The short version
Kin is a private place for a family’s videos. This policy explains what Kin collects, who can see it, and how to remove it.
- You decide what goes into Kin: you choose videos yourself, or turn on Select for me to choose for you. They’re saved to your private library and shared with the family you choose.
- Kin’s servers store your videos and process them with AI models we run ourselves, to make playback copies, titles, transcripts and search. We don’t send your videos to outside AI companies. Kin is not end-to-end encrypted.
- Face recognition for People happens only on your iPhone. Kin’s servers don’t recognize faces or make face templates.
- We don’t sell your information, we don’t show ads, and we never use your family’s videos for advertising.
- You can remove a post, delete a video or delete your account at any time, and ask us for a copy of your information.
Who we are
Kin is made by Lima Expeditions (“Kin”, “we”, “us”). In app stores, Kin may appear as Kin Family Videos or Lima. This policy covers the Kin apps for iPhone and Android, Kin on shared family tablets, Kin’s servers, the kin.video website and the Kin waiting list.
Memories, the Kin video book shown on our website, is still in development. If it handles information differently from the apps, we’ll explain how before it’s available.
For any privacy question or request, write to privacy@kin.video.
What we collect
Your account and family
Your name, email address, how you sign in (Google, or email and password, through Firebase Authentication), your account ID, the families you belong to and your role in each, invitations and invite codes, and the device tokens used to send you notifications.
Videos you add
The videos you choose from your phone or Google Photos, record in Kin, or that Select for me adds, along with the information stored in each file: when it was recorded, its length, file name and technical details and, if the file includes them, the place and exact coordinates where it was recorded. Also what you add in Kin: titles, descriptions, comments, reactions and favourites.
What Kin creates from your videos
Copies sized for playback, poster images, titles and descriptions, transcripts of what people say, place names, and numerical representations of the words and images in each video that make search work. These are produced automatically and can be wrong.
Searches
What you type into search is sent to Kin’s servers. For voice search, your phone’s own speech recognition (Apple’s or Google’s) turns your words into text, and Kin receives only the text.
Usage and crash information
How the app is used: which screens open, which videos play and for how long, whether uploads succeed, the app and system version, device model and network type and, on shared tablets, whether the screen is on and the tablet is charging. These records carry account, family and video IDs, so they are not anonymous, but they never include your videos, titles, descriptions, search text, names, email address or where a video was recorded. During the pilot, families agree to these records when they join. To stop them for your account, write to privacy@kin.video.
When the app crashes or runs slowly, it sends a report to Firebase Crashlytics (and, on Android, Firebase Performance Monitoring) with device and app details, what the app was doing, error codes and technical identifiers. Kin does not use Google Analytics, advertising SDKs or any other tracking code.
The website and waiting list
See The website and waiting list.
Messages you send us
What you write to us, and our replies.
How we use it
- To run your account and family: sign-in, invitations, membership and notifications.
- To store your videos, prepare them for playback and show them to the family you share them with.
- To create titles, transcripts and search, so you can find a moment later.
- To keep Kin working and safe: finding and fixing failures, measuring reliability and preventing abuse.
- To answer you when you write to us, and to meet our legal obligations.
- To tell people on the waiting list about Memories.
Kin’s AI models run on servers we operate on Google Cloud, not through outside AI services. We use your videos, and what Kin creates from them, only to provide Kin to you and your family. We don’t use them to train general-purpose AI models, and we won’t use them for research or model training without asking you first.
Automatic titles, transcripts and search exist only to organize and find videos. We don’t use them to make decisions about you, such as for credit, insurance or employment.
Who can see it
Your family
A video you add belongs to you. The family you share it with can see it with its title, date, place (including a map, which shows its exact coordinates), comments and reactions. Removing a video from the family keeps it in your library; deleting it removes it from Kin. Hiding a video changes only your own feed. Anyone with your family’s invite code can join, so share it only with family.
Your family sees the exact spot where each video was recorded. To keep a place private, don’t add that video, or turn off location for your camera before recording.
Shared tablets
Anyone near a family tablet can watch what it shows. Put it somewhere you’re comfortable with that.
People who run Kin
Your videos are private to you and your family, but because Kin is not end-to-end encrypted, a small number of authorized people at Kin, and the providers that host our systems, can technically access stored information. People at Kin look at a video, or what Kin made from it, only when you ask us to (for example, to look into a problem you report), to keep Kin secure, or when the law requires it. During the pilot, we may also check titles and search on a video with its owner’s permission.
