1. Acceptance and parties

By creating a STORYTAP account or using the application, you agree to these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree, please do not use STORYTAP. These Terms form a legally binding agreement between you ("you" or "the user") and STORYTAP ("we", "us", or "our"), the operator of this application, based in France. These Terms are written to be understood, not to obscure your rights. Nothing in these Terms limits your statutory rights as a consumer under the law of your EU member state of habitual residence.

2. What STORYTAP is

STORYTAP is a personal storytelling and family memory preservation platform. It helps you capture, structure, and store spoken and written stories using proven narrative frameworks (STORYTAP, SPARK, C3, CART, SETTSE). The app includes tools to organise your stories: Collections let you group stories into named sets (for example, Family or Travel), and a Timeline view lets you browse stories by day, week, or month. These are personal organisation tools and do not share your stories with anyone. STORYTAP is not a social network. Stories you capture are private by default and never published or visible to other users without your explicit action.

3. Your account

You must be at least 15 years old to create an account independently. In France, 15 is the minimum age for providing consent to digital services under French data protection law. If you are under 15, a parent or guardian must create and manage the account and provide consent on your behalf. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your credentials. You must notify us immediately at storytap.app@gmail.com if you suspect unauthorised access to your account. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms. Where reasonably possible, we will notify you before taking action and give you an opportunity to remedy the situation.

4. Your content

You own your stories. Full stop. By storing content in STORYTAP, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, sync, and display your content solely for the purpose of providing the service to you. We claim no intellectual property rights over your family stories beyond what is necessary to operate the app. You may export all your stories at any time in machine-readable JSON format. This export feature is always free, regardless of your subscription tier, under the GDPR right to data portability (Art. 20). You are responsible for ensuring that content you record does not violate the privacy, consent, or legal rights of other individuals. You must always obtain the informed consent of any person you record before doing so.

5. Subscriptions and billing

STORYTAP is currently free to use. All features available in this version of the app are included at no charge. Paid subscription tiers are planned for a future version. When they launch, we will update these Terms and give you at least 30 days' notice by in-app notification and email before any paid feature requires a subscription.

6. EU right of withdrawal

STORYTAP is currently free to use, so no purchase or payment is involved at this time. When paid subscriptions launch in a future version, this section will be updated to describe your full EU consumer withdrawal rights under Directive 2011/83/EU, including any applicable exceptions for digital content and our refund process.

7. Anti-lock-in guarantee

We believe you should never be trapped in a subscription by fear of losing your stories. Therefore: • Your stories are always stored locally on your device, independent of any subscription • Your stories are always exportable as JSON or audio. This is free on all tiers, even after downgrading or cancelling • If we ever shut down the service, we will provide at least 90 days' notice and a free full data export window This guarantee is a core commitment. Any change to this section requires direct notification to you by email with at least 90 days' notice, and will not be imposed silently by a general policy update.

8. Transcription

Your voice recordings are automatically turned into text using AssemblyAI. Your audio is sent to AssemblyAI's servers in the United States for transcription, then deleted from their servers. The transcript is stored on your device. AssemblyAI does not use your audio to train its models. This is governed by a strict data-processing agreement. Recording, saving, and exporting stories all work fully offline. Transcription requires an internet connection.

9. Community Griot programme

NGOs, schools, oral history projects, and diaspora communities may apply for free or discounted access to STORYTAP under our Community Griot programme. Applications are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Contact storytap.app@gmail.com to apply.

10. Acceptable use

You may not use STORYTAP to: • Record others without their knowledge and explicit consent • Store or transmit content that is illegal, hateful, defamatory, or violates the rights of others • Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or circumvent the platform's technical measures • Use the service in a way that interferes with other users or the platform's availability • Impersonate another person or provide false information Violations may result in immediate account suspension. Where reasonably possible, we will notify you and give you an opportunity to resolve the issue before suspension.

11. Limitation of liability

STORYTAP is provided "as is". While we work hard to keep it reliable, we cannot guarantee uninterrupted availability. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, our total liability to you for any claim arising from your use of STORYTAP is limited to the greater of: (a) the total amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or (b) €50. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for: death or personal injury caused by our negligence; fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; any liability that cannot be excluded under applicable EU or French consumer protection law; or any breach of the implied terms of satisfactory quality or fitness for purpose. We strongly recommend keeping local backups and regularly using the export feature.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by in-app notification and email at least 14 days before they take effect. If you do not agree with a change, you may delete your account before it takes effect. Continued use of STORYTAP after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

13. Dispute resolution and ODR

We aim to resolve any disputes informally first. Please contact us at storytap.app@gmail.com. We will do our best to reply as quickly as we can and work towards a fair resolution. If we cannot resolve a dispute informally, you may use an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) scheme. In France, consumer disputes may be referred to a certified Médiateur de la consommation. A list of certified French consumer mediators is available at www.economie.gouv.fr/mediation-conso. As required by EU Regulation 524/2013, we are also required to provide a link to the EU Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform: ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr. We are not currently enrolled in a specific ADR entity through the ODR platform, but you may use it to contact us. Nothing in this section prevents you from exercising your statutory rights or seeking a remedy through the courts.

14. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of France. Disputes that cannot be resolved informally will be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of France. If you are a consumer resident in another EU member state, you also have the right to bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence and to benefit from any mandatory consumer protection laws of your country that provide you with greater protection than French law.

15. Contact

For all enquiries (general, privacy, billing, and Community Griot applications), contact us at storytap.app@gmail.com We read every message and do our best to reply as quickly as we can.