Privacy Policy · Family Photo Archive

§1 Who this covers

This policy applies to everyone who uses Family Photo Archive at photoarchive.family — members, branch admins, and anyone invited to join. The site is closed to the public: apart from the landing page and these policy pages, everything requires an account, and accounts are created by invitation only.

§2 What we collect

We keep only what the archive needs to work:

Account details — your name, email address, and a securely hashed password. We never store your password as plain text.
Optional profile details — a profile photo, birthday, phone number, and address, each of which you choose whether to add and whether to show to other members.
Content you add — the photos, documents, and videos you upload, along with captions, comments, and heart reactions.
Tags — the people you or others identify in a photo, including tags that point to relatives who don't have accounts (see §3).
Basic technical data — sign-in and activity records, and limited server logs (such as your browser type and IP address) used to keep the site running and secure.

§3 Face and photo tagging

Members can tag people in photos, including relatives who have passed away or who aren't on the site. A tag records who is in a picture — it is not facial recognition, and the site does not scan or match faces automatically.

A note on sensitivity. Identifying a specific person in a photo is personal information about that person, and in some places the law treats it with extra care. Please tag respectfully, tag only people you'd reasonably expect to be comfortable appearing in the family archive, and let a branch admin know if a tag should be removed.

§4 How we use it

We use your information only to run the archive:

To create your account, sign you in, and keep your session secure.
To display your uploads, tags, comments, and reactions to other family members.
To send the notifications you'd expect — being tagged, activity on your photos, and new uploads in your branch (see §5).
To keep the site safe: preventing abuse, fixing problems, and backing up content.

We do not sell your information, we do not show ads, and we do not use third-party advertising or tracking analytics.

§5 Notifications and email

In-app notifications (the bell in the top bar) are part of using the site and can't be turned off. Matching email notifications are optional — you can switch them on or off any time in your account settings. Emails are sent through Google's Gmail service on our behalf (see §6).

§6 Services we rely on

The archive is self-hosted and kept deliberately small, but a couple of trusted services help it run:

Google (Gmail) delivers our system and notification emails.
Cloudflare helps deliver the site and protect it from abuse.

These providers process limited data (such as an email address or an IP address) only to provide their service, under their own terms. We don't share your content or profile with anyone for marketing.

§7 Cookies

We use a small number of cookies, all necessary for the site to function: one to keep you signed in during a visit, an optional “remember me” cookie (about 30 days) if you ask us to keep you signed in, and a security token that protects forms from misuse. There are no advertising or tracking cookies.

§8 Who can see your information

Your uploads, comments, tags, and the profile details you've chosen to show are visible to other signed-in family members. Nothing on the archive is visible to the public. Optional profile fields (birthday, phone, address) stay hidden unless you turn them on. Branch admins and the site owner can see and manage content to keep the archive tidy and safe.

§9 Keeping and deleting your information

We keep your content for as long as the archive exists, because its purpose is to preserve family history. If you deactivate your account, your login is retired but your name may remain as a “ghost profile” so you can still be recognized in tagged photos. You can ask us to remove specific content, or your profile entirely — just get in touch (see §12).

§10 Children's photos

A family archive naturally includes photos of children. By uploading or tagging a photo of a minor, you confirm you're a family member with a good-faith reason to share it here, within this private, invite-only circle.

If you're a parent or guardian and want a photo of your child removed or a tag taken down, contact a branch admin or the site owner and we'll take care of it promptly.

§11 How we protect your information

Access is invite-only and approved by the site owner. Passwords are hashed, the site is served over an encrypted connection, and content is backed up. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable, up-to-date measures to protect the archive.

§12 Your choices & contacting us

You can update your profile and notification settings any time in your account. To request access to, correction of, or deletion of your information — or if you have any privacy question — reach us through the contact page or at [email protected].

§13 Changes to this policy

If we change how the archive handles your information, we'll update this page and its effective date. Meaningful changes will be shared with members through the site.