Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Yaptoon is run by the data controller:

We are based in the European Union and follow the GDPR.

2. What we collect

Your account

• You start without signing up: the app creates an anonymous account on your device. If you sign in with your email address (we send a one-time code), with Apple or with Google, what you made moves to that account. With Apple, we keep the name Apple shares with us; with Google, we receive your Google account's email address, name and account id, and a link to your Google profile picture (we don't use the picture). The name can become your display name. Signing in with Google and with a code to the same email address gives one account.
• Device identifiers. Each request carries two random identifiers: one for your phone, which stays the same if you reinstall or sign out, and one for your anonymous session. We use them to count free episodes per phone, to stop abuse and to keep experiments consistent.
• Settings: your language, push notification setting and push token, and the character you picked as "This is me".

What you make

• Recordings. Your recording is sent to our server, which uses it once to tell the voices apart and write the transcript with our speech-recognition providers (see section 6), then deletes it. Where uploading isn't available, your phone turns speech into text itself, and only the text reaches our servers.
• Transcripts and pasted chats: the text of your conversation, with the names of the people in it.
• Your episode: the script, its title, the participants, the generated voices, and the video if it is rendered on our servers. To grow our library of props, places and sounds, we also note which of them your script would have used and we don't have yet: their names and a short description, never your lines. These notes are deleted with the episode; only an anonymous count and description per item stay.

If you use the feed

• your profile (display name and character picture), your posts (the video, a still image, title, caption and tags), comments, likes, who you follow and who you block;
• reports you send, with your reason and any note; when you report from a shared page without an account, we keep only a keyed hash of your network address, not the address itself;
• your country, from the network you connect through (never GPS), which is stored with a post when you publish it.

Other information

• your age range, if you are asked for it (see Age) — a range, never your date of birth;
• your plan and purchases: payments are made through Apple or Google, and we receive which plan you have and which packs you bought, not your card details;
• technical records: the network address an episode was created from, and request counts used to stop abuse;
• usage analytics (see Analytics and cookies);
• crash and error reports and app stability sessions from the app: the device model, the operating system and app versions, your account id, the screen you were on and the error's technical details, and for each session when the app started, how long it ran and whether it ended in a crash (see Sentry in section 6);
• on the waitlist at yaptoon.com: your email address, your consent to launch emails, which form and link you came through (for example utm_source=tiktok), your browser's user agent and the time you signed up.

3. Why, and on what legal basis

• To make your cartoons and run your account: transcribing, writing the script, voicing and rendering it, storing it, and the feed if you use it — because you asked us to (performing our contract with you, GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)).
• To keep Yaptoon safe: stopping abuse and bots, checking scripts and posts against our rules, handling reports and moderating — our legitimate interest in a safe service (Art. 6(1)(f)).
• To improve Yaptoon: usage analytics and experiments — your consent where the law requires it (Art. 6(1)(a)), otherwise our legitimate interest.
• To keep the app working: crash and error reports and stability sessions, to find and fix what breaks — our legitimate interest in a stable app (Art. 6(1)(f)).
• To email you about the launch from the waitlist, and other news if you agree — your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)). You can withdraw it at any time.

4. What other people can see

Your episodes are private until you post one to the feed. When you post:

• anyone can watch the post, read its title, caption and comments, and see your profile: your display name, character picture, and the numbers of posts, followers and people you follow. The lists of your followers and of the people you follow are visible too;
• a post can be shared as a link at yaptoon.com, which anyone with the link can open. A link you share carries a short code for you, so we can tell which shares brought people in;
• if you take the post down, it disappears from the feed and its link stops working.

Before a post goes public we check it against our rules, and you confirm that everyone whose voice is in it agreed. Blocks work both ways: neither of you sees the other's posts, comments or profile.

5. Analytics and cookies

We record what happens in the app and on the site — for example, that an episode was made or a post was watched — with your plan, the app version and the language. Never the text or audio of your episodes. Before you sign in, these records are linked to a random identifier for your device (in the app) or a cookie (on the web). They are stored on our servers and analysed with PostHog (EU).

On yaptoon.com, Cloudflare Web Analytics counts page views without cookies, and PostHog runs without cookies, keeping a random identifier only in memory for the page you are on.

Your choice. In the EU, the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, and wherever we cannot tell your country, no analytics run on our websites until you choose Accept in the cookie bar; with Only necessary they never run. Elsewhere they run unless you choose Only necessary. You can change your choice at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of every page.

We remember your choice in one necessary cookie (yt_consent, one year), shared by yaptoon.com and the Yaptoon web app. The web app also keeps your sign-in in your browser's local storage and, only when analytics are allowed, a first-party analytics cookie (yt_anon, a random identifier, one year). We use no advertising trackers or social media pixels.

