Privacy notice.

Who we are

Kairoo is the consumer brand of Kairos OS Ltd, a UK company registered at Companies House (company number 17248927, registered address 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ). We’re a small team building family screen-time tools in partnership with Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good. Kairos OS Ltd, not Nesta, is responsible for this site, the apps and your data.

Kairos OS Ltd is the data controller. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under number ZC237244. For anything about your data, email hello@kairoo.family.

This notice covers two things: the website at kairoo.family, and the Kairoo apps once your family joins early access: Kairoo Parents on your phone and Kairoo on your child’s, from the App Store on iPhone and from Google Play on Android. Almost everything we hold comes from you, your phone or your child’s phone. Two small things come from Google, on Android only: if you choose Continue with Google, Google confirms your email address to us; and Google Play tells Kairoo Parents which link or ad led to the install. Both are described below. We don’t buy data or get it from anyone else.

What we collect on the website

Only what you type. If you just read the site, we collect nothing about you beyond the ordinary server logs described below. We count page views with PostHog in a mode that keeps nothing on your device: no cookies, no local storage, no recording of what you do, no way of recognising you on your next visit, and it stands down if your browser asks not to be tracked. We don’t track you across the web.

The waiting-list form

The form asks for one thing: your email address. Submitting it is your consent for us to contact you about a place in early access, and as the form says, we won’t email you about anything else. Every email we send carries an unsubscribe link. You don’t have to give us anything, but without an email address we can’t offer you a place.

When we get in touch about a place we’ll ask about your child’s age and how your evenings go. What you choose to tell us in reply becomes part of your waiting-list record and is covered by this notice.

The one exception to “nothing else” is notices we are obliged to send: a change to this notice or to our terms that affects you, or the project ending. Those go to everyone on the list.

Where your email goes

• Our own server first. The form posts to a small function we run on Google Cloud (Firebase, US infrastructure), which passes your address to Customer.io and keeps a copy in our own database, so the list can never be lost and we can count who joined each day. Nothing from Customer.io runs in your browser.
• Customer.io, our email tool (EU data region), sends one welcome email that confirms you are on the list, two short emails over the following fortnight on how Kairoo works, a short note about once a month on what changed and when the next group opens, and the email about your place when there is one. Nothing else, and every one carries an unsubscribe link that stops all of them.
• PostHog (US region) receives a copy of the sign-up as a delivery receipt, so the site can confirm to you that it was recorded. PostHog also counts page views, in a mode that stores nothing on your device and sets no cookies, and we have set it to discard IP addresses. When you sign up, the pages you looked at in that one visit are attached to your sign-up record, so we can see which pages lead people to join.

If you arrived from one of our links

If the link that brought you here carries campaign parameters (utm_source and similar, fbclid, gclid), your browser keeps them, together with the time you arrived, the address of the page you landed on and the page that sent you here, in its session storage (a note the browser keeps for that tab only) for that visit. If you sign up, they are attached to your sign-up so we know which channel brought you. If you don’t sign up, they are sent nowhere and are cleared when the visit ends. If you later save the same email address in the parent’s app, we link the two, as Which link or ad brought you to the app explains below.

Server logs

The site is served by Firebase Hosting, part of Google Cloud, which keeps ordinary server logs (IP address, browser type, pages requested) for security and to keep the site running, for up to 30 days. We don’t use the logs for anything else.

What the apps collect

Kairoo is two apps: one on your phone, one on your child’s. Your child’s app never needs an account; a one-time pairing code links the two phones into a private family record. The deal you write together carries your child’s first name and date of birth and the name they use for you; that is all the apps ask about your child. An app that helps with screen time must be crystal clear about what it can and cannot see, so here it is.

On Android, this notice describes Kairoo Parents and Kairoo from Google Play. A few families from our summer pilot still use our older Android apps, Kairoo Kids and its parent app, which differ in five ways: both of those apps send crash reports, labelled with the family’s ID; their worrying-words check keeps which kind of words matched; the child’s phone has no I agree step; saving an email address is optional, as on iPhone; and deleting the family doesn’t switch the child’s app off, so uninstall it.

Your email, and signing in

On iPhone, the parent’s app doesn’t need an account. You can, if you choose, save your family to an email address: a six-digit code, no password. We use it to get your family back on a new phone and to run Kairoo for you: a reminder if your child’s phone never gets connected, the week’s story once that exists, and news of changes to Kairoo itself. Every one of those that isn’t a code has a link to stop that kind of email. We don’t email you about anyone else’s products, and the email service holds your address and the facts about how far your setup got — never your child’s name, the deal or a minute of screen time.

