LIVING ECHOES

PRIVACY POLICY

Effective Date: January 15, 2026

1. Introduction

Living Echoes ("we," "us," or "our") is a voice-first interactive storytelling platform that combines author-curated worlds, AI-generated narratives, and social gaming features. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our mobile application and related services (collectively, the "Service").

We are committed to protecting your privacy and complying with applicable data protection laws, including the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), and other relevant privacy regulations.

By using Living Echoes, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with our policies, please do not use our Service.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Account Information

When you create an account, we collect:

  • Email address

  • Display name

  • Password (encrypted)

  • Authentication provider information (if using Google Sign-In)

2.2 Character and Gameplay Data

To provide personalized interactive storytelling, we collect:

  • Character profiles (name, appearance, personality, backstory)

  • Character progression and development data

  • Story choices and narrative history

  • Character relationships and interactions

  • World descriptions and location interactions

  • Session logs and interaction timestamps

  • In-game achievements and reputation scores

2.3 Voice Input Data

Important: Living Echoes uses on-device speech-to-text technology whenever possible. Your voice is converted to text locally on your device and is not transmitted to our servers as audio recordings. Only the resulting text transcription is sent to our servers for story generation. We do not create voiceprints, biometric identifiers, or store raw audio recordings of your voice.

2.4 Social and Echo System Data

Our Echo system enables asynchronous social gameplay. We collect:

  • Friend connections and relationship types

  • Echo permissions and personality settings you configure

  • Echo interaction history between friends

  • Privacy preferences and block lists

  • Romance and intimacy consent preferences (if enabled)

2.5 Payment Information

Payment processing is handled through platform providers (Apple App Store, Google Play Store) for in-app purchases, and Stripe for web-based payments. We do not store your complete credit card or payment card information on our servers. We receive only limited payment confirmation data including subscription status, transaction IDs, and billing country. Please refer to the respective privacy policies of Apple, Google, and Stripe for details on their data practices.

2.6 Device and Technical Information

We automatically collect:

  • Device type and operating system

  • App version

  • IP address (for security and fraud prevention)

  • General location (country/region level only)

  • Crash reports and performance data

3. How We Use Your Information

We use your information for the following purposes:

Service Provision

  • To create and manage your account

  • To generate personalized AI-driven story content based on your choices within author-curated worlds

  • To convert your text input to high-quality narrated audio

  • To enable social features including the Echo system

AI Story Generation

Your text input and story context are processed by AI language models to generate narrative responses. This processing is essential to deliver our interactive storytelling experience. We use third-party AI services (detailed in Section 4) bound by data processing agreements.

Narrative Quality Improvement

We collect world descriptions, character data, character relationships, and story interactions to improve our narrative generation capabilities. See Section 8 (AI Model Training) for details on how anonymized content is used to train AI models.

World Building and Community Features

Aggregated, anonymized gameplay data may be used to inform Echo-Shift world events, where collective player actions shape the persistent game world. Individual player data is never publicly attributed without consent.

Communication

  • To send transactional notifications (Echo appearances, world events, friend activity)

  • To respond to support requests

  • To send promotional communications (with your consent)

Safety and Security

  • To detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and security threats

  • To enforce our Terms of Service

  • To protect users from harmful content

4. Data Sharing and Disclosure

4.1 With Your Friends (Echo System)

When you enable the Echo system, limited character information is shared with your confirmed friends to enable asynchronous social gameplay. Echoes only appear to friends you have explicitly connected with. You control Echo permissions, personality settings, and can disable Echo appearances at any time. Strangers never see your Echo.

4.2 AI Service Providers

We share text input and story context with the following AI providers to generate story content:

  • Google (Gemini API): Story generation. Subject to Google's Cloud Data Processing Terms.

  • Anthropic (Claude API): Story generation. Subject to Anthropic's Usage Policy and Data Processing Agreement.

These providers process data solely to provide the requested service and do not use your data to train their models, in accordance with their enterprise/API terms.

4.3 Infrastructure and Payment Providers

  • Google Cloud Platform: Cloud infrastructure hosting

  • Firebase (Google): Authentication and push notifications

  • Apple App Store: In-app payment processing for iOS

  • Google Play Store: In-app payment processing for Android

  • Stripe: Web-based payment processing

4.4 Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information if required by law, court order, or government request, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of Living Echoes, our users, or others.

