Your stories, and what we do with them

Who we are

Allora is made by FRATRUM LTD, which is responsible for your data: a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17478499, registered office Flat 15 Nevern Mansions, 42 Warwick Road, London SW5 9TJ, United Kingdom. You can write to us about anything on this page at hello@allora.life. More about the company is in the legal notice.

We are appointing a representative in the European Union, as European law asks of companies outside it. Their details will appear here.

What we keep

• Your account: your email address, the name you give us, and, if you add them, your surname and year of birth, your language and the colour you chose.
• Your stories: your voice recordings and the text made from them, anything you write instead of speaking, the chapters of your book and the changes you make to them, and the photographs you add with what you tell us about them.
• Calls: if you talk a chapter through on a call, the recording of the call and its text.
• Purchases: the receipts of your purchases from the App Store or Google Play, when you asked a purchase's chapters to begin, and, if you allowed it, your permission for us to answer Apple about a refund.
• What keeps the app working: a notification address for your phone if you allow notifications, and short technical logs that help us find faults.
• Usage statistics, only if you agree: which screens of the app are opened and for how long, what kind of phone it is, roughly which country it is in, and which purchases are made. Never your stories, your name or your email. They are off until you switch them on — when you first agree, or later in your profile under “Your data”.

We don't use advertising, we don't track you across other apps or websites, and we don't sell or hand on anything you tell us.

Why, and on what basis

Told properly, a life story comes round to illness, faith, convictions, origins. European law treats these as data of a special kind, which may only be handled with your explicit agreement. That is why the app asks for it before you begin, and why you can withdraw it at any time in your profile.

• Your stories — to put your book together. Basis: your explicit consent. If you withdraw it, we stop working with your stories.
• Your account and purchases — to give you the service you asked for. Basis: our contract with you.
• Records the law asks us to keep, for example about purchases and refunds. Basis: legal obligation.
• Answering Apple about a refund — telling Apple how many chapters of a purchase you have told. Basis: your consent, which you can switch off under “Your data”.
• Answering Google when a bank disputes a Google Play payment — the same count. Basis: our legitimate interest in answering a disputed payment fairly.
• Technical logs and security — to find faults and keep Allora safe. Basis: our legitimate interest in a service that works.
• Usage statistics — to see what helps people tell their story and what gets in the way. Basis: your consent.
• Notifications — to tell you when a chapter is written. Basis: the permission you give on your phone.

Allora's AI suggests questions and writes chapters from your words. It makes no decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

The people in your stories

When you tell your story, you'll talk about other people — your family, friends, neighbours. What you say about them stays in your book, for you. We don't contact them, and we use it for nothing else. If you are mentioned in someone's book and have a question, write to us at hello@allora.life.

Who else handles it

Our servers, database and files are with DigitalOcean in Frankfurt, Germany. A few companies do one job each for us:

• ElevenLabs and Anthropic provide the AI services described in the next section.
• Resend sends the email with your sign-in code, and the letter confirming what you agreed to before your first chapter.
• IONOS, in Germany, hosts our mailbox, so the emails you send to hello@allora.life are kept there.
• Apple and Google take payment for purchases in their stores; we receive only a receipt. If you ask them for a refund, we tell them how many chapters from that purchase you've told — Apple only if you've allowed it in the app, under “Your data”. More on refunds.
• Expo delivers notifications to your phone, if you allow them; on Android phones it passes them through Google’s Firebase.
• Google, only if you agree, counts usage statistics with Google Analytics for Firebase. It receives a random number for the app on your phone, never your name, your email or your stories, and we do not use it for advertising.
• Stripe takes payment from care homes for their residents’ places. It never sees anyone’s stories.

AI services

Two companies' AI services do part of the work. The app explains this before you begin and sends them nothing until you agree on the screen “What we do with your stories”. You can withdraw that agreement at any time in your profile, under “Your data”.

• ElevenLabs receives your voice — your recorded answers and your calls — to write it down as text, and the words Allora says, to speak them aloud: the questions, and on a call your first name. On a call, the voice you hear is a computer, not a person.
• Anthropic, the maker of Claude, receives the text of your answers, your first name, your year of birth if you gave it, and the photographs you add, to suggest questions, sum up what you've told, write your chapters and suggest which chapter a photograph belongs to.

They receive only what each step needs — never your email address or payment details. Both work for us under data processing agreements and give your stories the same protection we do, and neither may use your stories to train its AI. Like any such service, they may keep what they receive for a limited time and check it for misuse; we have asked both to keep nothing at all. When a call has been turned into text and its recording is with us, we delete the call at ElevenLabs.

Outside the UK and the European Union

Some of these companies are in the United States. DigitalOcean, ElevenLabs, Resend, Expo, Google and Stripe are certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension. For Anthropic we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum. Between the European Union and the United Kingdom, data moves under the adequacy decisions both have made. You can ask us for a copy of these safeguards at hello@allora.life.

If you joined through a care home

Your care home may give us your name and room so that it can look after your place. It sees your name, how many chapters are in your book and when you last told a story. Never what you said, and never your book itself. You can add your own email in your profile: then no one else can get a code to your book. If someone agrees on your behalf — a person with power of attorney or a guardian — we record who they are and on what basis.

How long we keep it

• Your account and your stories: for as long as you have an account. A book is meant to last.
• When you erase your account: we delete the account itself, with your email address, and your recordings, chapters, photographs, book, texts and purchases, and all the files that belong to them. Erasing is final. You can always start again with the same email address, as a new account.
• Calls at ElevenLabs: deleted as soon as the call's text and recording are with us.
• At Anthropic: at most 30 days, and longer only if its safety systems flag something, as its terms allow.
• Technical logs: 30 days.
• Backups of our database: 7 days.
• Sign-in codes: they stop working after 15 minutes and are deleted within the hour.
• Usage statistics: 14 months at Google Analytics, then deleted. Switching them off, signing out or erasing your account stops them and gives the app on your phone a new random number, so what was counted before is no longer tied to it. Whoever signs in next starts with them off.

What you can do

• See and download everything we hold about you, in your profile under “Your data”.
• Erase your account and everything in it, in the same place.
• Correct your details and change the text of any chapter.
• Withdraw your agreement at any time. We then stop working with your stories.
• Ask us to pause the use of your data while something is checked, or object to what we do on the basis of our legitimate interest.
• Ask us anything at hello@allora.life. We answer within one month.

If you want to complain

Write to us first at hello@allora.life. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and tell you what we are doing about it. You can also complain to the data protection authority where you live — in the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk); in the European Union, your country’s authority (the list of authorities).

Allora is for adults

Allora is meant for adults telling their own story. It is not meant for children.

This website

allora.life sets no tracking or advertising cookies and loads nothing from other websites. The care home panel uses one cookie to keep staff signed in, and nothing else.

If this page changes

If we change how we handle your stories, we'll tell you in the app and ask for your agreement again before anything changes for you.