Privacy Policy
Last updated 19 October 2026 · Applies to the Besbook private beta
Besbook is a private place for families to share photos. We don't sell your data, we don't show ads, and nobody outside your family can see what you share.
Who we are
Besbook ("we") is run by Settledin Pty Ltd, a company registered in Australia, which operates the Besbook app and besbook.com. For anything about your data, write to hello@besbook.com.
What we collect, and why
Your account
Your email address (to sign you in with a code and to send you account notices), your name, your birthday (to check you are old enough, and so your family can see it if you choose), your country and time zone (to apply the right age rule and to time reminders). If you use Sign in with Apple, Apple tells us your email address or a private relay address.
Checking your age
To apply the minimum age for your country, we also use the country of your phone's app store or SIM, and, if your phone shares it with apps, the age range Apple or Google holds for you (not your exact age, and never an ID document). If your family recorded your birthday in the family tree before you joined, that counts too. We keep this with your account and delete it with your account.
What you share
If you let Besbook see your photo library, the app shows your recent photos on your phone so you can choose what to share. Nothing in your library is uploaded until you send it, and only what you send.
Photos and videos you post, captions, comments, likes, the albums you make, and who is tagged in a photo. Before a photo leaves your phone, Besbook removes its location; our servers check again and remove any that is left. We keep the date a photo was taken so your family can see it in order.
Your family tree
Names, relationships, birthdays and notes that you or your family add about family members, including people who are not on Besbook or who have passed away. This is family content: your family's keepers decide what stays.
Your devices
For each phone you sign in on: its platform, a name like "Ben's iPhone", a security key that never leaves the phone except as a public key (used with Face ID to confirm big actions), and a push notification token if you allow notifications.
Safety
Reports you make, people you block, and the actions keepers take, so we can keep families safe and review reports.
Technical information
Your IP address is used briefly to stop abuse (for example, too many sign-in codes). Our servers keep error and access logs for 30 days. Logs do not contain your photos or the text of your comments.
Purchases
If you buy more storage, Apple or Google handles the payment. We receive a record of the purchase (which plan, when it renews), never your card details.
We do not use advertising identifiers, we do not track you across other apps or websites, and Besbook has no analytics or advertising tools.
Contacts: when you invite someone from your contacts, you pick one person with your phone's own picker. Besbook does not upload your address book. If you send an invitation by email, we keep that email address only until the invitation is used or cancelled, to deliver and manage it, and then erase it.
Who can see what
Only members of a family see that family's photos, comments and tree. A person you block can no longer see what you post. Besbook staff look at content only when it is reported to us, when you ask us for help, or when the law requires it.
Who helps us run Besbook
We use a small number of providers who process data only on our instructions:
- Supabase (database and sign-in), hosted in the United States (Ohio).
- Cloudflare (our servers, and storage for photos and videos), in eastern North America, delivered through Cloudflare's global network.
- Resend (sign-in codes and account emails).
- Expo, with Apple and Google (push notifications).
- Apple (Sign in with Apple), and Apple, Google and RevenueCat when you buy storage.
- Sentry (crash reports from the app, with email addresses, ids and codes removed before they are sent).
Your data may be processed in the United States and other countries where these providers operate, with safeguards required by law.
How long we keep it
- Photos you delete stay in Recently deleted for 30 days, then they are erased.
- When you delete your account, we erase your sign-in, your profile and photo, your devices and your personal details within 24 hours (or when your paid plan ends, if you choose that in the app). The photos and comments you shared stay with the families you shared them with, shown as "Former member"; delete them in the app first if you want them gone. Backups age out within 35 days.
- Your name can stay as "Former member" where your family wrote it into family history or the tree.
- Sign-in records and logs: 30 days. Purchase records: as long as the law requires.
Your choices and rights
You can see and change your profile in the app, download your family's photos, and delete your account in the app (Profile, Delete account) or on the web. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or move your data, and to object to or limit how we use it. Write to hello@besbook.com and we'll reply within 30 days. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.
Children
You must be at least 13 to have a Besbook account, and 16 in Australia, the European Union and the United Kingdom. Families can add younger children to their family tree as family content; those children do not have accounts. If we learn that an account belongs to someone younger than the minimum for their country, we pause it: they can still delete it or take their data, and it unpauses when they reach the minimum age. If you think we got your age wrong, write to hello@besbook.com.
Security
Photos are only reachable with short-lived permission from our servers, never through public links. Big actions, like removing someone from a family, need Face ID on a phone you've used for at least two days. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect.