Safety & privacy for parents
This page is our direct notice to parents, written in plain language. It’s the same notice you agree to before your child can write anything.
What happens to every letter
- A keyword check runs the moment the letter is sent.
- An AI safety check runs next, on computers we operate. It can make a letter’s safety level stricter, but never more relaxed.
- Then one of three things happens:
- Ordinary letters: Santa writes a reply. It’s checked against our rules (no products or prices, no “naughty or nice”, no questions to your child, and nothing your child didn’t tell us), and then you read it.
- Letters that mention something sad, like a loss, an illness or a family change: Santa writes a gentle reply that makes no promises. The festive narration starts switched off, and your parent page shows a short note and some support resources.
- Letters that suggest a child might be hurting or unsafe: we don’t write a reply and nothing plays. The letter is not forwarded to anyone automatically. A trained person on our team reviews it in a restricted queue, and every access is logged. Your parent page will say: “Santa’s elves need a little more time with this letter.” We may be legally required to make a child-safety report, so we can’t promise to keep a letter secret.
- If our safety check fails or isn’t sure, the letter is held for review. It never falls back to a cheerful reply.
If a child is in danger right now
Call 911. For advice about child abuse, call or text the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 (childhelphotline.org). For a mental health crisis, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (988lifeline.org). JinglePost is not an emergency service.
Notice to parents: what JinglePost collects from your child, and why
What your child can give us
- A first name or nickname, if you want one. This is optional.
- Picked answers to a few guided questions, such as “I was brave” or “I love drawing”. Your child taps choices; they don’t type these.
- Wishlist choices, up to 12 tapped choices from categories such as books, toys, things to do and kind wishes. The choices differ by the age range you pick. Your child can also add one short wish, up to 120 characters, including when they choose “Other”. The form does not accept links, email addresses or numbers that look like addresses or phone numbers.
- Up to nine short optional notes, up to 80 characters each, when your child picks “Other” in a guided question. These cover their year, favourite things, Christmas traditions, questions for Santa and kind wishes. They use the same contact-detail screen as the wish. Your child can talk about something hard and may choose to skip it. You can read these notes in your review. Wishlist choices, the typed wish and these notes go to the safety check and your parent view. They are not used as facts for writing Santa’s reply. The “Who is special” question uses roles only, with no box for names.
That’s everything. We never ask your child for a last name, address, school, age, birthday, photo, voice, location or contact details. Kid mode has no child login and never uses the microphone, camera, file uploads, ads, third-party analytics or session replay.
What we collect from you
Your email address, your U.S. state, your plan and a record of this consent (notice version, time, and your payment’s transaction reference). If you like, you can also pick an age range for each child, such as “6 to 8”, so Santa’s words suit their reading level. We never ask for an exact age. Card payments go through Stripe’s hosted checkout, so we never see or store your card number.
How we use it
- To write Santa’s reply. Your child’s letter is read by AI models running on computers we operate ourselves. It isn’t sent to an outside AI company, and we never use letters to train models.
- To keep your child safe. Every letter is screened on our own computers before any reply is written. If a letter suggests your child might be hurting or in danger, we don’t write a cheerful reply. A trained person on our team reviews it instead. In some states, the law may require us to report a child-safety concern to the authorities, so we can’t promise to keep a letter secret.
- To show you the reply first. You read Santa’s reply before your child sees it, and nothing reaches your child until you release it. If you choose narration, an AI voice provided by ElevenLabs reads Santa’s reply aloud. ElevenLabs receives only Santa’s reply text, with delivery directions added by our software, never your child’s letter, wish, wishlist or notes. The reply may include your child’s first name or nickname and the details in the reply you approved.
Who else handles the information
Only companies that run the service for us: Cloudflare hosts the website and database, Stripe handles your payment (Stripe only gets your details, not your child’s), and ElevenLabs receives only Santa’s reply text to provide the AI narration. We don’t sell children’s information, we don’t use it for advertising or profiling, and we don’t share it with anyone else, except where the law requires it (see “To keep your child safe” above).
How long we keep it
- Your child’s letter: deleted 24 hours after you release Santa’s reply. If nobody reviews it within 7 days, it’s deleted.
- Our stored copies of Santa’s reply and the narration: deleted 30 days after the reply is delivered. You can download them before then.
- Your account (email, state, choices): deleted 30 days after your last letter is gone, or 90 days after payment if no letter was written.
- Security logs (these never include letter text): 7 days. Proof of your consent (this includes a scrambled, one-way code made from your email, but no child information): 3 years.
- If a safety review is open, we keep that letter until the review is finished, or for longer if the law requires us to.
Your rights
At any time, you can read everything we hold about your child, download it, delete it, or stop any further collection. From your parent page, choose “Delete everything” and it’s deleted straight away, with the one exception of a letter under an open safety review. You can also email [email protected]. We’ll act within 24 hours, and we’ll never require you to hand over more information than we need to confirm it’s you.
How consent works
You confirm that you’re the child’s parent or legal guardian. Then you agree to this notice and complete a card payment. Your card issuer notifies the account holder of the payment, and that notification is how the law lets us verify that a parent gave consent. Kid mode unlocks only after the payment goes through.
Deletion schedule
| Information | When it’s deleted |
|---|---|
| Your child’s letter (the choices and the wish) | 24 hours after you release Santa’s reply |
| A letter nobody reviewed | 7 days after it was sent |
| Our stored copies of Santa’s reply, narration and your gift plan | 30 days after the reply is delivered |
| Your account (email, state, choices) | 30 days after your last letter is gone, or 90 days after payment if no letter was written |
| Security logs (never letter text) | 7 days |
| Proof of your consent (no child information) | 3 years |
| A letter under an open safety review | Kept until the review ends, or longer if the law requires it |
| Backups and AI training copies | We don’t make any for children’s content. Our database host keeps an automatic recovery history for up to 30 days, and we never use it to bring back deleted children’s content. |
Your controls
Your parent page lets you read and download everything we hold for your family, release or hold back each reply, turn narration off, and choose Delete everything, which deletes it straight away. You can also email [email protected].