Privacy
Last updated November 2026
Curiosity is a talking robot for children, used through a parent or guardian’s account, or a school’s. This page says, in plain words, what is kept, who sees it and why.
Who looks after your information
Curiosity is run by [Operator name and postal address go here: set OPERATOR in site/src/plan.js]. Questions about your information: [email protected].
What a child can do
A child talks to the robot. They cannot change the plan or the rules. Settings that change the rules sit behind a grown-up PIN you choose when you sign up. How much the account has been used can be opened from the device without that PIN. The list of refused questions stays on the Account page, which needs the grown-up’s email code. Each child has a username and PIN that the grown-up chooses, and a nickname works fine. We don’t ask for a child’s age, photo or email, and there are no ads.
What we keep for a family account
- The parent’s email address, to sign in and to send sign-in codes, receipts and messages about the service.
- Usernames and PINs for each child’s account, and a separate grown-up PIN for Settings. PINs are kept only as a scrambled copy.
- Sign-in codes, kept only as a scrambled copy and deleted within a day, with the internet address that asked for them, to stop misuse.
- Plan details from Stripe: whether the plan is in its trial, active or ended, and its dates. Card details go straight to Stripe. We never see or store them.
- How much Curiosity was used: the number of questions and pictures per day, for about four months.
- Answers someone reports: if the flag button is pressed, that question and answer are kept for 90 days so we can check them and improve Curiosity’s safety.
- Questions Curiosity refused: the wording of up to the last 20, for 30 days, so the parent can read them. Then they are deleted. Children are not shown this list. Other questions and answers on a home account are not kept.
On a home account we don’t keep the other questions children ask or the answers Curiosity gives. We don’t keep voice recordings on any account.
Schools
For a school, the school decides how this information is used and we act on its behalf under our data-processing agreement. As well as the items above, we keep a log of every question and answer on the school’s screens, with the time and the screen, for 90 days. Each question is also checked automatically for safeguarding concerns, using Anthropic, and the school’s safeguarding lead is emailed if one is found. We also keep the school’s name, the safeguarding lead’s email address, and the name and role of the person who accepted the agreement. Parents and pupils should ask the school first about this information.
Curiosity is an AI
Curiosity is a computer program, not a person, and its answers can be wrong. A child is told this on the screen before they start, and Curiosity says it out loud at the start of a visit. Because it is made for children, we work to meet UK data protection law, including the UK GDPR and the Information Commissioner’s Age Appropriate Design Code (the Children’s Code).
Who helps us run it
To answer, a question has to be sent to the companies below. They process it for us, under contract, to give the reply. Curiosity does not sell information or use it for advertising.
- Anthropic (Claude) writes the answers.
- OpenAI paints pictures when a child asks for one.
- ElevenLabs turns answers into speech, and on some devices turns the child’s speech into text. Otherwise the browser’s own speech service does that (Google, in Chrome).
- Stripe takes payments and runs subscriptions.
- Cloudflare hosts the site, sends our emails and stores the account information above.
- Some answer cards fetch public facts from an encyclopedia, NASA, museums or the Open-Meteo weather service. Only the topic or the name of a town is sent. Curiosity doesn’t use the device’s location.
Some of these companies are based in the United States. Where information leaves the UK, it is protected by the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK’s data bridge or standard contract clauses.
Why we use it
To provide the service the parent signed up for, to keep it safe and stop misuse, and to keep the payment records the law requires.
How long we keep it
As above for usage and refused questions. The account itself is deleted twelve months after the plan ends, or sooner if you ask. Payment records are kept for six years because tax law requires it.
Microphone
The app asks for the microphone so a child can talk. On a phone or tablet it listens while the button is held, unless a grown-up turns the wake word on. The microphone is not used for anything else.
Your rights
You can ask to see, correct or delete your family’s information, or object to how it is used. Email [email protected] and we will reply within a month. If you are unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.