Privacy Policy

Who we are

HeirTree is a collaborative family-tree app operated by RedDevs ("we", "us", "our"). This policy explains what information we collect when you use HeirTree, how we use it, and the choices you have.

If anything here doesn't make sense, or you'd rather just ask us directly, write to [email protected] — a real person reads that inbox.

Information we collect

We collect a few different kinds of information:

• Account data — your name, email address, and a phone number if you sign up or sign in by phone. Your password is stored hashed, never in plain text. If you add a passkey, we store the public key half of it (the private half never leaves your device). If you sign in with Google, we receive basic profile information from Google — your name, email, and avatar.
• Family-tree content — the people, sex, birth and death dates and places, biographical notes, relationships, and photos that you or your tree's other members add, plus any GEDCOM file you import.
• Invitation details — the email address or phone number you use to invite someone to a tree.
• Activity records — an edit log of who changed what in a tree, along with the IP address and basic technical log data (browser type, timestamps) that every web request carries.
• Product analytics — see "Cookies and analytics" below.

Information about other people

Family trees are, by their nature, mostly about people other than the account holder — including relatives who have never signed up for HeirTree and may not even know it exists, and people who have passed away. When you or another member of a tree adds information about someone else, that member is responsible for being entitled to share it — for instance because they're a close relative, they have that person's permission, or the person has passed away.

Tree content is private to that tree: it's visible only to the tree's own members, and there are no public trees on HeirTree. If you're concerned about information a HeirTree tree holds about you, write to [email protected] and we'll help.

How we use your information

We use the information above to:

• provide and secure the service, and keep you signed in;
• show tree content only to that tree's members, enforcing each member's role;
• deliver invitations and sign-in codes;
• understand how HeirTree is used and improve the product, through analytics;
• respond to support and privacy requests.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use it for third-party advertising.

Cookies and analytics

We set one essential session cookie to keep you signed in — it's required for HeirTree to work and isn't used for tracking or advertising.

We also use PostHog, a product-analytics tool, to understand how HeirTree is actually used: which pages get visited, which features get used, and where people get stuck. This helps us decide what to build next and fix what's broken. PostHog processes usage events — not the content of your family tree.

Where your data lives

Our application and database run on Hetzner infrastructure located in the EU. Photos you upload are stored in Hetzner Object Storage. Traffic to HeirTree is proxied through Cloudflare for performance and security. A short list of other providers act on our behalf, each only for what we need them for:

• Google — if you choose to sign in with Google;
• Africa's Talking or Twilio — to deliver one-time sign-in codes and SMS invitations, whichever fits your phone number's country;
• PostHog — for product analytics.

None of these providers are permitted to use your data for their own purposes.

On-device storage

HeirTree can be installed like an app on your phone or computer, and it caches a copy of the tree data and photos you've viewed on your device so you can keep browsing with a patchy connection. This cache lives on your device, not on our servers, and is cleared automatically when you sign out.

Retention and deletion

Deleting something inside HeirTree — a person, a photo, a whole tree — doesn't erase it instantly. It may remain recoverable for a period before being permanently removed, so an accidental deletion doesn't cost you real data.

If you'd like your account deleted, or want to see, correct, or delete personal data we hold about you, email [email protected] and we'll take care of it — there's currently no self-serve delete-my-account setting, so this goes through a real person.

You don't have to wait on us for a copy of your own data, though: any tree you have access to can be exported to a GEDCOM file at any time, giving you a portable copy you fully control.

Security

We hash passwords before storing them, support passkeys as a phishing-resistant sign-in method, encrypt all traffic to and from HeirTree over HTTPS, and enforce each tree's Owner, Editor, and Viewer roles on our servers — not just in the interface.

Children

You need to be at least 13 years old to have a HeirTree account. Family trees frequently include information about children, added by a parent or other relative — the member adding that information is responsible for having a good, family-appropriate basis to include it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as HeirTree changes. If we make a material change, we'll make that clear on this page. Questions, requests, or concerns about your data: [email protected].