The law, safety and company changes
We may disclose information when the law requires it, to protect someone’s safety, or to investigate fraud or abuse. If Lima Expeditions is part of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, information may transfer as part of it, and this policy, or a notice we give you, will continue to apply to it.
We don’t sell personal information, and we don’t share it for targeted advertising.
Select for me and People, on your iPhone
Select for me is an iPhone feature you turn on. With full Photos access, Kin looks through the videos on your iPhone using models that run on the phone, chooses ones that look like family moments, and adds them to your library and your family, a few at a time. Videos it’s unsure about stay on your phone. Photos access alone never adds anything, and you can turn Select for me off at any time. Only the videos it adds leave your phone. Select for me shares without asking you about each video, and it can choose one you wouldn’t want to share, so check what it adds; you can remove any of them.
People, where available, works while Select for me is on. Kin finds faces in the photos and videos on your iPhone, turns each face into a numerical template, and groups the faces that belong to the same person. This lets Kin show your family’s faces, let you name them and search for them, and help Select for me choose family moments. Face templates are biometric information. All of it, including the templates, the groups and the names you give, stays on your iPhone in protected storage that isn’t included in backups. It is never sent to Kin’s servers or included in usage or crash records, so Kin never receives it. Kin’s servers don’t recognize faces or make face templates from the videos you upload. Only use People if the people in your photos would be comfortable with it.
Kin learns faces only while Select for me is on. Turning Select for me off stops new learning but keeps what Kin already learned until you delete it. To delete it, open Settings in Kin and choose People on this iPhone. Kin also deletes it when you sign out or delete your account, and deleting Kin from your iPhone removes it with the app.
Service providers
These companies process information for Kin:
- Google Cloud (United States): Kin’s servers, databases, video storage and AI processing.
- Google Firebase: sign-in, notifications, crash and performance reports, and hosting of the kin-video.web.app copy of our website.
- Cloudflare: hosting kin.video, storing the waiting list and delivering email sent to kin.video addresses.
- Google (Gmail): the Kin team’s email, where waiting-list sign-ups and messages to us arrive.
- Apple and Google: notification delivery, and your phone’s own voice-to-text, maps and place names, which receive the words or coordinates they need and follow Apple’s or Google’s privacy policies.
- Google Photos: the videos you choose there (see Google Photos).
Google Cloud, Firebase and Cloudflare process information under data processing terms that let them use it only to provide their service to Kin. For more detail about a provider, write to privacy@kin.video.
How long we keep it
- Your account, your videos and what Kin creates from them: while your account is open, or until you delete them.
- Usage records: deleted from Kin’s event store after 35 days. Copies kept for analysis are deleted within 13 months, and error records within 90 days. On your phone, records waiting to be sent are cleared about a day after they’re sent, or after 30 days.
- Crash and performance reports: kept by Firebase under its own retention schedule.
- The waiting list: until you ask us to remove you. We delete the whole list within 12 months after Memories goes on sale, or if we stop the project.
- Messages you send us: as long as we need them to help you and to keep a record of what we did.
When you delete a video
It disappears from Kin at once, including from your family, and Kin then deletes the stored video, its playback copies, posters and search data. Deleted files can stay recoverable in our storage for up to 7 days. Kin keeps a small record of the deleted video (its title, description, file name, recording date and place, which can include its coordinates) until you delete your account, so the same video isn’t added again by mistake. To have it removed sooner, write to privacy@kin.video. Deleting from Kin doesn’t touch the original on your phone or in Google Photos.
When you delete your account
To delete your account, open the library tab, then Settings, then Delete account. Shared tablets don’t show Settings, so you can also write to privacy@kin.video; we may ask you to confirm the account is yours.
Kin removes your account, the videos you own, their family posts, your comments and reactions and your usage records. Videos that other members own stay theirs. If you created a family and others remain in it, it passes to its longest-standing member; an empty family is deleted.
Your access ends at once, and cleanup usually finishes within 15 days: uploads in progress can take up to 8 days to expire, and deleted files stay recoverable for up to 7 days after that. We keep a minimal one-way record, so a deleted account or video isn’t recreated, and remove the readable account ID from it after 95 days. Database backups and system logs are kept for a limited time under our providers’ schedules and then overwritten. We may keep information longer where the law requires it, or to resolve a dispute or a security problem.
Your choices and rights
In the app you can choose what you share, remove posts, delete videos and delete your account. In your phone’s settings you can change Kin’s access to Photos, the camera, the microphone and notifications.
