Privacy policy

They'll only say it once. You only need to read this once.

Wamemba me keeps the funny things and made-up words your children say. Those words belong to your family. This policy tells you what we keep, why, who helps us, how long we keep it, and how to get it back or make it go away.

Where we are today. Wamemba me is in early testing. The app is not in the App Store or Google Play yet. This policy describes what the app and the site do today. Where something is planned but not built, we mark it coming. We will update this policy, and show you exactly what changed, before any of those things goes live.

The short version

In short: We keep your family's sayings so you can keep them. We don't sell them, show ads, or teach machines with them.

• What we keep: your children's first names and birthdays, the sayings you save, and a private account that the app makes for you. Nothing more is needed to use the app.
• On your phone first: when you say a saying out loud, your phone turns it into text. Your voice never leaves the phone, and the phone does not keep the recording.
• Where it lives: in our database in London.
• What we never do: sell your data, show ads, use your family's words to train AI, make AI copies of anyone's voice, or put a surname on a card.
• Analytics: in the UK, the EU, the EEA and Switzerland, only if you say yes. They count taps, never words.
• Your rights: you can see, copy, correct or delete everything. Email hello@wamemba.me at any time.
• Your child has rights too. While they're little, you use them for your child.
• Changes: every version of this policy, and what changed, is public at insight.wamemba.me.

1. Who we are

In short: Wamemba me is made by The Doxa Way Ltd, a UK company. We decide how your data is used, so we answer for it.

Wamemba me is a service of The Doxa Way Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16744139). Our registered office is 108 Kings Road, New Haw, Addlestone, KT15 3BH, United Kingdom.

We are the controller of the personal data in this policy. This means we decide why and how it is used, and the law holds us responsible for it.

To ask anything about privacy, email hello@wamemba.me. A person reads every message. Our privacy lead is Garth Watson, a director of the company.

The Doxa Way Ltd also makes a separate app called Doxa. The two services do not share accounts, databases or data.

2. What we keep, and why

In short: Only what the app needs to keep your sayings, back them up and keep working. Each item below says why we keep it and the legal reason.

The law asks us to name a "lawful basis" for each use of personal data. You will see these:

• Contract: we need it to give you the service you asked for.
• Legitimate interests: we have a good reason, and it does not outweigh your interests or your child's. We have written down how we weighed this.
• Consent: you said yes, and you can say no at any time.
• Legal obligation: the law makes us keep it.

2.1 Your account

The first time you open the app, it makes a private account for you. You don't type a name, an email or a password. The account has a random number as its name.

2.2 Your children

We never ask for a surname, a school, a photo or where you live.

2.3 Their sayings

What a made-up word meant is private to the parents in your family. It is never shown on a card or a shared page, to a grandparent, or in our marketing.

2.4 When you say it out loud

When you dictate a saying, your phone turns your voice into text. On iPhone, the app uses Apple's speech recognition only in its on-device mode, which Apple says does not send audio over the network. On Android 13 or later, the app asks for Android's on-device recogniser, which runs on the phone. If your phone can't do this on the device, the app doesn't offer dictation, and you type instead.

Your voice is never sent to us, and the app never sends it anywhere else. The app does not keep the recording. We get only the text you choose to keep.

2.5 Your child's voice (coming)

Coming, not in the app yet. You will be able to record your child saying it again and add the clip to the saying. When this arrives:

• the clip is stored in a private store in our database in London, and only your family can play it, or someone you send a link to;
• we use it only to play it back to you and to the people you choose;
• we never use it to identify anyone, to train AI, or to make a copy of anyone's voice. Real voices only, always.

2.6 Backing up your sayings

You can link your account to Sign in with Apple, or to an email address, so you can get your sayings back on a new phone. Google sign-in is coming.

We don't ask Apple for your name.

2.7 When you write to us

If you email us, we keep your message and our reply so we can help you. Lawful basis: legitimate interests, and legal obligation when the message is a request about your data.

2.8 The waitlist on our website

If you join the waitlist at wamemba.me, we keep your email address, the date you joined, and the campaign tag in the link you used (for example "instagram"). We use it only to tell you when Wamemba me is ready and to send occasional launch news. Lawful basis: consent. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and you can ask us to remove you at any time.

