Privacy

What happens to what you tell us.

Last updated [LAST UPDATED]

You are trusting us with a person. Not data — a person, and the small things your family remembers about them. This page says exactly what we do with all of it, in plain words.

The short version

This site sets no cookies. There is no analytics, no advertising, no tracking pixel of any kind.
We use what you tell us to write and make the song. That is all.
Their page is private and never indexed by search engines unless you ask us to change that.
We never sell anything you give us, and we never pass it to anyone for marketing.
Ask us to delete it and we will, and we will tell you when it is done.

1. Who is responsible for it

[TRADING NAME], a registered business name of [OWNER NAME], trading from [BUSINESS ADDRESS], Ireland. Registered Business Number [RBN NUMBER].

We are the data controller for everything described here. For anything on this page, write to hello@aftersongs.com and a person — not a system — will answer you.

2. What we collect

About you

Your name, and what the person who died called you.
Your email address, and your phone number if you give us one.
The funeral home that looked after the funeral, if you tell us.
The name and email of whoever is to look after the memorial page, if that is not you.

What you tell us about them

Their name and how it is said, who they were to you, what the song is for, the date of the funeral, the language, how it should feel, and the memories themselves — a saying of theirs, a habit, something still sitting in the house, what they always gave out about, what never got said, and anything the song should never mention.

Anything you send us

A voice note, if you choose to record one instead of typing. Photographs, if you add them to their page. We keep them for that purpose only.

Payment

Payment is handled by [PAYMENT PROVIDER]. Your card details go to them, never to us — we never see or hold a card number. We keep the record of the order itself.

Technical

Our host keeps ordinary server logs, including IP addresses, to keep the site up and to stop abuse. We do not build a profile of you from them.

A note about the person who has died. Data protection law protects living people, so strictly it does not cover what you tell us about them. We treat it with exactly the same care as if it did. It seems the least they are owed.

Faith, and other things that say something about you

The form asks whether there should be faith in the song. Your answer may say something about your own beliefs, and the law treats that as a special category of information. We use it for one thing only — to write a song that sounds like the family it belongs to — and only because you chose to tell us. You can leave that question blank, or ask us to remove the answer at any time, and it changes nothing else about your order.

3. Why we are allowed to use it

To do what you asked — write the lyrics, make the song, build the page, send it to you, and handle revisions. Without this we cannot make the song at all.
Because you said we could — using an anonymised version of a song as a sample, crediting the funeral home on the page, sending you a reminder about a milestone, and the faith question above. Each of those is a separate choice, each is off unless you turn it on (except the funeral home credit, which is on unless you turn it off), and you can change any of them by emailing us.
To run the business — keeping records, preventing fraud and abuse, and answering you when you get in touch.
Because the law requires it — tax and accounting records.

4. Who else touches it

As few as we can manage. Each of these does one job and is not allowed to use anything for their own purposes:

Vercel — hosts this website and receives the form when you send it.
[EMAIL PROVIDER] — delivers the emails between us.
[PAYMENT PROVIDER] — takes the payment.
[AUDIO HOST] — stores and serves the finished song and their page.
Music production tools — used to produce the song from the words we write. See How the song is made in our terms.
Google Fonts — the two typefaces this site is set in are served by Google, which means Google sees your IP address when the page loads. Nothing else is shared with them.
The funeral home — if you name one, their name appears on the memorial page as a thank-you, unless you tell us not to. We do not send them your answers.

5. Where it goes

Some of those providers are based outside the European Economic Area, or store data there. Where that happens, the transfer is covered by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses. If you would rather your song were handled inside the EEA only, tell us before you order and we will tell you honestly whether we can do it.

6. How long we keep it

The order record — six years, because Revenue requires it.
The memories, the lyrics and the song — for as long as their page exists, so the family can come back to it. This is the point of the whole thing.
A voice note — until the song is delivered and the revision rounds are closed, then deleted. Ask us to delete it sooner and we will.
The half-finished form — saved on your own device only, in your browser, so you can close the page and come back to it. It never reaches us until you send it. Pressing Start again, or clearing your browser, removes it.

Ask us to delete everything and we will, except the bare order record we are obliged to keep for tax. Deleting the song and their page cannot be undone, so we will ask you once whether you are sure.

7. Their page

Every memorial page is private by default. It is not listed anywhere, it is not indexed by search engines, and it can only be opened by someone who has the link. There is no account and no password — whoever looks after the page gets a sign-in link by email when they need it. Anyone in the family can ask us to take the page down.

8. Cookies

None. This site sets no cookies at all, which is why you were not shown a banner asking you to accept any. The only thing stored on your device is the draft of your own form, described above, and it stays on your device.

9. What you can ask for

You have the right to ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to what we do with it, to receive it in a portable form, and to withdraw any consent you gave. Email hello@aftersongs.com. We will answer within one month, and there is no charge.

If we get it wrong and you are not satisfied with how we put it right, you can complain to the Data Protection Commission, 21 Fitzwilliam Square South, Dublin 2, D02 RD28 — dataprotection.ie. We would rather you came to us first, but that is your right and we will not make it difficult.

10. Children

This is not a service for children to buy. Families often tell us about grandchildren, and about a child who died, and those words are held with the same care as everything else here.

11. Changes to this page

If we change how any of this works, we will change this page and update the date at the top. If the change affects a song we have already made for you, we will email you rather than leave you to find it.