Privacy Policy

Who we are

Lil Lanterns is run by Lil Lanterns LLC, a New York company. Questions about this policy: hello@lillanterns.com.

Who Lil Lanterns is for

Lil Lanterns is a tool for adults 18 and older to create stories they share with their children. It isn't directed to children, and children shouldn't use it on their own. By entering story details about a child, you confirm that you are the child's parent or legal guardian, or have their parent's or guardian's permission. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you think a child has given us information, email us and we'll help.

What we collect, and why

• Story details you enter. Your child's age range (required) and, if you choose, a first name, gender or pronouns, cultural background, themes, a setting, and anything else you'd like the story to include. We use these only to write your story. Please share only what the story needs: no last names, schools or addresses.
• The dedication you write stays in your browser. It isn't sent to us.
• Payment details, if you subscribe. Payments are handled by Stripe. We receive your name, email and billing details, but never your full card number.
• Messages and feedback you choose to send us, by email or through our feedback form.
• Your name and email, if you reserve a First Spark spot. We use them only to tell you when founding-member spots open and to send you Lil Lanterns updates. Reply or email hello@lillanterns.com anytime to be removed.
• Language requests. When you tap a language you'd like us to add, we record only the language and the date, not who asked.
• Basic site analytics: anonymous page-view counts, so we know which pages are used.

What we keep

We don't run a database of stories or story details. When you create a story, your details are sent to our AI provider to write it, and the finished story comes straight back to you. Your stories are saved only in your own browser, on your device, in “My stories.” You can delete them there at any time, and clearing your browser's data removes them.

Your browser also keeps a small note of how many free stories you've made and, if you subscribe, that your subscription is active, so unlimited stories work on that device. To confirm a subscription, we check your payment, or the email you subscribed with, with Stripe. We don't store that check on our servers.

We keep payment and subscription records as long as we need them for accounting and tax purposes.

Services that process information for us

• Anthropic writes each story with its AI model, Claude. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, it does not use the details we send to train its AI models.
• Vercel hosts our website and provides our anonymous analytics.
• Stripe processes payments and subscriptions.
• Google provides our email and our feedback form, keeps our count of language requests, and keeps the list of families who reserve a First Spark spot.

We don't sell or rent your information, and we don't use it for advertising. We do not “sell” or “share” personal information as those terms are defined under US state privacy laws, including California's.

Data security

Everything sent to and from Lil Lanterns is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). We keep as little as possible: story details aren't stored on our servers, and the limited information we do keep, like payment records, emails and feedback, is held by established providers (Stripe and Google) that run their own security programs. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect what we hold.

Cookies

We don't use advertising or tracking cookies. If you were invited to our beta from outside the US, one cookie remembers your beta access code.

Your choices

• Delete saved stories anytime on the My stories page.
• Manage or cancel your subscription through the link in your Stripe receipt.
• Email hello@lillanterns.com to ask what we have about you, or to have it deleted where we can.

Where we operate

Lil Lanterns is currently offered in the United States.

Changes

If we change how we handle information, we'll update this page and its effective date. For significant changes, we'll also email subscribers.