Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Banyan Bell (“we,” “us,” “our”) collects, uses, discloses, and safeguards your information when you visit our website banyanbell.com or purchase our personalized audio stories. Banyan Bell is operated from Maryland, United States.

By using our service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the service.

1. Information we collect

We collect the following categories of personal information:

• Contact information: your email address; optionally your first name.
• Child information you provide: your child's first name, age range, a favorite thing (e.g., mangoes, dinosaurs), optionally a best friend's first name, and any notes you choose to include.
• Order information: story choice, occasion, timestamps, order status.
• Payment information: processed entirely by Stripe. We do not see or store credit card numbers. Stripe returns to us a payment identifier and confirmation of amount, currency, and status.
• Waitlist signups: email address and age range.
• Site analytics: anonymous, aggregated usage information (page views, referrer, device type) via Vercel Analytics. No cross-site tracking, no advertising cookies.
• Communications: emails you send us and our replies.

We do notknowingly collect information directly from children under 13. Orders are placed by parents or guardians on behalf of a child; the child's first name and non-sensitive details are provided by the adult buyer for the purpose of personalizing a story.

2. How we use information

We use the information above to:

• Personalize and produce your child's story.
• Send order confirmations, delivery emails, and support replies.
• Process payments and issue refunds via Stripe.
• Send waitlist updates to email addresses that opted in.
• Improve the service (using aggregate or anonymized information).
• Detect and prevent fraud or abuse.
• Comply with legal obligations.

3. Who we share information with

We share personal information only with the service providers below, each strictly to operate the service. We do not sell or rent personal information to anyone.

• Stripe, Inc.: payment processing. Handles all card data. See Stripe's Privacy Policy.
• Resend, Inc.: transactional and waitlist email delivery. See Resend's Privacy Policy.
• ElevenLabs, Inc.: text-to-speech generation of your personalized story text. Receives the story text only. See ElevenLabs' Privacy Policy.
• Vercel Inc.: site hosting, analytics, and audio file storage (Vercel Blob). See Vercel's Privacy Policy.
• Neon Inc.: hosted PostgreSQL database for order records.
• Cloudflare, Inc.: DNS and email routing for our domain.

We may also disclose information: (a) to comply with law or valid legal process; (b) to enforce our Terms; (c) to protect our rights, property, or safety, or that of our customers or others; and (d) in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, in which case we will notify you.

4. How long we keep information

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to:

• Provide the service and support (order records: retained until you request deletion, subject to our legal and accounting obligations).
• Comply with tax, accounting, and other legal requirements (typically up to seven years for financial records under U.S. law).
• Resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.

Waitlist emails are retained until you unsubscribe. Analytics data is aggregated and non-identifying.

5. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live (Maryland, California, other U.S. states, or the European Economic Area), you may have some or all of the following rights:

• Access: request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Correction: ask us to correct inaccurate information.
• Deletion: ask us to delete your personal information, subject to our legal retention requirements.
• Portability: receive your information in a portable format.
• Opt out of marketing emails at any time via the unsubscribe link, or by emailing us.
• Non-discrimination: we will not treat you differently for exercising these rights.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@banyanbell.com. We will respond within 45 days.

Maryland residents: The Maryland Online Data Privacy Act (MODPA) gives you specific rights regarding your personal data. We practice data minimization (collecting only what we need), we do not sell your data, and we do not process sensitive data without your express consent.

California residents: Under the CCPA/CPRA, you have the right to know what personal information we collect, to whom we disclose it, to request deletion, and to opt out of any sale (we do not sell your personal information).

6. Cookies and tracking

We use only strictly necessary cookies (for session and CSRF protection). We use Vercel Analytics for aggregated, anonymous site metrics; it does not track you across sites or serve advertisements. We do not use third-party advertising cookies.

7. Children's privacy (COPPA note)

Banyan Bell is designed for parents to purchase stories for their children ages 3–8. We do not provide accounts to children and do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. All information we receive comes from the adult purchaser.

The child's first name and details you share (favorite thing, best friend's name) are used only to personalize the story and are not disclosed to any third party except the service providers listed in Section 3, each of which processes the data solely on our instructions.

If you believe we have inadvertently collected information from a child under 13 without your consent, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

8. Data security

We use commercially reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information: encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest for stored records, restricted access, and regular review of our security practices. No system is 100% secure; we cannot guarantee absolute security, but we notify affected users promptly of any breach that materially affects their data.

9. International users

Banyan Bell operates from the United States. If you access the service from outside the U.S., you understand that your information will be transferred to and processed in the U.S., which may have different data protection laws than your country. By using the service, you consent to that transfer.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page and, if changes are material, we will notify affected users by email. Continued use of the service after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact us

Questions, requests, or concerns about this policy?

Email: hello@banyanbell.com
Banyan Bell, Maryland, United States