On Android, Kairoo Parents asks for your email address the first time it opens, before you write the deal, and can’t be used without one. You show the address is yours with a six-digit code we email you, or with Continue with Google; there is no password. With Continue with Google, Google tells us the email address on the Google account you pick, and that address is all we keep from Google. We never see your Google password. We use your address to sign you in, to bring your family back on a new phone (on Android or iPhone), and to send you service emails: sign-in codes, and emails about your account and your setup. As on iPhone, the email service holds your address and the facts about how far your setup got, never your child’s name, the deal or a minute of screen time.

Before that, on the first screen, you tap Agree and get started. That is where you confirm you’re 18 or over and a parent, or an adult with parental responsibility for your child, and accept our terms. Our server keeps a note of what you agreed to and when: which version of the terms, which words were on the screen, whether you ticked the box for tips and news, and the version of the app. The note holds no email address (only a scrambled key made from it) and nothing about your child, neither phone can read or change it, and it is deleted with your family.

Tips and news, only if you tick the box

Below the email box in Kairoo Parents on Android there is a second box: “Email me Kairoo’s tips, news and newsletter, and a nudge if I go quiet. Unsubscribe any time.” It starts unticked, and you don’t need it to use Kairoo. Tick it and we may email you tips on making your deal work, news of what’s new in Kairoo, our newsletter, and a nudge if you stop using Kairoo for a while. Leave it unticked and you get none of those, only the service emails above. The lawful basis is your consent.

You can stop them at any time with the unsubscribe link in every one of those emails, or by writing to hello@kairoo.family. There is no switch for them in the app. If you already said yes to our emails on this website, that yes stays until you unsubscribe.

Which link or ad brought you to the app

We want to know which of our efforts bring families to Kairoo, so we note on your family record where your family came from. Two things can tell us.

• If you signed up on this website first. When you later save the same email address in the parent’s app, on iPhone or Android, our server links the two and copies the campaign labels from your website sign-up onto your family record: the campaign parameters (utm_source and the like), the page you signed up on and what for, when you first signed up, and whether you came from a Google ad or a Meta ad. Your website sign-up in turn notes which family it became, and when.
• If you installed Kairoo Parents from Google Play. After you tap Agree and get started, the app asks Google Play once for the labels on the store link that led to the install (utm_source and the like), whether a Google ad was clicked, when the store link was opened and the install began, and the app’s version. Everything else Google Play reports is dropped on your phone before anything is sent.

Your family record never holds an ad click ID, only which network the ad was on, and never your email address. The labels are not used to show you ads, are never given to Google’s or Meta’s ad services or anyone else, and never change how Kairoo works for your family. The lawful basis is our legitimate interest in learning which channels bring families to Kairoo. You can object at any time: email us and we’ll take the labels off your record.

What the child’s app records

On Android, until the grown-up setting it up has read what it sends, on that phone, and tapped I agree, your child’s phone sends only what linking it to your family needs: the pairing, a token for notifications, a sign that Kairoo is running and which version it is, and the day’s allowance, jar and streak. Nothing else below leaves the phone before then.

• App-level screen time only, never the content of other apps: no messages, no screenshots, no browsing or watch history. On an iPhone, which of the apps you’ve chosen to count (games, video and so on) were used, and for how long. On Android, the minutes in each app used on the phone, whether it counts or not, for today and for each day of the past four weeks.
• One photo, only if your child chooses: to show you a first-thing is done, they can snap a photo. It goes to you in Kairoo and nowhere else, and your child can see it too. Kairoo never opens the photo library.
• How evenings went: wind-downs shown, stops kept, minutes banked, streaks, and when your child chose to keep playing past the last call. The events your family agreement is about.
• The ask, in your child’s own words: if they ask for more time, the reason they type. It is read on the phone itself by a fixed set of rules (the words are never sent to any AI company) and kept in your family record so the weekly review (the summary both of you see in the apps) can show it. The child sees it too. Messages and check-ins your child writes to you in Kairoo are kept in your family record too. So are the ideas they send to the people who build Kairoo, in your child’s words, and what they write to Kairoo itself in Just talk: in their words on iPhone, and on Android only the fact that they used Just talk, never what they wrote there. Your app doesn’t show those two. Words that sound worrying are the exception, as the next part explains.
• Whether extra minutes went where your child said (Android): when Kairoo itself gives your child extra minutes for a reason, it can note, while those minutes run, whether a counted app is on screen, and afterwards whether the time went where your child said. Those notes make a trust level, kept on the phone and noted in your family record with each ask. While it is low, Kairoo doesn’t give extra minutes of its own (minutes from the jar still can be), and it tells your child why.
• Which apps count: on an iPhone they are chosen on your child’s phone using Apple’s own picker, and Apple never tells Kairoo their names — our servers only ever hold minutes. (If your child is in your Apple Family Sharing group, Apple itself can show you their apps on your own phone; that stays between you and Apple.) On Android, the child’s phone sends the list of installed apps (names only) so the choice can be made from your phone.
• A running-OK signal: whether Kairoo’s permissions are still switched on (on Android, each of its protection switches, so your phone can say Almost there until they are all on), and on Android whether Kairoo was switched off or its settings were opened, so you know it’s running; whether the phone’s clock was changed; and a version number and the phone’s model, so we can tell which build a family is on when something goes wrong.
• Floating videos, only if Pause floating videos is switched on (Android): Kairoo asks Android which app is playing a video or sound, never what is playing, so it can pause a video that should be resting. If a video it paused is started again, the family record notes it and you get a note naming the app, never what was playing. Kairoo uses Android’s notification access only for this, and never reads notifications.

