Lao Family Tree
Log inRegister

Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 5, 2026

Lao Family Tree (“we”, “us”) operates laofamilytree.com, a private platform for families to build family trees and stay connected. This policy explains what we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have.

Information we collect

  • Account information — your name, email address, username, and (for email sign-ups) a securely hashed password.
  • Profile information — anything you add such as an avatar, tagline, bio, and your privacy/visibility preferences.
  • Social sign-in data — if you sign in with Google or Facebook, we receive your name, email address, and profile photo from that provider to create or link your account.
  • Family content — the family trees, person records, relationships, photos, and invitations you create or are added to.
  • Contact & social links — optional links (such as Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp) you choose to add. If you sign in with Facebook, we may pre-fill a Facebook profile link from your login. These are opt-in and hidden by default; you set who can see each one and can edit or remove them any time.
  • Technical & security data — IP address, browser/user-agent, session cookies, and an audit log of security-sensitive actions (e.g. logins, password/email changes, administrative actions).
  • Contact-form submissions — if you message us through our contact form, we receive your name, email, and message. We use Google reCAPTCHA to screen out spam, which shares some technical data (such as your IP address) with Google.

How we use your information

  • To provide and maintain the service and your family trees.
  • To authenticate you and keep your account secure.
  • To send transactional emails (verification, password resets, invitations, and security notifications). We don’t send marketing email.
  • To detect, investigate, and prevent abuse or security issues.

Service providers

We share data only with the providers needed to run the service:

  • Google and Facebook — optional social sign-in.
  • Resend — sending transactional email.
  • Google reCAPTCHA — protecting the contact form from spam and abuse.
  • Cloudflare R2 — storing avatar and photo images.
  • Neon (database) and Vercel (app hosting) — running the application and storing your data.
  • Vercel Analytics & Speed Insights — privacy-friendly, cookieless measurement of page views and site performance. No personal data and no cross-site tracking.

We do not sell your personal information or use third-party advertising trackers.

Who can see your content

Family content is visible to members of that family. Your profile visibility (family-only or public) and email visibility are controlled by you in Settings → Privacy. Platform administrators may access data when necessary to operate the service or for security; such access is logged.

Your profile picture is shown on the family trees you appear in and next to your name to family members. You can turn this off at any time in Settings → Privacy(“Show my profile picture on family trees”) — your initials are shown instead, and you’ll still see your own photo.

If you choose to, your country (country only, never your city) may be shown next to your name on the public community page. This is off by default and controlled by you in Settings → Privacy(“Show my country on the community page”).

Contact links & join requests

You can add optional contact and social links to your profile in Settings → Contact & social. These are opt-in and hidden by default, and each link has its own visibility setting. If you sign in with Facebook, a Facebook profile link may be captured from your login and stored the same way — hidden until you choose to share it. They are never shown to people searching by family name.

If you request to join an existing family tree, the request shares your name and profile picture — and only the contact/social links you have marked visible for join requests — with that tree’s owner and administrators, so they can recognize you and decide whether to approve. The person whose tree you searched for is not revealed to you unless they approve your request. You can withdraw a pending request, and you can see the status of your requests in your account.

Cookies

We use a small number of strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in and remember your theme preference. We don’t use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Data retention & deletion

You can delete your account at any time from Settings → Danger zone. Deletion is a 30-day soft delete (so it can be recovered if it was a mistake), after which your personal data is permanently removed. See our data deletion instructions for details.

Your rights

You can access and update your information in your account settings, and request deletion as described above. To make any other request about your data, contact us at support@laofamilytree.com.

Children

The service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We’ll revise the “Last updated” date above when we do.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email support@laofamilytree.com.