Privacy Policy
We collect only what Santa needs to have a warm, personal call with your child. We never sell it or use it for advertising, and you can delete all of it at any time.
Hey Santa ("the app", "we", "us") is made by Good Instincts Technologies, DIFC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
1. What we collect
| What | About | Why | Where and how long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Child's first name, age, and optionally boy or girl | Child | Santa greets them and talks at their level | On your device, until you remove the child |
| Notes you write ("Anything Santa should know?", the encouragement note) and letters to Santa | Child | Santa mentions them kindly | On your device, until you remove the child |
| Live audio and camera video during a call | Child | So Santa can hear, answer, and notice things like a toy or pyjamas | Processed during the call only. We don't store camera images or audio on our servers. |
| Call transcript and Santa's notes from each call | Child | Santa's letter after the call, and his memory of earlier calls | On your device, until you remove the child |
| Call recordings | Child | Saved for you to watch and share | On your device, until you delete them or the child |
| Call records: when a call started and ended, how long it lasted, and a scrambled (hashed) code for your device, never the device ID itself | Device | Running calls, preventing abuse, and fixing problems | On our server |
| Safety flags: when our safety checks catch something, a short, redacted snippet of what was said | Child | Keeping Santa safe and improving the checks | On our server. Snippets are wiped after 30 days. |
| Purchase records | Parent | Minutes and receipts | Handled by Apple; kept as required for tax and accounting |
We never ask for or keep a child's surname, address, school, photo library, contacts or location.
2. How a call works
When you tap Call Santa, the app opens a private, encrypted call room. Your child's voice is turned into text, Santa's reply is written by an AI model and spoken in Santa's voice, and his face is animated to match. While the call is on, Santa can see the camera picture so he can react to what your child shows him. The call ends when Santa says goodbye or you hang up.
3. Service providers
We use these companies only to run the app. We don't allow them to use your family's data for anything else.
| Provider | What they do |
|---|---|
| Apple | Payments and notifications |
| LiveKit | Runs the live call room and Santa's voice agent |
| LemonSlice | Animates Santa's face |
| OpenAI (through LiveKit) | Writes Santa's replies and describes what he sees on camera |
| Deepgram (through LiveKit) | Turns your child's speech into text |
| Cartesia (through LiveKit) | Santa's voice |
| Anthropic (Claude) | Writes Santa's opening line and his letters |
| Railway | Hosts our server, which starts calls and keeps the call and safety records above |
Some providers are in the United States. Where the law requires it, transfers use standard contractual safeguards.
4. Children's privacy
The app is used by parents, for their children. We collect a child's information only with a parent's consent. We follow the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the UK Age Appropriate Design Code, the GDPR rules for children, and the DIFC Data Protection Law 2020. Parents can at any time:
- see what Santa remembers on each child's page;
- delete any recording or note;
- remove a child, which deletes everything about them;
- use "Forget everything" to delete all of the family's data.
5. How we use data
Only to run the calls, write Santa's letters and Morning Notes, keep the app working and safe, and answer support requests. Never for advertising, never sold, never shared for anyone else's marketing.
6. Security
Calls are encrypted in transit. Recordings, notes and Santa's memory stay on your device. Access to our server is limited to the few people who need it to run the service.
7. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you can ask to see, correct, export or delete your data, or object to how we use it. Most of this you can do yourself in the app; for anything else, email our privacy address. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.
8. Changes
If we change this policy in an important way, we'll tell you in the app first.
9. Contact
Good Instincts Technologies, DIFC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Privacy questions: our privacy address.