Children's Privacy Policy

Tella LLC · COPPA Notice

Tella makes personalized stories for children. Because Tella is made for children, we follow the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This notice explains what we collect about children, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights parents and guardians have.

It supplements our Privacy Policy. If the two ever conflict, this notice governs children's information.

1. Who we are

Tella LLC, a Texas limited liability company, operates tella.kids and the Tella apps. Contact us at hello@tella.kids.

2. How families use Tella

A parent or guardian creates the account and the child's profile. A parent can also make one first story before creating an account: that story is kept for the browser it was made in, can be read only there unless the parent shares its link, and moves into the account if the parent creates one. Children then use Tella too: they read and listen to stories, watch them on TV apps, can switch to their own child profile, and can type or say an idea for a new story on the Create screen. At some events, a child can have their picture taken at our Mirror booth to see themselves drawn as a story character, with a parent's permission.

3. Parental consent

Before any of a child's details are saved, the parent or guardian confirms that they are the child's parent or legal guardian and agrees to this notice. We then email the parent a confirmation that explains how to review, change or delete their child's information and how to withdraw consent. A plan or credit purchase made by card or through the App Store or Google Play is a further check that an adult is in charge of the account. A parent who makes a first story before creating an account gives the same confirmation before any of the child's details are used, and is sent the email when they create the account. Families who joined before September 30, 2026 gave consent when they set up their account.

The first name typed at the start is checked for unsuitable words as soon as it is entered, before this step. That check reads the name and does not save it.

At the Mirror booth, a parent or guardian agrees on screen before the picture is taken.

We only ask for what we need to make stories. We never require a child to share more information than is reasonably needed to take part. If we learn that a child's information reached us without a parent's consent, we delete it.

4. What we collect

From the parent, about the child

First name, age, and gender.
Appearance: skin tone, hair, eye color, and ethnicity, so the story character looks like the child. Parents may also add notes on their own appearance and what they are like.
Interests, favorite color and favorite animal, which shape themes and characters.
Family members, friends and pets the parent adds to the child's cast, with any notes the parent writes on how each one looks and what they are like.
Optional notes, such as the child's personality, a nickname, or something the child is going through.

From the child, while using Tella

Story ideas typed or spoken on the Create screen. Spoken ideas are turned into text by the device's own speech recognition (Apple or Google). We receive the text, not the recording. We never record a child's voice.
In kid mode (the child's own profile): the place, friends and kind of story the child taps to make a story, the way they pick when a story stops and asks what happens next, and the part they say they loved at the end. These are stored with the story, and the parent can see them in Settings.
At the Mirror booth: one picture of the child and spoken answers about them. The picture is sent to an AI service to draw the child as a character and is not stored by us. The drawing is stored so the family can claim it.
Nothing from the grown-up check. Buying, deleting, sharing a story from its Share menu and leaving a child's profile ask for the account owner's birth year. Sending a story to the family of someone who is in it is offered on the grown-up's own profile only, never on a child's. If a child types a year that is not an adult's, it is turned away and not saved, and what is typed there is left out of session recordings.
How the app is used: pages and stories opened, how far a story was read, taps and navigation, screen recordings of app sessions, the device and browser type, IP address, and cookies or similar identifiers.
In the phone and tablet apps, only if a parent turns notifications on: a push address for that device (a code Apple or Google gives the app so a notification can reach it), the device's time zone, and when the app was last opened on it. We ask a parent, never a child: the question is not shown while a child profile is active.

What we make

Stories, character pictures, narration audio and short video clips, stored in the family's account.

From someone who sends your family a gift card

The child's first name and a parent's email address, typed by the adult sending the gift. We use them only to deliver the gift and to send up to two reminders. The name is offered to the parent when they set up the child's profile, and the parent decides what the profile says.
The sender may describe themselves so they can be a character in the child's stories, and may record a short spoken message. That recording is an adult's recording, not a child's. We keep it so the family can play it, and only a parent can start it.

When a family sends a story to a friend who is in it

A parent can add a friend or relative of their child as a story character, by typing a first name and a description. If they send that friend's family the story, the link shows the character's first name and picture, and the sending child's first name and picture, to anyone who has the link. The story it opens can then be read by anyone with the link. We never ask for the friend's phone number or email address: the parent sends the link themselves.
If the friend's family joins Tella through the link, their child's first drawing starts from that character's picture and first name, and the parent can change both. A copy of the sending child's character (first name, picture and a description of how they look) is saved to the new family's account, so the two children can be in each other's stories. Each family's copy is their own, and they can remove it.

We do not collect a child's last name, home address, phone number, school, precise location, or government ID. We do not store photos of children and do not create face or voice prints.

5. How we use it

To write, illustrate, narrate and animate the family's stories.
To keep the family's library and show what has been read.
To run, fix and improve Tella: understanding which features work, finding problems, and checking stories for quality and safety.
To keep Tella safe and prevent misuse.
To measure how well our own ads for parents work (see section 6).

