Privacy policy

Who we are

Mama, it’s me is run by Ruiqi Ma, a sole proprietor in California. Write to us at hello@mamaitsme.com.

What we collect and why

We use your photos, names, ages, relationships and story details to make and check your book. We use your email and shipping address to help you and to deliver your order. Stripe handles card payments; we never see or store your card number.

Services that help make your book

OpenAI draws the pictures and helps write the story from your photos and details, and checks them for safety. Cloudflare stores files and blocks abuse. Resend sends our emails. Stripe takes payments. Prodigi prints and delivers books; some earlier orders were printed by Lulu.

Telegram, a messaging service, delivers our own alerts about orders to our phones. An alert names the order by its number and says what needs doing. It can include a detail we need to act on, such as a note you sent us, but never photos.

Hosting and database services store the order and its files. Providers receive the information needed for their work and may retain it under their own service and legal policies.

We do not sell your photos. We do not use them in ads or marketing without your separate written permission. When we delete a file, a provider may keep its own copy for a while under its own rules. OpenAI explains how it handles this data here.

Advertising and Meta

We advertise on Facebook and Instagram. To learn which ads lead to books, we tell Meta, the company behind them, about a few steps on this site. Each step is sent from your browser by the Meta Pixel and from our server, with a shared code so Meta counts it once. We don’t use Google Analytics or Clarity.

The steps are: you open a page; you confirm your email code for the free drawing; you open checkout, with the book price; and you pay, with the amount paid.

With each step, Meta gets your IP address, your browser type, the page address and Meta’s own cookies on this site (_fbp and _fbc), which link the visit to an ad you clicked. The page address never includes order numbers or private links, only the campaign labels from the ad.

With the email code, checkout and payment steps, Meta also gets a coded (hashed) version of your email. Hashing is not anonymity: Meta may match it to your account.

Meta never gets your child’s name, age or photos, the drawings, your story, anything you type into the book, or your shipping address.

We also keep the campaign labels from the ad link you arrived on, in a cookie for 30 days, and save them with your order. They show us which ads lead to books. They stay with us.

Under California and other state privacy laws, this can count as selling or sharing personal information for advertising. You can opt out any time on Your privacy choices, linked at the bottom of every page. Opting out changes nothing about your book.

Your opt-out is saved on this browser for a year, and covers any book you’ve opened here. To opt out a book made on another device, enter the email you ordered with on the same page. We keep only a coded (hashed) version of it.

We also honor Global Privacy Control: if your browser sends it, nothing goes to Meta, and we treat it as your opt-out. A step already sent can’t be recalled.

How the order screens are used

To learn where the order screens are hard to use, we count the steps each visit reaches, such as adding a photo or tapping Choose a style. Each visit gets a random code that ends when you close the tab. We never count what you type, your photos or your email, and the counts stay with us. Once you start a book, its steps are linked to it. We delete them after 90 days.

Emails we send

We email you about your book and your order: your code, your free drawing, your payment, your proof, shipping and refunds.

A few days after your book ships or arrives, we send one email asking for a review, with an offer of a credit off your next book for a photo of it. Like our other optional emails, it has an Unsubscribe link.

If you get a free drawing and don’t order, we may send a few emails about your unfinished book. They show your drawing and link back to it. At least a day before we delete an unfinished book, we tell you.

We may also send an occasional email about new books or seasonal ideas. For these, we keep your email address, when you made your drawing and last visited, and which ad brought you, even after your unfinished book is deleted. We never keep your photos, your drawing or your child’s name for this. We keep your email address for up to two years after your last visit.

Every one of these emails has an Unsubscribe link that works in one click. You can also reply to any of our emails or write to hello@mamaitsme.com. Emails about an order you place still come, because they are about your order.

If you unsubscribe or ask us to delete your data, we delete the address we kept for these emails and keep only a coded (hashed) version of it, so we never email you these again.

