Privacy Policy

Memory Lane holds some of the most precious things a family owns: the stories, photos, and voices of a loved one living with memory loss. We treat that trust as the whole point of what we do. This policy explains, in plain words, what we collect, why, and the choices you have.

Who we are

Memory Lane (memorylane.care) is operated by Global Quest AI LLC, a company registered in Pennsylvania, USA, together with its Irish sister studio DigiGo, which runs the service for families in Ireland and the wider European Union. For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we are the joint data controllers for the personal data described here. [Company details to follow].

You can reach our privacy team at any time at privacy@memorylane.care.

Who this policy is for

Memory Lane is used by families. A family member sets up an account and invites others to help gather memories. The person living with memory loss does not sign up or manage their own account. Their family, or a proxy acting for them, decides what is shared and cares for their information. This policy is written mainly for the family members who use the service, and it explains how we protect the person at the heart of it.

What we collect

• Account details. The name and email address you use to sign in, and the role you hold in a family (owner, carer, or contributor).
• Memories. The stories your family adds, which may include written text, photographs, and voice recordings. Voice recordings are stored as high-quality audio files. We also keep the details you attach to a memory, such as an approximate date, a place, and the people in it.
• Details about the person and their circle. Information you choose to add about your loved one (such as a preferred name, year of birth, and the era of music they enjoy) and about family members and friends you list.
• Waitlist details. If you join our waiting list, the name and email you give us so we can tell you when a place is ready.
• Feedback. Anything you send us through the in-app feedback button, including an optional screenshot you choose to attach.
• Technical logs. Standard, short-lived server logs (such as IP address and browser type) kept by our hosting providers to keep the service secure and running. We do not use advertising or analytics tracking, and we do not set tracking cookies.

Our lawful bases

Under the GDPR, we rely on the following lawful bases:

• Consent for the heart of the service: gathering and sharing a person’s memories, and turning on optional features such as the voice companion. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• Legitimate interest in keeping the service secure, preventing misuse, replying to your feedback, and running the pilot well.

Sensitive information and people who may not be able to consent

Memories about a person’s health, their care, or their family life can count as special-category data under the GDPR. We handle this information with extra care and only because the family has chosen to entrust it to us to support their loved one.

The person a memory bank is about is often living with dementia and may not be able to give consent themselves. In Ireland, the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 governs how decisions are made for a person whose capacity is in question. For our pilot, each participating family completes a written consent form, signed by the person where they are able, and otherwise by a family member or proxy acting in their best interests. We do not begin building a memory bank for a person until that consent is in place.

How we use AI, and the one rule that never bends

Memory Lane uses artificial intelligence to help families, but it never puts words in a loved one’s ear that the family has not seen and approved. AI is used to:

• turn a spoken memory into text, so it can be read back later;
• tidy and organise memories, and help family members search them;
• create a clearly labelled illustration for a memory, when a family asks for one;
• screen memories for content that could distress the person, so a family member can review it first;
• read approved stories aloud in a warm voice; and
• power an optional voice companion, which is off unless a carer turns it on.

To do this we use a small number of trusted AI providers as our processors: Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. They process memory text, audio, and photos only to carry out the tasks above, on our instructions, and are not permitted to use your family’s memories to train their own models.

Nothing an AI drafts, suggests, or illustrates ever enters a person’s memory bank on its own. A family member reviews and approves every memory before it can be shown or read to the person. When the person listens, they hear the approved content, word for word. AI illustrations are always shown with a visible label so no one mistakes them for a real photograph.

Where your data is held

Your family’s memories, photos, and voice recordings are stored in the European Union, in a database and file storage hosted in Stockholm, Sweden, by our provider Supabase. Our website is served through Netlify. Where an AI provider processes data outside the European Economic Area, we rely on safeguards recognised under the GDPR, such as European Commission adequacy decisions or Standard Contractual Clauses, and we share only what is needed to carry out the task.

How long we keep it

We keep a family’s memories for as long as the family wants Memory Lane to care for them. You can delete an individual memory, or ask us to close an account and remove its data, at any time. Waitlist details are kept only until we no longer need them to contact you. When we no longer need information, we delete it.

Your rights under the GDPR

You, or a proxy acting for the person the data is about, have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold;
• have inaccurate data corrected (rectification);
• ask us to erase data (erasure);
• receive data in a portable format (data portability);
• object to processing, or ask us to restrict it;
• withdraw consent at any time, without affecting anything we did before you withdrew it.

Much of this is built into the app: family members can edit and delete memories themselves, and access is limited by role so only the right people can see or change things. For anything else, email privacy@memorylane.care and we will respond within the timeframes set out in the GDPR.

Complaints

If you are not happy with how we have handled your personal data, you have the right to complain to the Irish supervisory authority, the Data Protection Commission, at dataprotection.ie. We would be grateful for the chance to put things right first, so please do come to us as well.

Children

Memory Lane is not directed at children and is not intended for their use. Family members who set up and manage accounts must be adults. Memories may of course include photographs and stories from a person’s childhood or of younger relatives; these are shared and controlled by the adult family members who care for the memory bank.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as Memory Lane grows. When we do, we will change the date at the top of this page, and we will tell families about any significant change. If you have any questions, email privacy@memorylane.care.