Tella shows no ads. We do not sell children's information and do not use it to target ads at children.

6. Who we share it with

We share children's information only with these companies, only for these purposes:

Anthropic: writes story text and checks content for safety. Receives the child's profile details and story ideas.
Google(Gemini, Google Cloud, Firebase): plans stories, draws illustrations and character pictures, hosts our servers, database and files, and handles sign-in. Receives the child's profile details and story text.
Fal.ai: edits character pictures, draws Mirror booth characters and makes short video clips from story pictures, using the image and video models it hosts.
OpenAI (directly, or through Fal.ai): can draw story illustrations. Receives the character pictures and the description of each scene.
ElevenLabs: turns story text, which includes the child's name, into narration audio. In kid mode it also voices the short lines Tella says to the child (a greeting, a question), which can include the child's first name. Each line is voiced once and the audio kept under its words, so the same words are never sent twice. It also turns a gift sender's recorded message (an adult's voice, which may say the child's name) into text so we can check it before the family hears it.
PostHog: product analytics and session recordings, used only to run and improve Tella. Page titles and screens it records can include a child's first name and story content.
Meta: the Meta Pixel measures our ads, which are shown to adults. While the parent's profile is active on the website or apps, it receives page visits (including opening a story, but not each page of it), sign-ups and purchases, with the device's IP address, a Meta cookie and the page title, which for a story can include the child's first name. It is turned off while a child profile is active. We never send Meta the child's profile.
Apple and Google(push notifications, Google through Firebase Cloud Messaging): deliver the notifications a parent turns on in the phone and tablet apps. They receive the device's push address and the words of each notification, which are written to the parent and can include the child's first name, a story title and the name of an animal friend from a story. A story about a feeling, something coming up or a lesson, and any story from a parent's own idea, is never named in a notification. A relative's or a friend's name is never used.
Brevo: sends our emails to parents. A story-ready email includes the story title, cover picture, the child's first name and character picture, the story options, and the first names of the characters picked for it. The weekly email (which a parent can turn off in Settings) includes what the child made and chose in kid mode that week. Reminder emails (which a parent can turn off in Settings or from the email itself) can include the child's first name, their character picture, and the titles and cover pictures of their stories. Gift card emails, to the parent and to the person who sent the gift, include the child's first name. An email telling a sender that the family made a story never includes the story; a story is sent to them only when a parent chooses to share it.
Slack: internal alerts to the Tella team about feedback and errors, which can include a child's first name.
Stripe, Apple and Google: process payments. They receive no child information.
Legal authorities: only if the law requires it.

7. How long we keep it

A child's profile and stories: while the account is in use, so the family keeps its library. We delete accounts with no sign-in and no active plan for 24 months, after two warning emails.
A device's push address: until a parent turns notifications off on that device or signs out of it, the account is deleted, or the app has not been opened on that device for 90 days.
Stories a parent deletes: removed from the account right away, with their files permanently erased within 6 months.
Unfinished sign-ups: details entered during setup by someone who never created an account are erased after 6 months. So is a first story made without an account that was never saved to one, with its pictures, its audio and any link shared to it.
Unclaimed Mirror booth characters: erased after 90 days.
Friend links:a link a family made for a friend (the friend character's first name, picture and description) is kept until that family deletes their account, and is erased with it. A copy of a child's character saved to another family's account stays there until that family removes it or deletes their account. To have one removed, email us.
Gift cards:a gift that was started but never paid for is erased after 24 hours. A paid gift (the child's first name, the parent's email and what the sender wrote) is kept for the life of the gift, which never expires. After a family opens it, the sender's character and recorded message stay with the family until they delete them or their account.
Error records and content-safety checks: erased after 6 months. Records of misuse of the service (such as blocked sign-in attempts) are kept as long as needed to prevent abuse.
Session recordings (PostHog): erased after 30 days.
Deleting an account or a child: done right away from Settings. Requests made by email are completed within 30 days. Deleted data can remain in short-lived system backups for up to 30 days.

8. Parents' rights

Review.See and download everything we store about your child in Settings → Privacy & data.
Correct.Edit your child's profile in the app at any time.
Delete.Delete one child and their stories in Settings → Privacy & data, or your whole account in Settings → Account.
Refuse further collection.Email us and we will stop making new stories with your child's profile while keeping the stories you have, or withdraw consent entirely by deleting your child's data.

Contact hello@tella.kids for any of these. We reply within 5 business days and may ask you to confirm you own the account.

9. Security

We keep a written information security program. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, access to family data is limited to the Tella team members who need it, and admin actions are logged.

10. Changes to this notice

Before we change how we collect, use or share children's information, we will tell parents by email or in the app, and ask for consent again where the law requires it.

11. Contact us

Tella LLC
hello@tella.kids