4.5 What We Do NOT Share

  • We do not sell your personal information

  • We do not share data with advertisers for targeted advertising

  • We do not share your data with third parties for their own marketing purposes

5. Your Rights and Choices

5.1 All Users

  • Access: View your personal data through the app settings

  • Correction: Update inaccurate information

  • Deletion: Request deletion of your account and associated data

  • Echo Controls: Enable/disable Echo appearances, set personality, manage friend permissions

  • Notification Preferences: Control push notifications in app settings

5.2 European Economic Area (GDPR)

If you are located in the EEA, you have additional rights under GDPR:

  • Data Portability: Receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format

  • Restriction: Request restriction of processing in certain circumstances

  • Objection: Object to processing based on legitimate interests

  • Withdraw Consent: Withdraw consent at any time (without affecting prior processing)

Legal Basis for Processing: We process your personal data based on: (a) your consent, (b) performance of our contract with you, (c) our legitimate interests in operating and improving the Service, and (d) compliance with legal obligations.

You may lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority if you believe your rights have been violated.

5.3 California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)

California residents have the following rights:

  • Right to Know: Categories and specific pieces of personal information collected

  • Right to Delete: Request deletion of personal information

  • Right to Correct: Request correction of inaccurate information

  • Right to Opt-Out: We do not sell personal information, so this right does not apply

  • Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights

6. Data Retention

We retain your data as follows:

  • Account Data: Until you delete your account, plus 30 days for backup recovery

  • Character and Story Data: Until account deletion

  • Session Logs: 90 days for story continuity and recap features

  • Echo Data: Removed within 24 hours when friendships are terminated

  • TTS Audio Cache: 7 days (temporary cache for performance)

  • Payment Records: As required by tax and financial regulations

Upon account deletion, your personal data is permanently removed from our active systems within 30 days. Anonymized, aggregated data may be retained for analytics and AI training purposes.

7. Data Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your data:

  • Encryption in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256)

  • Secure authentication via Firebase with JWT tokens

  • Service-to-service authentication using Google Cloud IAM

  • Rate limiting to prevent abuse

  • Regular security audits and monitoring

  • Access controls limiting employee access to personal data

While we strive to protect your information, no method of transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

8. AI and Automated Processing

8.1 AI Story Generation

Living Echoes uses artificial intelligence to generate interactive story content within author-curated worlds. This AI processing is fundamental to delivering our service and occurs each time you interact with the game. The AI does not make legal or similarly significant automated decisions about you.

Transparency: All narrative content is AI-generated based on your inputs, character context, and the world framework created by our author partners. We disclose this AI use clearly.

Content Safety: AI outputs are subject to content filters to prevent harmful, illegal, or inappropriate content.

8.2 AI Model Training

We use anonymized story content, character interactions, and narrative patterns to train and improve our AI storytelling models. This training data consists of fictional content (characters, narratives, world interactions) that does not contain personal information and cannot be used to identify individual users. Story content used for training is separated from account information and aggregated with content from other users before any training occurs.

This anonymized content is not considered personal data under GDPR or other privacy regulations, as it relates to fictional characters and narratives rather than identifiable natural persons.

9. Children's Privacy

Living Echoes is intended for users aged 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. The interactive storytelling content may include mature themes unsuitable for minors.

If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 18, we will take steps to delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at the address below.

10. International Data Transfers

Our services are hosted on Google Cloud Platform with primary infrastructure in the EU (europe-west region). Data may be processed in other regions where our service providers operate. For transfers outside the EEA, we rely on appropriate safeguards including Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission.

11. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by posting the new Privacy Policy in the app and, where required, seeking your consent. Your continued use of the Service after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us:

Email: privacy@livingechoes.com

Data Protection Officer: dpo@livingechoes.com

Postal Address: Obrońców Westerplatte 18/4, 80-317 Gdańsk

We will respond to your request within 30 days (or within the timeframe required by applicable law).

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Living Echoes is operated by Nail in the Code Grzegorz Gwoźdź

Document version 1.1 | Last updated: January 15, 2026