If your child types something worrying

When your child types a reason for asking for more time, or something they tell Kairoo in Just talk or send as an idea (and, on iPhone, anything else they write in Kairoo), the words are checked on the phone itself against a fixed list of words about self-harm, abuse and sexual content. No AI reads them, and nothing is sent anywhere to be checked. If something matches, the words stay on the phone:

• your child sees a kind message suggesting they talk to you, with Childline’s free number, and is told that you’ll get a note;
• you get a gentle note, at most once a day, that your child may be carrying something heavy and that a check-in would help. It never includes their words or says what it was about;
• your family record keeps that note and the fact that the check matched. On Android, Kairoo doesn’t keep which kind of words matched. The iPhone app still notes which of the three kinds it was, in your family record, where neither app shows it.

What your (parent) app records

• Your family agreement and every change to it (versioned, visible to both of you).
• The buttons you press (extra time, end now, lock, unlock), when, and the reason you attach.
• Feedback and early-access answers you send us from the app.

The symmetry promise

Everything Kairoo keeps about your child, they can see on their own phone: the deal, the minutes, the asks and your answers. Nothing about them is collected that they cannot see. The one exception is the gentle note about worrying words: your child doesn’t see it, but is told when it goes to you. On Android there are two more, for now: minutes from more than a week ago, which your app shows and theirs doesn’t yet, and the trust level, which your child meets only as the reason Kairoo gives when it says no.

What the apps never do

No reading messages in other apps. No capturing screens. No opening the photo library. No location tracking. No ads and no advertising SDKs. No selling or sharing data with brokers, advertisers, or AI training partners. Ever.

Nuts and bolts

• Storage: your family record lives in Google Firebase (Google Cloud), readable only by your two paired devices and our small team for support.
• Notifications: we hold a push token per device (Firebase Cloud Messaging) so the two phones can nudge each other. Kairoo Parents on Android also sends a scrambled identifier for your phone, made on the phone so Android’s own ID never leaves it, so that an alert reaches each phone once.
• Crash reports: the iPhone apps send none. Apple’s own crash reporting applies only if you have opted in to share diagnostics with developers in your iPhone’s settings. Kairoo Parents on Android sends crash reports to Firebase Crashlytics (part of Google): what the app was doing when it crashed, the phone model and the app version, labelled with your family’s ID. Google deletes them after 90 days. With them, Firebase also counts the app’s sessions (each time it is opened, with the phone model and app version), even when nothing crashes. Kairoo on your child’s Android phone sends none of either.

Your child’s data

The child app is installed and set up by you, on your child’s phone, with you present. That setup is the basis on which we process your child’s screen-time data: consent, under UK GDPR. You give it on your child’s behalf, as the holder of parental responsibility, when you set up their phone (on Android, that is the I agree on your child’s phone), and your child signs the deal with you. We collect the minimum the agreement needs, and we designed the apps against the ICO’s Age Appropriate Design Code, better known as the Children’s Code.

Your child sees the same record you see. When you ask us to delete your family record, both phones’ data goes, within 48 hours.