The custom story list

From July to October 2026, you could leave your email to hear when custom stories were ready. We no longer add to that list, and we have deleted it.

Reviews and photos you share

If you write a review, we keep your stars, your words and, if you give one, the first name to show. A person reads each review. Nothing is shown on our site unless you tick the box that allows it.

If you share a photo or a link of your book, a person checks that it shows the book, then we email your credit. We keep the photos only to check them, then delete them, unless you tick the separate box that lets us use them in our marketing. If we haven’t checked them within 30 days, we delete them anyway.

With that permission, we may use the photos on our site and in ads on Facebook and Instagram. You can withdraw it any time by writing to hello@mamaitsme.com. We then stop using the photos and delete them, even before we’ve checked them. We can’t recall an ad already shown.

Your credit is saved with a coded (hashed) version of your email address, so it comes off your next book at checkout.

Safety checks and blocks

We check every photo you upload. If a photo doesn’t pass our safety check, we delete it and note it against a coded (hashed) version of the IP address it came from and of the email on the book. After three, we stop drawing for that IP address or email.

We never keep the email address itself for this, only its coded version. A strike is deleted a year after the last one. A block stays until we lift it. We keep these records even if you ask us to delete your data, because they stop abuse.

How long files remain

Unpaid books: if you don’t touch an unfinished book for seven days, we may delete it and its photos. Saving a change, adding a photo, a new drawing, or opening the book from a private link in our email all count.

Paid books: we keep your photos, drawings and page pictures until the book ships. We email you before we delete them. We delete them no sooner than seven days after shipping, and at least a day after that email.

What we keep: the final PDF, your approvals and your order records, for reorders, support and accounting. The final PDF includes the illustrations and any photo you chose to print, such as a dedication photo. Deleting the working photos does not remove those pages from it.

As a backstop, we also delete an unpaid book’s photos 30 days after it was started, even if it is still in use. If a payment for it is still going through then, we wait for it, but no more than seven more days. This never applies to a paid book, or to a book we have agreed with you to keep.

If a paid book is cancelled or refunded before it goes to the printer, we delete its photos, drawings, pages and proofs 30 days later. We wait while a payment question is still open. If it had already gone to the printer, we keep its files until you ask us to delete them.

Backups

Every night, we copy our database and stored files to a separate, private backup store at Cloudflare. It lets us recover your book after an outage or a mistake.

We keep a database copy from each of the last 14 days, one a week for 8 weeks, and one a month for 12 months. A file we remove or replace stays in the backup for about 30 days. Something we delete on its usual schedule, such as an unpaid draft, can stay in a database copy for up to 12 months.

When we delete your data at your request, we also remove it from our backups about 30 days later. If we ever restore a backup, we first delete again everything you asked us to delete.

Permission and children

Orders are placed by adults. Before any photo is drawn, you confirm you have permission to use the photos and likeness of every person pictured; for a child, that permission comes from their parent or guardian. You must also have the right to use the uploaded photos. We save that confirmation with your order.

We do not knowingly collect information directly from children under 13. Children’s photos and details come from the adult making the book, with the permission above.

Access, corrections and deletion requests

Email hello@mamaitsme.com to request access, correction or deletion. We verify your request from the email address on the order.

We delete your photos, everyone’s drawings, the page pictures, the cover and the on-screen proof, and we wipe your personal details and story from the order. We keep payment, refund, dispute, print and delivery records, your photo permission, and the print file of a book that was sent to the printer. A book cancelled before that keeps no print file.

Deletion waits while a book is with the printer or a payment question is open. A paid book still being made is cancelled first. We cannot delete records from providers’ own logs. Deleting working photos can prevent us from completing or revising a book.

Your privacy choices

To opt out of ad measurement, use Your privacy choices, linked at the bottom of every page. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control, we treat it as your opt-out. Opting out changes nothing about your book.

To see, correct or delete your data, email hello@mamaitsme.com. Deleting your data can stop us finishing or changing your book.