2.9 Why we can keep data about your child

Your child is not our customer, and they don't use the app. You are, and you do. So for the data about your child, we rely on legitimate interests: yours, in keeping their words, and ours, in giving you the service you asked for. We weighed this against your child's interests and found that it is fair, because:

• we keep only a first name, a birthday and the words you choose to save;
• only your family can see them, unless you choose to share a saying;
• we never use them for advertising, profiling, AI training, or anything except keeping them for you;
• you can delete any of it at any time, and your child can ask us to when they're older (section 9).

The same is true for anyone else you name in a saying, such as "the bus driver". Use first names or roles, not full names.

2.10 Keeping the app working: crash reports

When the app crashes or something goes wrong, it sends a report to Sentry, in the EU. The report has the error, the app version, the phone model and system version, and your random account number.

It never has a saying, a name, a birthday or an email address. It has no screenshots and no screen recordings. When you tap something, the report notes only that a tap happened, not what it said.

Lawful basis: legitimate interests (to find and fix faults).

2.11 Making the app better: analytics

The app can send simple usage events to PostHog, in the EU. For example: "the app opened", "a saying was saved, by dictation, in 2.1 seconds", or "a child was added, with a birthday". Each event carries your random account number.

Events never contain words, names, birthdays or email addresses. The app checks every event before it leaves the phone and removes anything that isn't a number, a yes or no, or one of a fixed list of words. The app never records your screen.

• UK, EU, EEA and Switzerland: analytics are off until you say yes. Lawful basis: consent. Coming: the app will ask you during setup. Until it does, phones in these places send nothing at all.
• Everywhere else: analytics are on, and you can turn them off. Lawful basis: legitimate interests. Coming: the switch arrives with the setup update, before the app goes on sale. Until then, email us and we will delete your analytics data.

If the app can't tell where your phone is set to, it treats you as being in the UK and sends nothing.

2.12 Our website

wamemba.me sets no cookies and runs no analytics. Its fonts come from our own server. Like every website, our host (Vercel) keeps standard server logs, which include your IP address, for a short time. See the cookie notice.

2.13 Coming: things we will add before or soon after launch

None of these is live today. Each will be described here, in full, before it starts.

3. What we never do

In short: No ads. No selling. No AI training. No AI voices. Not now, and not later.

• We never sell your data or your child's, and we never "share" it for advertising.
• We show no ads, in the app or on cards.
• We never use your family's sayings, names or voices to train AI, ours or anyone else's.
• We never make an AI copy of anyone's voice. A voice in Wamemba me is always the real person.
• We never put a surname on a card or a shared page. First names only.
• We don't profile you or your child, and no computer makes decisions about you.
• We don't read your family's sayings. A person on our team will look at your data only if you ask us to (for example, to help you recover your account), if the law requires it, or to stop serious harm. We keep a record each time.

These are also our promises.

4. Who helps us

In short: A few companies run parts of the service for us. The app stores your family's sayings in two places only: your phone and our database.

We send each company only what its job needs. Supabase, which runs our database, stores your family's sayings, children's names and birthdays. The others get technical data (such as crash reports and usage counts without words), or the emails you choose to send us (Namecheap passes them on, and Google Workspace keeps them). Our team's AI tools never read a family's sayings unless that family asks us for help with them.

We are still completing the paperwork with some of them: for example, signing the data protection contract with PostHog. The full list at insight.wamemba.me shows where each company's contract stands, and anything still to do.

Coming: RevenueCat (subscriptions), Resend (emails such as gift cards and grandparent updates), and Expo, Apple and Google again for notifications. We will add each here before it starts.

Apple and Google decide for themselves how they use the data they hold when you use their stores or sign-in. Their privacy policies apply to that.

5. Where your data lives

In short: Your family's sayings live in London. A few helpers are in the EU or the US, under the legal safeguards the UK requires.

Your sayings, children and account are stored in London (Supabase, on Amazon Web Services in the eu-west-2 region). Crash reports and analytics are stored in the EU.

Some helpers are in the US, or are US companies that can reach data from the US. When data goes to them, we use the safeguards UK law requires: the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, or the standard contract clauses approved for UK transfers. Our transfer risk assessment is published at insight.wamemba.me.

6. Keeping it safe

In short: Locked down by default, checked by tests, and nobody sees your sayings unless you choose.

• Every connection is encrypted.
• Our database lets each person read only their own family's data. We test this rule automatically on every change, as a stranger, a viewer and a member of another family.
• Your sign-in is kept in your phone's secure keychain.
• Sayings are saved on your phone first, then synced, so you don't lose one when there is no signal.
• Crash reports and analytics are built so that they can't carry your family's words.
• Only the people who run Wamemba me can reach the database, and only to keep it running.