If you are the child reading this: Kairoo counts how long the apps in your agreement are used, and keeps what you type in Kairoo, like the reasons you give when you ask for more time (on Android, what you say in Just talk stays on your phone). On an Android phone it also tells your grown-up which apps are on your phone and how many minutes you spent in each one, whether or not they count in your deal; and if extra minutes Kairoo gave you didn’t go where you said, it may say no to your next ask for a while, and it tells you why. It does not read your messages in other apps, look at your photos or watch your screen. If a reason you type when you ask for more time, or something you say in Just talk or send as an idea (on an iPhone, anything you type in Kairoo), sounds like you’re carrying something heavy, your grown-up gets a gentle note to check in with you, never your words. Apart from that note, and on Android your minutes from more than a week ago, your parent sees exactly what you see, and nothing more. A couple of people at Kairoo can also look at it, but only to fix something that has gone wrong. If you want to know what Kairoo holds about you, you or your parent can email us at hello@kairoo.family.

Why we collect it, and the lawful basis

UK GDPR says we need a lawful reason for each thing we do with your data. Here they are.

• To offer you a place in early access. Your email address, and what you tell us about your child’s age and your evenings when we get in touch. Basis: your consent, given when you submit the form and again when you choose to reply. Stop the emails at any time with the unsubscribe link, or email us to have it all deleted.
• To make sure your sign-up is not lost. The copy held by PostHog. Basis: our legitimate interest in running a reliable list, so nobody who asked for a place is missed. That copy goes when you ask us to delete your record.
• To know which channel brought you. Campaign parameters and landing details, only if you sign up. Basis: our legitimate interest in learning which of our efforts reach families.
• To keep the site up and secure. Server logs. Basis: our legitimate interest in running a safe website.
• To run Kairoo for your family. The family record described above: the agreement, screen time for the chosen apps (on Android, the minutes in every app used and the list of apps on the phone), how evenings went, the asks and messages, what your child writes to Kairoo, whether extra minutes went where your child said (on Android), the buttons pressed, the running-OK signal, the note if something your child typed sounded worrying, and a push token for each phone. Basis: consent. You give it for yourself when you set the apps up, and on your child’s behalf, as the holder of parental responsibility, when you set up their phone.
• To give you an account and bring your family back. Your email address in the parent’s app (on Android when it first opens, on iPhone if you choose) and the service emails. Basis: our contract with you, our terms, which on Android you accept at Agree and get started.
• To send you tips, news, our newsletter and a nudge if you go quiet. Only if you ticked the box in Kairoo Parents on Android. Basis: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time with the unsubscribe link or by writing to us.
• To show what you agreed to. The note of what you accepted at Agree and get started and whether you ticked the box. Basis: our legitimate interest in being able to show what was agreed, and our legal duty to be able to show your consent.
• To learn which channels bring families to the apps. The campaign labels described in Which link or ad brought you to the app. Basis: our legitimate interest in learning which of our efforts reach families.
• To fix Kairoo Parents on Android when it crashes. Crash reports and session counts. Basis: our legitimate interest in apps that work.
• To answer you and meet our legal duties. Emails you send us and requests about your rights. Basis: our legal obligations under data protection law, and our legitimate interest in replying to you.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights and your child’s, and you can object at any time (see Your rights, below).

Who we share it with

We don’t sell your data, share it with data brokers or advertisers, or use it to train AI models. The only organisations that handle it are the processors who run our tools, acting on our instructions:

• Customer.io: sends our emails, including sign-in codes, and holds the waiting list and, for families in the apps, your email address and how far your setup got. Runs in the EU.
• Google (Firebase): serves the site, keeps the server logs, runs the small function that forwards your sign-up to Customer.io, and holds our own copy of the waiting list. Runs on US infrastructure.
• PostHog: counts page views without identity, and receives the sign-up delivery receipt. Runs in its US region.
• Google: Firebase stores the family record, Firebase Authentication holds the email address you sign in with, Firebase Cloud Messaging carries the notifications between the two phones, and Firebase Crashlytics collects crash reports and session counts from Kairoo Parents on Android. Runs on US infrastructure.
• Google Workspace (Gmail): holds the emails you send us and our replies, including what you tell us about your child and requests about your rights. Runs on Google’s infrastructure, including in the US, under the same UK addendum as the rest of Google.

Two things come from Google rather than going to it, on Android only: if you use Continue with Google, Google confirms your email address to us, and Google Play tells Kairoo Parents which link led to the install. For those, Google acts under its own privacy policy, not on our instructions.

Nesta helps us build Kairoo but does not receive your data.

Where your data goes outside the UK

Customer.io runs in the EU, which the UK recognises as protecting personal data adequately, so no extra safeguard is needed. PostHog and Google (Firebase Hosting for the site, Firebase for the apps) run on US infrastructure. Our transfers to PostHog and Google are covered by the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, the UK’s approved contract for sending personal data abroad. Our email runs on Google Workspace and is covered by the same addendum. We don’t transfer your data to anyone who resells it for advertising.

