ourthology.com
an anthology of us.
Version 2026-10-17 · effective 17 October 2026
The short version
Who we areWhat we collectWhy, and our legal basis People who aren't membersChildrenWho can see it Outside servicesHow long we keep itSecurity Your rightsCookiesChanges
ourthology.com is run by Phil Hart, a sole trader based in the United Kingdom, who is the data controller for the information on the site and its designated Data Protection & Security Lead. Contact: privacy@ourthology.com. We have assessed that we are not required to appoint a formal Data Protection Officer, but Phil is personally responsible for data protection and will answer any request himself.
| What | Examples |
|---|---|
| Your account | Email address, a securely scrambled ("hashed") version of your password — we never see or store your actual password — an optional second email for notifications (stored encrypted), your settings, and the date you accepted this notice and confirmed you are 13 or over. |
| Your profile | Name, date of birth, profile photo, and your place in the family tree. |
| What you add | Memories (words, dates, places), photos, videos and documents, letters, postcards and cards, homes and addresses, key dates, trips, tags of other family members, and who you choose to share with. |
| About relatives | Family members you add to the tree — names, dates of birth and death, photos and memories about them (see section 4). |
| Storage plan (only if you buy one) | Which plan you're on, its status and renewal date, and the reference numbers Stripe gives your subscription and you as its customer. We never see or store your card details — you enter them on Stripe's own secure page. |
| Security information | When you sign in or change security settings, the kind of device and browser (for example "Safari on iPad"), and a one-way scrambled form of your network (IP) address that can't be turned back into the address. Sign-in attempts are recorded to stop password-guessing. |
Photos taken on phones often contain hidden location data (GPS). We remove that hidden location data from photos and videos when you upload them, so a picture never gives away where it was taken unless you choose to add a place yourself.
Memories sometimes include sensitive things — health, beliefs, family events. You choose what to write. Please think about the people you write about, especially those still living, and avoid recording sensitive details about others without their agreement.
| Purpose | Legal basis (UK GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Providing your account and family archive, and showing your content to the people you choose | Contract — it's the service you signed up for (Art 6(1)(b)). |
| Sensitive details you choose to record about yourself | Your explicit consent, given by adding them, which you can withdraw by editing or deleting them (Art 9(2)(a)). |
| Keeping the site and accounts secure: sign-in limits, new-device alerts, 2-step codes, security history | Legitimate interests — protecting you and every family's private information (Art 6(1)(f)). |
| Records about relatives who aren't members (section 4) | Legitimate interests — helping families preserve their own history, balanced against those relatives' privacy (Art 6(1)(f)). |
| Taking payment for a storage plan you choose to buy, and keeping it renewing until you cancel | Contract (Art 6(1)(b)); keeping payment records is a legal obligation (Art 6(1)(c)). |
| Emails you've asked for (letters and postcards arriving, tags to approve) and essential account emails | Contract, and your choices in Account Settings. |
| Keeping records we're required to (for example of security incidents) | Legal obligation (Art 6(1)(c)). |
We do not use your information for advertising, profiling, selling, or training artificial intelligence, and we make no automated decisions about you.
Family trees naturally include people who haven't joined — grandparents, children, cousins. When a member adds a relative, we hold what the member enters about them, shown only within that family. A living relative can be sent a personal invite to claim their own record and take control of it. Anyone who finds themselves recorded on ourthology.com — member or not — can ask us at privacy@ourthology.com to see, correct or remove what's held about them, and we will act on it (after checking with the family that added it where that's fair). Records of people who have died are not covered by data protection law, but we treat them with the same care.
You must be 13 or over to have an account. Younger children can appear in a family tree, but only as a record looked after by a parent, grandparent or guardian on their own account — under-13s can't claim an account of their own. Content about children is visible only within the family, never publicly. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, tell us and we will close it.
Phil, as the site's operator, can technically access stored information but will only do so where necessary to keep the site working, to investigate a security problem, or to answer a request you make.
To show maps and find places, your browser contacts a few outside services directly. They receive your network address and the specific request — nothing else about you or your family:
When you choose a new password, our server checks it against a list of passwords known to have leaked in data breaches using Have I Been Pwned. Only the first five characters of a scrambled code of the password are sent — never the password, and nothing that identifies you. If you buy a storage plan, you're taken to Stripe's checkout page and back (section 6). We use no other outside services: fonts and scripts are served from ourthology.com itself.
| Your account and content | For as long as you have an account. When you delete your account, your profile, memories, photos and messages are erased straight away; copies in the host's backups disappear within 30 days. |
| Storage plan record | While you have the account; erased when you delete it (any paid plan is stopped at once). Stripe keeps its own payment records for as long as UK law requires (normally 6 years). |
| Sign-in attempts | 30 days. |
| Security history | 12 months. |
| Remembered devices | 180 days after last use, or until you remove them. |
| Email links and codes | Sign-in codes 10 minutes, password links 1 hour, email confirmation links 7 days. |
| Unfinished uploads | 24 hours. |
Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Passwords are stored only as strong one-way hashes, and new passwords are checked against known breaches. Repeated wrong passwords are slowed down, you can turn on 2-step sign-in, and we email you if your account is used on a new device. Photos and files are never directly reachable on the web — every request is checked against who is allowed to see it. Pages are sent with strict browser security rules. Documents you put in My vault are encrypted on your own device before they’re uploaded, with a key only you hold — we can’t read them, their names or notes, and we can’t recover them if you lose both your vault passphrase and your Recovery Kit. For the same reason they aren’t part of the data download; open your vault to save copies. If something ever went wrong that put your information at risk, we would tell the ICO within 72 hours where required, and tell you without delay if it affected you.
You have the right to:
Email privacy@ourthology.com. We'll reply within one month, free of charge. If you're unhappy with how we handle your information, please tell us first — we'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and keep you updated — but you can always complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, 0303 123 1113.
We use only these cookies, all strictly necessary, so we don't need to ask for cookie consent:
ourthology_sid | Keeps you signed in while you use the site. Removed when you close your browser or sign out. |
ourthology_dev | Recognises a device you've signed in on before, for new-device alerts and so 2-step sign-in doesn't ask again. Lasts 180 days. |
ourthology_keep | Only if you tick “Keep me signed in on this device”: signs you back in on that device without your password. Its secret changes every time it's used; it ends when you sign out, after 30 days without use, or after 180 days at most, and you can remove it any time on Privacy & security. |
The site also keeps small notes in your browser for the current tab only (for example, your place in the guided tour). No analytics, advertising or social-media cookies are used.
If we change how we use your information in a meaningful way we'll tell you on the site, and by email where it matters, before the change takes effect. This version is dated 17 October 2026.