Privacy Policy for KORA

Last updated: July 27, 2026

The two modes

Local mode (default, free)

• All your family tree data stays on your device — people, photos, relationships, notes, settings.
• Your content is not transmitted to our servers, and no cloud storage is used for it.
• No account or registration is required. Open the app and start.
• The only data that leaves your device is usage and diagnostic analytics (see "Analytics").

Cloud mode (optional, with a Pro subscription)

Cloud mode is off until you sign in and turn it on. When you do:

• The trees you choose to sync are uploaded to our servers (hosted in Europe) so they are available on your other devices and can be shared.
• You share deliberately: a tree is visible to another person only after you send them an invite and they accept it.
• An account is required. We store your account identifier and email address, and the subscription status returned by the app store or payment provider.
• You can leave cloud mode at any time — delete your account in the app and the trees stored on our servers are deleted with it. Your local copy stays on the device.

Types of data

• Family member information: names, dates of birth and death.
• Photos: images you add to profiles.
• Relationships: parent-child and spouse connections.
• Comments: notes about family members.
• App settings: theme, language.
• Cloud mode only: your email address, an account identifier, and your subscription status.

Data you control

• Export: export your family tree data at any time.
• Import: import previously exported data.
• Delete: delete all data through the app settings; deleting your account removes everything we hold in the cloud.
• No recovery: once deleted, data cannot be recovered — we keep no long-term backups of it.

Accounts and sign-in

Cloud mode uses Sign in with Apple, Sign in with Google, or a sign-in link sent to your email. From Apple or Google we receive your email address and a provider account identifier and nothing else — no contacts, no further profile data — and we never see your password. The email option stores only your address and a single-use, expiring token, of which we keep just a hash.

Sharing and invites

When you invite someone to a tree, we send that person an email containing your invite link. Invite emails are delivered by Brevo acting as our processor. A person who accepts an invite can see the contents of that tree; you can revoke access in the app.

Voice input (Pro)

Speech is converted to text on your device by the operating system's speech recognition. The resulting text — not the audio — is sent to our server, which passes it to Ollama Cloud to extract people and relationships. We do not store the transcript after the response is returned, and it is not used to train models.

Payments

Subscriptions are processed by Apple, Google Play or Stripe, with RevenueCat managing entitlements. We never see or store your card details. We receive only your subscription status.

Error reporting

Server errors are reported to Sentry (EU region). The reports are configured to exclude request bodies and personal identifiers, so the contents of your trees are not sent.

Data retention

Cloud data is kept for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account — from the account screen in the app — your trees, invites, sessions and account record are erased from our servers immediately and permanently, and we ask RevenueCat and our email provider to delete their copies too. We keep no backups from which a deleted tree could be restored. Anonymized analytics are retained under the provider's own retention settings.

Trees owned by other people that you contributed to are not deleted: that content is their data, not yours to erase. Your authorship link is removed from it.

Who is responsible for your data

The data controller is Roman Bastrakov, the independent developer of KORA, reachable at [email protected]. There is no company behind the app and no data protection officer is appointed — that contact address is the one to use for any privacy request.

Why we are allowed to process it (legal bases)

• Performance of a contract — your account, cloud sync, sharing, and the voice feature: you asked for these and they cannot work otherwise.
• Consent — analytics on the web, which loads only after you accept, and which you can withdraw at any time via "Cookie settings".
• Legitimate interests — keeping the service secure and working, and understanding aggregate usage in the mobile apps. You can object to this; see your rights below.
• Legal obligation — retaining what the law requires us to retain, such as transaction records held by the payment providers.

Where your data goes

Our servers are in the EU (Poland). Some processors operate outside it, so cloud-mode data may be transferred internationally under the safeguards each provider offers (typically EU Standard Contractual Clauses):

• Ollama Cloud (US) — receives the dictated text for the voice feature, stores nothing.
• RevenueCat (US) and Stripe (US) — subscription status and payment processing.
• Google / Firebase (US) — anonymized analytics and Sign in with Google.
• Apple (US/EU) — Sign in with Apple and App Store payments.
• Brevo (EU, France) — invite and sign-in email.
• Sentry (EU) — server error reports, configured to carry no personal data.

In local mode none of this applies: nothing is transferred anywhere.

Permissions

Photo library access

Lets you add family member photos from your device. Access is granted only when you explicitly choose to add or change a photo. In local mode photos stay on the device; in cloud mode they are uploaded with the tree you sync.

Camera access

Lets you take photos of family members. Access is granted only on your explicit choice.

Microphone and speech recognition (Pro)

Used only while you are dictating. See "Voice input" above for what leaves the device.

Storage access

Used to save and load your family tree data and photos — for local file operations only.

Analytics

KORA uses Google Analytics (including Google/Firebase Analytics on mobile) to collect anonymized usage and diagnostic information: screen views, interactions, device and platform type, approximate location from IP, and — on Android — a resettable advertising identifier. This helps us improve the app.

• Analytics events record which screens and actions were used, never the content of your trees (names, dates, photos, notes).
• Crashes are reported as an event carrying the error message, truncated to 100 characters. Those messages come from the app's own code and are not meant to contain your data, but we cannot rule out that a message ever quotes something you typed — so we mention it rather than claim otherwise.
• KORA shows no ads and does not sell your data. The advertising identifier on Android can be reset or limited in your device settings.
• Google processes this data under the Google Privacy Policy.
• On the web version, analytics is off by default and loads only after you consent. You can decline, or withdraw consent anytime via the “Cookie settings” link in the footer — no analytics scripts or cookies are loaded until you accept.
• In the mobile apps analytics starts with the app rather than behind a consent prompt. To switch it off there, use your device's own control — "Allow Apps to Track"/analytics sharing on iOS, or resetting and opting out of the advertising ID on Android — or write to us and we will exclude your installation.

Children's privacy

KORA is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. In the EU, where consent is a legal basis, it applies from the age set by your country (13–16). If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, write to the address below and we will delete it.

Data security

In local mode, the security of your data depends on your device settings. We recommend enabling device encryption, a device lock (PIN/password/biometrics), regular export backups, and keeping your OS up to date. In cloud mode, data is transmitted over TLS and stored on access-controlled servers.

Data portability

You can export your data at any time as a ZIP archive: a JSON file with your tree structure and all associated photos. Exports can be imported back, moved to another device, or kept as a backup.

Your rights

You fully own your tree data at all times. In local mode we hold none of it, so we cannot access it or recover it for you — which also means there is nothing for us to hand over or erase.

In cloud mode you have the rights the GDPR gives you, and most of them you can exercise yourself, immediately, without asking us:

• Access and portability — export any tree from the app as a ZIP (JSON + photos). Ask us and we will also send what we hold about your account.
• Rectification — edit anything in the app; the change syncs.
• Erasure — delete your account from the account screen. It is immediate, permanent, and reaches our processors too.
• Restriction and objection — including objecting to the analytics we run on a legitimate-interests basis.
• Withdrawing consent — at any time, without affecting what was lawful before you withdrew it.

Write to [email protected] for anything you cannot do in the app; we answer within one month. If you are unhappy with how we handled it you can complain to your national data protection authority — for the EU, the list is at edpb.europa.eu.

We do not use your data for automated decision-making or profiling.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time and will note changes by posting the new version on this page and updating the "Last updated" date.

Contact us

Questions about this policy: [email protected]. See also our Terms of Use.