How we look after your stories

Family Voices keeps the life stories your family records, so they can listen to them for years to come. This page explains, in plain English, what we keep and who can see it.

What we keep

• Your recordings (voice or video).
• The question you answered.
• When you ticked "I agree my family can keep and listen to this recording".
• Names, phone numbers, email addresses and family details your family typed in about you.
• For people with an account: their name, email address and password (stored scrambled, so nobody can read it).

Who can listen

• Only the person who sent you the link, and the family members they choose to share with. Nobody else.
• Recordings are private until they decide to share them, and they can stop sharing at any time.

Where it's kept

• On Microsoft Azure, in the UK (UK South). Recordings are stored privately and are never public on the internet.
• Everything is sent over a secure (HTTPS) connection.

Who else sees anything

• Emails are sent by Microsoft Azure, with their details kept in the UK. Azure receives a name, an email address and the message itself, such as the question and the link, and uses it only to deliver the email.
• Recordings are never sent to anyone else. Nothing is sold, there are no adverts, and recordings are not transcribed or analysed by other companies.

Deleting and downloading

• Your family can delete any recording, any storyteller, or their whole account at any time. The recordings' files are deleted too.
• They can download all their recordings as a ZIP file.
• Links in messages stop working after 14 days, or once they've been used.

Questions, or want something removed?

• Ask the person who sent you the link. They can delete anything straight away.
• You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

Last updated: 4 November 2026