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- tell you what personal information we have about you, and give you a copy in a format you can take elsewhere;
- correct it;
- delete it;
- stop a use you agreed to, such as messages about the waiting list.
Write to privacy@kin.video, from the email address on your account if you have one. We may ask for information to confirm it’s you, and we’ll never ask for your password. Someone you authorize in writing can make a request for you. We answer within 30 days; if we need more time where the law allows it, we’ll tell you why.
We won’t treat you differently for using these rights. If we decline a request, we’ll explain why, and you can appeal by replying to our answer. You can also complain to a privacy regulator, such as your state attorney general or, in Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Children
Kin accounts are for adults 18 and over. Kin is not directed to children, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Children often appear in the family videos that adults add, and they may watch on a family tablet. The tablet never asks them for information; it sends only the technical usage records described above, and Kin builds no profile of who is watching. The adult who adds a video is responsible for having the right to share it. If you think a child has set up an account, or you want a video of your child removed, write to privacy@kin.video.
The website and waiting list
You can browse kin.video without an account. The site sets no cookies, keeps no profile of you in your browser, and runs no analytics, advertising or tracking code, including Cloudflare’s own analytics.
Our hosts, Cloudflare for kin.video and Google Firebase Hosting for kin-video.web.app, receive the technical information any website receives, such as your IP address, browser, the page requested and the time, to deliver the site and protect it from abuse, and they keep it under their own short schedules. We don’t store your IP address with a waiting-list entry.
The waiting list
If you join the waiting list, we keep your name, email address, phone number and ZIP or postal code, the time you joined and the version of the sign-up notice you saw. They’re stored with Cloudflare, and each sign-up is emailed to the Kin team. We use them only to contact you about Memories and when it’s available. Someone on the Kin team may email or call you. We won’t use automated dialing or recorded messages, and we won’t text you unless you agree separately. We don’t sell your information or use it for advertising.
To leave the waiting list, write to support@kin.video. We’ll delete your entry and the sign-up emails the team received.
Google Photos
If you add videos from Google Photos, Kin uses Google’s Photos Picker, so you choose exactly which items Kin receives. Kin downloads only those items, adds them like any other video, and then closes the picker session. Kin can’t see the rest of your Google Photos library. Disconnecting Google doesn’t delete videos already in Kin, and deleting a video from Kin doesn’t delete it from Google Photos.
Kin’s use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Security
Information travels over encrypted connections and is stored privately, encrypted at rest. Access to Kin’s systems is limited to the people who need it. Because Kin’s servers process your videos, Kin is not end-to-end encrypted. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your information, we’ll tell you, and the authorities, as the law requires.
To report a security problem, write to privacy@kin.video. Please don’t access other people’s information to show us a problem.
Where information is processed
Kin’s servers and video storage are in the United States. Cloudflare and our other providers may also process information in other countries, for example to deliver the website quickly. If you live outside the United States, including in Canada, your information is processed in the United States and may be accessible to courts, law enforcement and national security authorities there under US law.
US state privacy rights
If you live in California or another state with a consumer privacy law, you have the rights in Your choices and rights, and the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, targeted advertising and profiling. Kin does none of these, and we treat a Global Privacy Control signal as an opt-out.
In the past 12 months, Kin collected these categories of personal information, from you and your devices, for the purposes in How we use it, and disclosed them only to the service providers listed above:
- identifiers: name, email address, phone number, and account and device IDs;
- customer records: ZIP or postal code;
- audio and visual information: videos, the voices and faces in them, and transcripts;
- internet and app activity: usage and crash records, and searches;
- geolocation: places and coordinates recorded in videos;
- inferences: automatic titles and descriptions.
The precise location in a video is sensitive personal information. We use it only to provide Kin, and never to infer things about you. People’s face templates never leave your iPhone, so Kin doesn’t collect them. Each category is kept as described in How long we keep it. We don’t sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16. Because we use sensitive information only to provide Kin, the right to limit its use doesn’t apply. We don’t disclose personal information to others for their own marketing.
Reporting a video
If a video shows you or your child and you didn’t agree to it being shared, or you want to report something harmful, write to privacy@kin.video with enough detail to find it: the family, the video and what’s wrong. We’ll look into it, and we may remove it. Please don’t send copies of illegal material.
Changes
When we change this policy, we update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we’ll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and ask for your agreement where the law requires it.
Contact us
Lima Expeditions
Privacy: privacy@kin.video
Support: support@kin.video
Our Privacy Officer is accountable for how Kin handles personal information and can be reached at privacy@kin.video.