Privacy Policy

Effective date: August 1, 2026

Fledgling is made by MW Software LLC ("we," "us"). Fledgling turns a parent's spoken memories into written stories, kept on your device and in your own iCloud. This policy explains exactly what data the app touches, what leaves your device, and what we hold. The short version: your recordings never leave your own storage, your library lives with you and not with us, and we hold none of your content — with one narrow, temporary exception when you order a printed book.

1. The parent-directed model

Fledgling is designed for use by a parent or legal guardian, 18 or older, who is the account holder and the app's only user. Children are the subjects of the memories you record — they are not users, have no accounts, and the app collects nothing from them. When you record a memory (including one that captures your child's voice) and add a child's name or birthday, you provide that information as the parent, and you confirm you are the child's parent or legal guardian.

2. Where your memories live

Everything you create — recordings, transcripts, stories, photos, child profiles, and engagement details like read counts — is stored on your device and synced to your personal iCloud private database (so your library survives a lost or new phone). MW Software cannot read your iCloud private database. We operate no account system and hold no copy of your library (the one exception — book files staged briefly for a print order you placed — is described in Section 6).

3. Recordings and transcription

All transcription happens on-device. Your recordings never leave your device for transcription. A one-time download of Apple's speech model may occur over the network. That download brings Apple's model to your device; no recording or other content is uploaded in the process. Apple Watch recordings travel only from your watch to your paired iPhone (Apple device-to-device transfer) and are transcribed there.

The app never transmits audio anywhere. The app's network traffic consists of text and rendered PDFs — never audio, never raw photos.

4. Story generation (the one AI processor)

When a transcript is turned into a story, the app sends the transcript text plus the child's first name and age through MW Software's API relay to our single AI processor category: a large-language-model service that writes the story and returns it to your device. This is the only AI processing in the app; photos are never sent to any AI service, and no audio is ever sent to anyone.

The relay call is transient: no vendor account exists for you, and under the API terms we use, your text is not used to train AI models and is automatically deleted from the vendor's systems within 30 days. (Like most AI providers, the vendor can hold content longer only if its automated safety systems flag a request as violating its usage policy — an exception designed for abuse, not for family stories.)

About our relay: MW Software's API relay verifies that requests come from a genuine copy of the app (Apple App Attest) and passes your text through. It is transit-only: we do not log or store the content that passes through it — no transcripts, no stories, no book files — anywhere, with the single print-order exception described in Section 6. What we do keep, per app install, is one anonymous device-attestation key with usage counters and — if you subscribe — your membership tier, its expiry, and Apple's anonymous transaction identifier (proven by an Apple-signed receipt; we never receive your payment details or Apple ID). None of that is content, and none of it identifies you.

5. Subscriptions

Fledgling Membership is purchased through Apple In-App Purchase. Apple handles payment; we never see your payment information. To apply your membership's limits fairly, your device proves its tier to our relay using Apple's cryptographically signed receipt — which carries no payment details and no Apple ID.

6. Printed books (the one exception, and the one outside party)

When you — and only when you — order a printed yearbook:

• Your device renders the book files locally, and the app uploads them to our relay, which stages them in MW Software storage for up to 14 days so the printer can fetch them. This is the only place MW Software ever holds your content. Files are deleted immediately if checkout fails, and deletion after the 14-day window is enforced automatically. Book files can include your stories, your photos (as print-resolution copies), and — for a memory that has no generated story — your transcript text.
• The order goes to our print partner, Peecho, the merchant of record, who prints and ships your book. Peecho receives the order details — including the book's title, which typically includes your child's first name (for example, "Emma's Year — 2026"), and an anonymous order reference — and fetches the book files from our staging storage.
• Your shipping address and payment details are collected by Peecho directly on its own secure checkout page. They never touch the Fledgling app or MW Software's systems.
• Peecho retains order data and book files as described in its own terms — its seller terms permit keeping uploaded book files to support reprints. We have asked Peecho to confirm a specific retention period and will update this policy when they do. Print sales, delivery, and any reprint or refund are governed by Peecho's terms of sale.

7. Sharing

Sharing in Fledgling is explicit and local: story cards, PDFs, text, original audio, and archive exports are files created on your device and handed to the iOS share sheet — you choose the person and the channel. Fledgling hosts no share links, and shared content never passes through our infrastructure.

8. What we don't do

• No third-party analytics, crash-reporting, or tracking SDKs. Apple's built-in, opt-in diagnostics only.
• No advertising, no data sale, no profiling. We do not sell, rent, or share your data for advertising, and nothing you create is used to train AI models.
• No collection of location, contacts, browsing history, or advertising identifiers. The app has no account system and collects no email address — [email protected] receives only the mail you choose to send.

9. Deletion — the promises the app keeps

1. Deleting a memory removes its audio, transcript, story, and engagement details from your device and your iCloud.
2. Deleting a child profile removes every memory under it.
3. Deleting the app and its iCloud data leaves MW Software holding nothing of yours — except any book files still inside their 14-day print window, which delete on schedule.
4. Recently-deleted memories are recoverable in-app for 30 days, then removed.

10. Children's privacy

Fledgling is directed to parents, not to children, and provides no child-facing features or accounts. Information about children (a first name, a birthday, recordings a parent chooses to make) is provided by the parent, stored in the parent's own device and iCloud storage, and used only to provide the app's features, as described above. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children. Parents control this information completely and can delete it at any time (Section 9). If you believe a child has used the app to submit information without a parent's involvement, contact us at [email protected] and we will help remove it.

11. Our website and the beta program

If you sign up for the Fledgling beta on getfledgling.com, we store the email address you submit (and when you submitted it) solely to contact you about the beta and launch. It is never sold, shared, or used for any other marketing; it is deleted automatically one year after you submit it, and you can have it deleted sooner at any time by emailing [email protected]. This is the only personal information our website collects.

12. Your rights

Because your library lives in your own storage, the most important rights — access, export, correction, deletion — are built into the app itself (including full export from Settings). Depending on where you live, you may have additional legal rights over personal data; to exercise them or ask anything, contact [email protected]. We do not discriminate for exercising privacy rights. We process data as described in this policy to provide the service you request.

13. Changes to this policy

If the app's data handling ever changes — for example, a new feature that touches a new vendor — this policy will be updated before that feature ships, with the effective date above reflecting the current version. Material changes will be announced in the app or on our website.

14. Contact

MW Software LLC · [email protected] · mwsoftwarellc.com