6. Who processes your data, and where

We use these processors, each under a data processing agreement (DPA):

• Supabase — our database and sign-in, hosted in the EU (Ireland). Supabase DPA
• Cloudflare — the network every request passes through, file storage (Cloudflare R2), website hosting, Turnstile bot protection and Web Analytics, served from its EU and global edge network. Cloudflare DPA
• DigitalOcean — the servers that run Yaptoon, in Frankfurt, Germany.
• PostHog — product analytics, EU cloud. PostHog DPA
• Resend — our emails to you: data-export links, account-deletion confirmations and news you agreed to (EU region, without open or click tracking).
• Forward Email — delivers the sign-in code emails sent by our sign-in provider.
• Expo — push notifications and app updates.
• RevenueCat — manages subscriptions and packs bought through Apple and Google.
• Sentry (Functional Software, Inc., United States) — crash and error reports and app stability sessions from the app: the device model, the operating system and app versions, your account id, the screen you were on and the error's technical details, and for each session when the app started, how long it ran and whether it ended in a crash, per app version. Never the content of your episodes, what's on your screen, your email address, photos or audio. Stored in the EU; Sentry keeps them for 30 days.
• Apple and Google — sign-in with Apple and Google, in-app purchases, push delivery, and the age range your phone shares if you allow it.

To write your episode's script and voices, we also use these AI services:

• Google — Gemini models, through Vertex AI or the Gemini API, and Google Cloud Text-to-Speech. They receive the text of your episode (and your recording, if there is one) to write the transcript, the script and the voices. In both cases Google does not use your data to train its models. Videos rendered on our servers may be made on Google Cloud Run in Belgium. Google Cloud DPA
• AssemblyAI — speech recognition, which we also use. It receives your recording to write the transcript, and we ask AssemblyAI to delete the recording and the transcript as soon as the transcript is back; their systems finish removing it within a few days. Processed in the EU.
• ElevenLabs (United States) — voices for the characters, which we also use. It receives only the script's lines to speak, never your recording, photos or account details, and does not use them to train its models, and we delete the generated audio there right after. Processed in the United States.
• OpenAI (United States) — voices for the characters, which we also use. It receives only the script's lines to speak, never your recording, photos or account details. OpenAI doesn't train its models on them and keeps them for up to 30 days to detect abuse, unless the law requires longer. Processed in the United States.
• Anthropic PBC (United States) — Claude models. They receive the text of your recording's transcript and the generated script, to write and check scripts, including safety checks. They don't receive your audio, photos or account details. Anthropic deletes this data within 30 days (longer only if its safety systems flag it as misuse) and doesn't train its models on it.

Our database and servers are in the EU. Some processing happens outside it: on Cloudflare's global network, at Google's global locations (the Gemini API, and Vertex AI when a model isn't available in the EU), at Anthropic, ElevenLabs and OpenAI in the United States, and at providers that don't commit to processing only in the EU (Forward Email, Expo, RevenueCat, Sentry, Apple and Google). They do so under the safeguards in their data processing terms, such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

7. How long we keep it

• An uploaded recording: until its transcript is written — usually under a minute — and also deleted if something goes wrong. On your phone, a recording stays until the script exists or you throw it away.
• The transcript or pasted chat: until you accept the script. If you never do, it goes with the episode.
• Your episode (script, title, voices, video): while it exists. When you delete an episode it disappears from the app at once, and we erase it completely — text, audio and all its files — about 30 days later.
• Posts go with their episode. A post our moderators delete is removed at once.
• Technical records: the network address an episode came from, 30 days; request counts used to stop abuse, 7 days (for feed actions, one day).
• Your account and everything in it: until you delete it.
• A data export: 24 hours.
• Crash and error reports and stability sessions: 30 days, at Sentry.
• Waitlist details: until you unsubscribe, or 12 months after the app launches, whichever comes first.

We keep anonymous records of what our AI services cost, and a log of our staff's actions in which a deleted account no longer appears by name, email or network address.

8. Deleting your data, and getting a copy

Delete your account in Settings at any time, signed in or not. We erase right away every episode (including ones you deleted earlier), their recordings, voices and videos, your posts, comments, likes, follows and blocks, the reports you made and the reports about you, your devices, settings, analytics records and your plan's history on our side, and the account itself. If the account has an email address, we send a confirmation there.

A subscription bought through Apple or Google isn't cancelled by deleting your account: cancel it in the App Store or Google Play.

Get a copy of your data in Settings: we put your account details, episodes, feed activity and files in one download, available for 24 hours. With an email address, we send you the link.

9. Age

The feed (watching, posting, commenting, liking, following) is open only to people old enough where they are — for example 13 in most countries, 15 in France and 16 in Australia. To check, the app first asks your phone for your age range (Apple or Google, if you allow it); otherwise it asks for your year of birth. We store only an age range, never your date of birth. Making and sharing your own cartoons works at any age.

If you are under 13, use Yaptoon only with a parent's or guardian's permission.

If you believe a child has given us data without the permission they needed, email us and we'll delete it.

10. Your rights

You can ask us to:

• show you the data we hold about you (access);
• correct it (rectification);
• delete it (erasure);
• limit how we use it (restriction);
• send it to you in a portable format (portability);
• stop using it based on legitimate interest (objection).

Deleting your account and getting a copy are built into the app (see above). You can also withdraw your consent at any time; withdrawing doesn't affect anything we did before.

For anything else, email hello@yaptoon.com. We reply within one month.

You also have the right to complain to the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon, AKI) or to the data protection authority where you live.

11. No selling

We don't sell your data, and we don't share it with anyone except the processors listed above, who act only on our instructions — and what you choose to make public in the feed.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we'll update the "Last updated" date above. If a change affects how we use your data in an important way, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it applies.