play.
- Delete your account in the app or at befona.com/account-deletion.
- Email privacy@befona.com for another privacy request.
We may verify identity before completing a request. We will not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right.
9. Security and international transfers
We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect information, including access controls and encrypted transport for production services. No system is completely secure.
Befona and its providers may process information in other countries. Where required, we use a lawful transfer safeguard such as an adequacy decision or standard contractual clauses.
10. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy when the Service, law, or our practices change. We will post the updated policy with a new effective date and provide additional notice when required.
11. Contact us
Befona
Email: privacy@befona.com
Support: befona.com/support
Account deletion: befona.com/account-deletion