Privacy notice · Last updated September 27, 2026

Privacy Notice

This explains what Gathered collects, why, and what you can do about it. Gathered is operated by Gathered, and you can reach us at support@gatheredalbum.org about anything on this page.

What we collect

What you make. In a house: the name on its door, the character you choose, the things you leave in its rooms (photographs, voice recordings, notes, tunes, paintings on the wall, recipes, pins on the globe, the furniture as you arranged it) and the messages you send in it. In a book: the words, photographs, voice recordings and songs you and your contributors add. In a pop-up card: your words and, if you add one, your voice. In an awards night: the awards and reasons you write, and the acceptance speeches the person you sent it to records, which only they and you can play. In a treasure hunt: your clues, hints, answers and where the present is hidden; the answers and the hiding place are never sent to the other person’s browser until they have found them. These are stored so they can be shown to the people you share them with, and to no one else.

Before you sign in. You can try a house or start a book without an account. A house is kept on our servers, and your browser keeps the private link to it in its own storage, so the house opens again in the same browser; while you choose the outside of a house for someone, their name and the look you chose are kept there too. A book is held as a server-side guest draft, tied to a session cookie in your browser, so it survives a refresh or a closed tab; nothing you write in a book is kept in your browser’s own storage.

Email addresses, when you give them. When you keep a house, the email address you give becomes the house’s owner address: it is how you sign in to open the house on another phone or computer, and we send it one email saying the house is yours. When you send a book, the organizer’s address you give becomes the book’s, and we send it a recovery link so you can open the book again anywhere. When you send a pop-up card, an awards night or a treasure hunt, an email is optional: if you give one, we send you its links. A contributor may give their address to be reminded before the book closes, to be told when their page has been read or answered, or to be in the book’s circle (below). Someone a book was made for may give theirs to keep it on their shelf (below). Giving an email is otherwise optional, except where noted at the point we ask. Authentication emails have click and open tracking disabled, so opening one tells us nothing beyond that it was delivered.

“Tell me when new things arrive.” Beside keeping a house or sending something there is a box, never ticked for you. If you tick it, we keep your email address, when you ticked it and where, and use it only to tell you when something new arrives on Gathered, including paid versions. It is kept apart from everything else, and you can ask us to remove it at any time.

“Would you keep it anyway?” Beside keeping a house or sending something there is a second box, also never ticked for you, for saying you would still keep it or send it if it weren’t free. For a house we may also ask, optionally, who you would give its key to, as a kind of person (a parent, a partner, a friend), never a name. Whether you ticked the box, and the answer about the key, are stored with the house or the thing you sent, not with your email address, and are only counted, to help us decide what paid versions should be. Answers to a question we used to ask here (whether you would still have kept or sent it at a price we named) are kept the same way.

Basic usage data. Which pages are visited and which features are used, through PostHog, so we can tell what works. For the house that includes things like whether a free visit ended at a locked room, whether the house was kept, and roughly how many days later someone came back, counted in broad buckets. This is about how the product is used, never about reading what you wrote, and it carries no names.

No payment details. Nothing is paid during early access, and we never ask for a card. Paddle, who will handle payments when paid versions arrive, is not used during early access and receives nothing about you.

What the street shows

Houses are on the street by default, where they can be seen from outside by other people who use Gathered. The street shows the outside and nothing else: the name on the door, the look of the house (its shape and colours, what is in the window, what is by the step), and whether its lights are on, which means someone with a key was inside in the last three days, or someone is inside right now. The name on the door of a house you make for yourself is your first name; on a house made for someone, theirs. A door name is a first name only, at most 24 characters.

Nothing from inside a house is ever shown on the street: no photographs, recordings, messages, notes, and not who made it. The terrace and its pool are part of your house, not a shared place, so only the people with a way in see them. The owner can change the name on the door or take the house off the street at any time, from inside the house. Someone invited in with a key cannot.

Messages and being there together

The key holder’s birthday. When you give a house’s key you can add the day and month of their birthday, if you like (never the year). The house uses it only to bake them a cake that day. The owner can change or clear it from the key at any time.

Moments. A house keeps a small book of what happened in it: its firsts, the games the two of you played together and how they went, a friend’s day visit, the key given, a photograph hung, a tune kept, a birthday. Each moment keeps what it was, when, which of you, and the first name of whoever else was there. Both of the house’s people can read it, and it is deleted when the house is. The house’s people also remember, in a small count, how your games against them went, so they can mention it.

