Privacy Policy

Life Lately is a private family newsletter service operated by Lucy Tinley for one extended family. It is not a social network and has no public community. The person who runs it is called the administrator; they are the only person who can see the stored updates, photos and messages.

To ask about your data, exercise any choice listed below, or reach a human, email lucymtinley@gmail.com.

Only what a person gives us, directly and on purpose:

• Contact details the administrator collects with your permission: your name, your phone number, and your email address if you want the newsletter.
• Messages you send to the Life Lately number: written updates, photos, voice notes, and the date and time they arrived.
• A short log of which reminders were sent to you and when, so the same note is never sent to you twice.
• "Memories" — brief notes drawn only from things you volunteered (a pet's name, a new hobby, a move, a milestone). These exist to make prompts and follow-ups feel personal.
• The weekly newsletter drafts and a record of which issues were delivered.

We do not collect advertising identifiers, do not run tracking or analytics that follow you across the web, do not ask for your location, and never handle payment card details.

For exactly three jobs, and nothing else:

• To put your update into the next weekly family newsletter.
• To send the occasional friendly check-in to people who have not shared anything yet.
• To confirm we received what you sent, so it doesn't get lost.

Everything is stored in a private database and a private photo store that is not open to the internet. Access is limited to the administrator. There are no public web pages for anyone's photos or messages, and no shareable links are ever generated for them. When a photo appears in the newsletter, it is attached inside the email itself rather than pointed at from a web address.

Three outside services help deliver the thing: a text messaging provider (Twilio) carries SMS and MMS, a hosting and database provider stores the records and files, and an email delivery provider sends the newsletter. Each of them processes your information only to do that job for us. We do not give your information to advertisers, and we do not sell it — full stop.

A language model helps tidy the phrasing of reminders and gives the newsletter its warm intro, playful headlines and closing note. It is instructed to work only from what people actually wrote, never to invent events, quotes or relationships, and to steer clear of sensitive subjects such as health, money, religion and politics. Every issue is read and approved by the administrator before it goes out, so a human is always responsible for what arrives in your inbox.

You can stop any part of this at any moment, with no explanation needed. Reply in a text to the Life Lately number, or email the administrator:

• STOP — stop all texts from Life Lately, immediately and permanently.
• PAUSE and RESUME — suspend reminders for a while, then start them again.
• REMOVE — leave one particular update out of the newsletter.
• DELETE — take your stored updates, photos, voice notes and memories out of the system.

You may also ask at any time to see what is held about you, correct something we have wrong, or have it erased. Opting out of texts does not affect anything else, and choosing to stop will not be held against anybody.

Family members under 13 take part only when a parent or guardian has said yes. Their photos and updates are shared inside the family newsletter and nowhere else, and a parent can ask for theirs to be removed at any time.

Updates, photos and memories are kept while the family is using the service, so a Saturday edition can be rebuilt or looked back on. They are deleted when you ask us to, when the family ends its use of Life Lately, or when the administrator removes a submission.

Access requires a sign-in that only the administrator has, and the database itself refuses requests from anyone else. Photos are shown through short-lived private links rather than permanent public addresses. Sending is off by default and switched on deliberately, so nothing goes out on autopilot by accident. No system is perfectly secure, but there is no public surface here to attack and nothing here is monetised.

If the way we handle information changes in a way that matters to you, we will update this page and say so in the newsletter or a text. This page always shows the date it last changed, at the top.