How long we keep it

• Your waiting-list record (your email address, held in Customer.io, PostHog and our own database, and anything you tell us in reply): until you ask us to delete it, or 12 months after early access closes. Unsubscribing stops our emails; your address is kept on a do-not-email list so we never email you again by mistake.
• Campaign parameters and landing details: cleared from your browser when the visit ends. The copy attached to a sign-up lives and dies with that sign-up.
• Your family record: until you ask, or 12 months after both apps stop reporting, when we delete it and tell you first by email. Email us and the whole record, both phones’ data, is deleted within 48 hours.
• Your sign-in email: as long as your family record, and deleted with it. Our email service then keeps the address only on its do-not-email list. That list also stops sign-in codes reaching the address, so if you want to use Kairoo again with the same address, email us first and we’ll take it off.
• The campaign labels on your family record, and the note of what you agreed to: as long as your family record, and deleted with it.
• Crash reports from Kairoo Parents on Android: deleted by Google after 90 days.
• If we end your access (our terms say when we can): we delete your family record within 30 days, unless you ask us to keep it while we export it for you.
• Server logs (the website’s, and our app servers’, which can include your family’s ID): up to 30 days.
• Emails you send us and requests about your rights: two years.

If Kairoo as a project ends, we’ll delete all data within 30 days and email you to let you know.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask us to:

• See what we hold on you and your child. We’ll reply within 30 days.
• Correct anything that’s wrong.
• Delete your record. From the parent’s app: on iPhone, Family › Settings & more › Delete this family and all its data; on Android, Family › Account and privacy › Delete account and family data. Either one removes the family record and the sign-in there and then, tells your child’s phone to open its screens and forget the deal (an older Android version of Kairoo can’t, so uninstall it from your child’s phone as well), and asks our email service to forget the address (it keeps it only on a do-not-email list). What stays after that: the address on that do-not-email list, which also stops sign-in codes, so email us first if you want to come back with it; a website sign-up, no longer linked to your family, until you ask us to delete it; crash reports for up to 90 days; and our server logs for about 30 days. Or email us and it’s gone: the family record from both phones within 48 hours, and your waiting-list email, with anything you told us in reply, from Customer.io, PostHog, our own database and our mailbox within 30 days. The unsubscribe link in our emails stops the emails; it does not delete your record. Step by step, with what is deleted and what is kept: kairoo.family/delete.
• Take it elsewhere: we’ll export your record as JSON.
• Restrict or object to what we do with it, including anything we do on the basis of legitimate interests.
• Withdraw consent at any time. That doesn’t undo what was done before, but it stops from then on.

The apps make some decisions automatically, and we want to be plain about them: whether an everyday ask for more time fits inside the agreement you wrote, which is your family’s rules applied by the app; whether something your child typed matches the list of worrying words, which sends you the gentle note; and, on Android, whether Kairoo gives extra minutes of its own, which depends on the trust level described in What the child’s app records. They have no legal effect. Both of you can see every answer to an ask, and you can override any of them from your app; your child is told whenever a note goes to you. We do not build a profile of you or your child for any other purpose, and we make no automated decision about either of you with legal or similarly significant effects.

To use any of these rights, email hello@kairoo.family. It’s free. We may need to check it’s really you before we hand anything over.

Cookies

None. We set no cookies at all, on any page, whether you read the site or sign up. Nothing from Customer.io runs in your browser, and PostHog’s page-view counter runs in a mode that keeps nothing on your device (see What we collect).

The agreement page keeps the agreement you fill in on your own device, in your browser’s storage, so it is still there when you come back. It is sent nowhere unless you ask us to email it to you; the Start again button removes it, and a link you copy carries your answers inside the link itself, not through us. If you leave your email on the agreement page or the readiness check, we send that link to you, and the email, with the link in it, sits in our email system for as long as your waiting-list record; the link contains what you typed, including first names. Your address joins the waiting list on the terms in the box you tick. There are no advertising cookies and no ad pixels on this site. Campaign parameters and landing details are held in your browser’s session storage (a note the browser keeps for that tab only), which the same rules cover as cookies. They are cleared when the visit ends and are sent nowhere unless you sign up.

How to complain

If you think we’ve handled your data badly, tell us first at hello@kairoo.family. We’d rather fix it than argue about it.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at any time: ico.org.uk.

Changes to this notice

If we change this notice in a way that matters, we’ll email everyone on our list before the change takes effect. You’ll always have the option to delete your data if you don’t agree with a change. Small wording fixes just appear here with a new date.

Last updated: 28 September 2026.

Back to Kairoo · Questions about any of this: hello@kairoo.family