No system is perfect. If something goes wrong that puts your data at risk, we will fix it, tell the Information Commission (the UK's data protection regulator) within 72 hours when the law requires it, and tell you without delay if the risk to you is high.

7. How long we keep it

In short: Your sayings stay as long as your account does. You can delete them at any time.

8. Sharing with people you choose (coming)

In short: Nothing leaves your family unless you send it. First names only, and you can switch a link off.

Coming, not in the app yet. When you share a saying as a card or a link:

• it shows your child's first name and age, the context and the words, and plays the clip if there is one;
• it never shows a surname, a birthday, or what a made-up word meant;
• each link is long and random, so nobody can guess it, and you can switch it off at any time;
• a card image you saved or sent is a picture, and it stays wherever you put it, even if you later delete the saying.

When you share with WhatsApp, Instagram or Messages, that company's privacy policy applies to what you send through it.

9. Your rights, and your child's

In short: See it, copy it, fix it, or delete it. Email us and we'll answer within a month, free.

You have the right to:

• see what we hold about you, and get a copy;
• take it with you, in a format a computer can read;
• correct it (you can edit sayings and names in the app at any time);
• delete it: one saying, one child, or everything;
• object to how we use it, or ask us to pause using it;
• withdraw consent at any time, for example for analytics or the waitlist.

How: email hello@wamemba.me. We will reply within one month, and usually much sooner. It is free. If we need to check it's really you, we will use the account or email address you already have with us, not your passport. Coming: Export and Delete account buttons in the app.

Your child's rights. The sayings are about your child, so the law gives your child rights over them too. While your child is young, you use those rights for them. When your child is old enough to understand them (in the UK, usually from about 12), they can ask us themselves, and we will listen to them. If a child asks us to delete a saying about them, we will help, and we will talk with you first unless that would not be in the child's best interests.

If you're unhappy, tell us first: email hello@wamemba.me with the word "complaint". We will reply within 30 days to say we've got it, look into it properly, and tell you what we found. You can also complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commission (until 30 September 2026 it was called the Information Commissioner's Office): ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or call 0303 123 1113.

10. Children and this app

In short: Wamemba me is for grown-ups. It keeps children's words, but children don't use it.

Wamemba me is made for parents and other adults who look after children. It is not made for children to use. It has no screens meant for children, it sits in the Lifestyle section of the App Store, and you must be 18 or over to subscribe.

The words we keep are about children, so we treat them with extra care. In the UK, the Children's Code (the Age Appropriate Design Code) applies to online services that children are likely to use. We have assessed Wamemba me and found that children are not likely to use it. We still follow the Code's standards wherever they fit: high privacy by default, the least data we need, no profiling, no nudges, and no sharing unless you choose. Our assessment is published at insight.wamemba.me.

11. If you live in the US

In short: We don't sell or share your personal information, and you have the same rights as everyone else.

What we collect (the California categories): identifiers (a random account number, an email address if you add one, an IP address); personal information about your children that you give us (first name, birthday, their sayings); and internet or app activity (crash reports and usage events, without content). Section 2 says where each comes from, why we use it, and how long we keep it.

We do not sell or share personal information, as California law uses those words, and we have not done so in the last 12 months. California treats personal information about children under 16 as sensitive. We use it only to give you the service you asked for, never to infer anything about your child, so we don't need to offer a "limit" choice. Because we don't sell or share, we have no "Do Not Sell or Share" link.

Your rights: to know, see, correct and delete your personal information, and not to be treated differently for using these rights. Email hello@wamemba.me. An agent you authorise can ask for you. We will confirm your request within 10 business days and answer within 45 days.

Children (COPPA). Wamemba me collects information from parents, not from children. It is not directed to children, and children are not meant to use it. If you believe a child has used it, email us and we will delete what the child gave us.

12. If you live in the EU or the EEA

In short: You have the same rights under the EU GDPR, and you can complain to your own regulator.

You have the rights in section 9 under the EU General Data Protection Regulation. You can complain to the data protection authority where you live, work, or think the law was broken. Coming: if we offer the app in the EU, we will appoint a representative there and name them here.

13. When this policy changes

In short: We'll tell you before anything important changes, and you can see every word that changed.

We will update this policy when the app changes. If a change matters to how we use your data, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. We will never start using your existing data in a new way that needs your consent without asking you first.

Every version of this policy, with its date and a line-by-line comparison with the one before, is public at insight.wamemba.me.

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