Chat. Messages you send in a house are stored with the house, so both of you can read them later. Only the house’s two people can read them, and they are deleted when the house is.

Being there together. While you are in a house, a live connection tells the other person that you are there and which room you are in, and carries your moves in the games you play together. That is held only while you are connected, and not stored. Two things are kept: when someone with a key was last inside, which turns the house’s lights on for the street; and, while either of you is in the house, what is on a table you are sharing, which is cleared when you have both left. A key taken away, or a friend’s visit that has ended, is checked every minute, and someone still inside on it is shown out.

After a book is given

Words written down as you speak. When you record a voice note for a book, a toast or a reply, your browser may write your words down as you speak, so they can appear on the page while it plays. This is your browser’s own speech recognition, not ours: in Chrome, the sound is sent to Google’s speech service to be turned into words; other browsers use their own. We receive only the words, which you can correct or clear before they are kept with the recording. Phones can’t listen while they record, so for a recording that arrives without words, Cloudflare, who host Gathered, write them out from the recording with a speech model on their own servers; the recording goes to no one else. You can correct or clear those words too.

Opened, read and answered. We note when the person a book was made for first opens it and which pages they stayed on, as yes or no and when, so the person who wrote a page can be told it was read, and the organizer that the book was opened. They can send a heart, a line or a few seconds of their voice back to someone who wrote, or to everyone who did; each reply is shown only to the people it is to, at their own link.

Late pages. Unless the organizer turns it off, the personal links of people who hadn’t added their page stay open for a week after the book is given; a page added then goes at the back, marked late, and whoever keeps the book on a shelf is told it arrived.

The circle. Someone who wrote in a book may say yes to its circle and give the day and month of their birthday (never the year). Three weeks before it, the others in that circle who also said yes get one email offering to start them a book. Nothing else is sent about it, and it can be turned off, or the email forgotten, from the same personal link.

Your shelf. If you keep a book on your shelf, we keep your email address and what is on the shelf (which books, cards and games, and when they were added). The shelf’s address is a private link: anyone holding it can open the shelf, so keep it like a key; it is sent only to your email. The browser you use it in remembers its address in its own storage, and you can make it forget. We email you when something new arrives on it (a late page, say) and, only if you ask, once a year on each book’s day; untick either on the shelf to stop.

How long. A contributor’s email, circle answer and birthday are kept with the book until they clear them from their link or the book is deleted. A shelf is kept until you ask us to delete it.

Why we hold it

To make the house, the book and the card work and show them to the people you share them with; to let you open a house you kept, or recover a book you would otherwise lose; to send the transactional emails you asked for; and, where you have ticked the box, to send occasional emails about making another book, or to tell you when new things arrive. The marketing box is separate, unticked by default, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use your photographs or recordings to advertise Gathered without asking you directly first.

Who processes it

Your house, book and card are hosted and stored by Cloudflare, which also carries the live connection inside a house and writes out the words of a book’s voice notes; email is sent through Resend; and PostHog tells us which features get used. Each of them holds data only as our processor, under its own terms. Paddle, our payment provider for later, handles nothing during early access.

How long we keep it

Houses. A house you keep is kept, with everything in it, until you ask us to delete it. A free visit nobody kept and nobody has been inside for 90 days is deleted, with everything in it.

Books, cards, awards nights and treasure hunts are kept so the people they were made for can go back to them, which is the point of the product. A book, an awards night or a treasure hunt nobody sent is deleted when its draft expires.

If you want a house, a book or a card and everything in it deleted, write to support@gatheredalbum.org and we will remove it. Email addresses are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them. What you tick in “Would you keep it anyway?”, and the answers to the price question we used to ask, are kept, without names, while they help us decide prices.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to support@gatheredalbum.org. If you are in the UK or EU, you also have the right to complain to your data protection authority.

Children

Gathered is for adults. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 16. Photographs of children added by an adult to a family book or a house are content, not accounts — but only add them if you have the right to.

Cookies

We use a small number of cookies: one to keep you signed in, one for a book you are making, and analytics cookies through PostHog. Your browser’s own storage also holds the private link to a house you started, and your shelf’s address if you have one, as described above. We do not use advertising cookies.

Changes

We will post updates on this page with a new date. Questions go to support@gatheredalbum.org.