Privacy Notice

1. About this notice

This Privacy Notice explains how personal information is handled when a family uses LittleInks.

The operator of LittleInks is responsible for the personal information described in this notice. LittleInks is designed to be used by families and is likely to be accessed by children, so privacy protections are set with children in mind.

For privacy questions or requests, use LittleInks Support.

2. Information we collect

We aim to collect only the information needed to provide and protect the service.

Adult account information

We may process:

• username;
• password in securely hashed form;
• grown-up email address, where supplied;
• email verification status;
• subscription and payment status; and
• account security information such as sign-in times and IP addresses.

Child profile information

A child profile may contain:

• a first name or nickname;
• a built-in avatar;
• saved colouring;
• drawing strokes and colour choices; and
• dates associated with saved pictures.

A child profile does not need its own email address, password, telephone number, exact date of birth, school or public username.

Family artwork and uploads

If a family uses a personal drawing or upload feature, we may process:

• the uploaded image while it is being converted;
• the resulting private colouring page;
• saved colours or drawing strokes; and
• associated technical information needed to store and display the picture.

For personal uploads, LittleInks strips image metadata such as EXIF and GPS information during processing and removes the original uploaded file after the private colouring page has been created.

Support information

If you contact Support, we process the information included in the support request and any replies.

Please do not include a child’s full legal name, school, address or unnecessary photographs in a support request.

3. Why we use personal information

We use personal information where necessary to:

• create and operate the grown-up account;
• keep child profiles and family galleries separate;
• save and reopen artwork;
• provide Premium features where purchased;
• process payments and manage subscriptions;
• respond to support, privacy and safety requests;
• protect accounts and prevent abuse;
• maintain the security and reliability of the service; and
• comply with legal obligations.

Depending on the activity, the lawful basis may include performance of a contract, compliance with a legal obligation, or our legitimate interests in operating and securing LittleInks. We do not rely on a child’s personal information for behavioural advertising.

4. Children’s privacy

LittleInks uses a parent-managed account model.

We do not provide:

• independent child logins;
• public child profiles;
• public family galleries;
• direct messaging between users;
• follower or friend systems;
• behavioural advertising; or
• location-based social features.

Privacy is set high by default. Children should ask a grown-up before uploading any image.

More detail is available in Children & Family Privacy.

5. How we use family data

We do not sell personal information.

We do not use children’s activity to build advertising profiles.

We do not use private family artwork or uploads for advertising, public galleries, training AI or machine-learning models, or public datasets.

We do not automatically publish private uploads.

6. Service providers

LittleInks may use carefully selected service providers to operate the service. These may include:

• Railway for application hosting, database services and storage;
• Stripe for payment and subscription processing when Premium billing is enabled;
• a transactional email provider for grown-up account emails when configured; and
• an error-monitoring provider where enabled, with sensitive request information excluded or scrubbed.

Payment card details are handled by the payment provider and are not stored by LittleInks.

Where a provider processes information outside the United Kingdom, we will use the safeguards required by applicable data-protection law.

7. How long we keep information

We keep information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.

In general:

• account and profile information is kept while the account remains open;
• saved artwork is kept until it, its profile or the account is deleted;
• original personal uploads are removed after processing into a private colouring page;
• support records are kept for as long as reasonably needed to deal with the request and maintain appropriate records;
• security logs are retained for a limited period appropriate to security and abuse prevention; and
• payment and transaction records may be kept for the period required by tax, accounting or consumer law.

Deleted information may remain in protected backups for a limited period before those backups are overwritten.

8. Your rights

UK data-protection law may give you rights over your personal information, including rights to:

• ask for a copy of your personal information;
• correct inaccurate information;
• ask for deletion in appropriate circumstances;
• restrict certain processing;
• object to certain processing; and
• receive certain information in a portable format.

The grown-up account holder can also use account controls to delete saved pictures, child profiles, personal drawings or the entire account where those controls are available.

To make a privacy request, use LittleInks Support and choose Privacy and safety.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Information is available at ico.org.uk.

9. Security

We use technical and organisational measures intended to protect personal information, including access controls, secure account sessions, private storage for family artwork and checks on uploaded files.

No internet service can guarantee absolute security. If you believe your LittleInks account or information has been compromised, contact Support promptly.

10. Changes to this notice

We may update this Privacy Notice as LittleInks develops. The current version and its last-updated date will remain available on this page.