Family privacy
How your family space protects people
A family space holds what matters most: the week's plan, the photographs, a child's hopes, the hard things two people are working through. Here, in plain words, is who can see each of them, and what we never do with any of it.
This page is about the family space, the app a family uses together. The website and the waitlist have their own privacy notice, and nothing here changes it.
Honest about what's built
The family space runs today in the home of the family who built it, and we're readying it for founding families. Everything below is how it works now, unless it's marked coming: designed, and not built yet.
In place todayComing
A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.
Proverbs 11:13
Households and circles
Each home sees its own
A family space is shared by every household in the family, and each home sees what belongs to it. A household's lists, chores, notes and photographs stay with that household. What's meant for everyone, like the family calendar and its gatherings, is seen by everyone.
Sharing only ever widens when someone chooses to share. Being related to someone gives no one a look at anything, with one exception: a child's parents can see their plan, and a young child's messages too.
Circles, from just you to the whole family
Just you
A private calendar, a prayer you keep to yourself, something you're quietly working through. No one else sees it unless you share it, and no administrator can open it.
The two of you
A husband and wife's own calendar, and the things they work through together. Only the two of them see it, and it never reaches a shared screen.
A household
The home's lists, chores, notes and photographs, for the people who live there.
The whole family
The family calendar, gatherings and news, for every household together.
Extended family and guests Coming
An aunt invited by name to see the birthday photographs, and nothing around them. Never by public link.
Everyone in the space can see who belongs to the family: names, which household, and birthdays coming up as a month and day, never a year.
The parents who run the space can look after every household's shared lists and photographs. They can't open what's private to someone else.
Walls and paired screens
The kitchen screen knows its place
Families can put Smarkle on a screen in the kitchen or the hall: the day at a glance, whose turn it is, a photograph from last summer. Anyone walking past can see it, so it's the most careful screen in the house.
What a wall shows
- Today's events, from the family calendar and its own household's
- Family and household lists and notes, to read
- Today's chores and the week's rhythm
- Photographs a parent has approved for the wall
- A prayer, only in the general wording its owner approved
- The weather, and notes written for everyone
What a wall never shows
- A couple's calendar, not even as a busy block. A private calendar shows only as busy, and only when its owner shares a time.
- Anything someone is working through
- Private messages
- A child's goals, or plans for their birthday
- Anyone's age
- A prayer kept private
How a screen is paired, and kept in its place
Paired by a parent
A parent adds the screen and gets a one-time code that works for 15 minutes. Only a scrambled copy of the code is kept.
Never in charge
A screen can't change settings, add people, upload photographs or export anything; only a child who has opened their own day can send a message or tick off a chore. It shows; it doesn't run the house.
A child's day, behind a PIN
A child taps their picture and types their PIN to open their own day. Left untouched for a minute, it locks again. Too many wrong guesses lock it for longer.
Removed in a moment
A parent can remove a screen at any time. From its very next request it's shut out, and any child's open day closes with it.
Children
Children are never scored
Children are often the reason a family begins, and the people least able to speak up for their own privacy. So a parent adds each child and looks after everything about them: their picture, their PIN, their birthday and who they may message. The space keeps some things from them, keeps some things about them, and never turns a child into a number.
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones.
Matthew 18:10
No phone or password needed
A child doesn't need a phone, a password or an email address of their own. A child opens their own day, plan and messages on a family screen, with their picture and a PIN a parent sets.
Nothing that ranks them
No leaderboards, and no child's points or streak shown to a brother or sister. Nothing counts a missed chore, and a skipped day doesn't break a streak. Chore points stay off unless a household turns them on.
Kept about them
A child's goals and birthday plans are seen only by their own parents, never by a screen. A birthday shows as a month and day; no screen is ever told anyone's age.
Photographs
Location is stripped from every photograph before it's kept, and one that still carries it is refused. At most a town's name is kept, and only for photos taken far from home.
Messages, with growing trust
Under 13, a child's parent can read their conversations, and every look is recorded where the child can see it. From 13, a parent sees who a child talks with, not what's said.
Parents hear first
Nothing is ever emailed to a child under 13: their weekly summary goes to their parent instead. A parent can also choose who a child may message.
How trust grows with age: growing up.
Private reflections
What's yours stays yours
Some things belong to one person, or to two. The space keeps them there, and no screen ever shows them. No administrator can open what's private to one person or a couple. Children are the one exception: a child's parents can see their plan, and a young child's messages too.
A private calendar
Only you, unless you share an event.
A couple's calendar
Only the two of you.
Something you're working through
Only the circle you chose: just you, one other person, a household's adults and those who lead it, or the family's adults.
A prayer
Only you, or the people you choose. On a wall, only in a general wording you approve.
Your own plan
You, and anyone you choose to share it with. For a child, their parents too, until 18.
Time set apart for two
A retreat, a trip or a date planned between two people: only those two.
Who can see what
Who sees what, at a glance
| What | Who can see it | On a wall screen |
|---|---|---|
| The family calendar and gatherings | Every household | Yes |
| A household's lists, chores and notes | That household, and the parents who run the space | On that household's own screen |
| Photographs | The household or family they belong to | Only once a parent approves |
| Messages | The people in the conversation. Under 13, a child's parent too, with every look recorded | Only notes written for the wall |
| Something you're working through | The circle you chose | Never |
| A couple's calendar | The two of you | Never, not even as busy |
| A private calendar | You, and anyone you share an event with | Only as busy, when you share a time |
| A prayer | You, or the people you choose | Only a general wording you approve |
| Your plan | You, and those you choose. A child's parents until 18 | Only a child's own, behind their PIN |
| A child's goals and birthday plans | That child's parents | Never |
| Your private note about someone | Only you. Never the other person, never a parent from 13, never an admin | Never |
| What two of you make together | The two of you | Never |
| One-on-one time with someone, and asking for it | The two of you. Under 13, the child's parents too | Never |
| Cultivate, done together | The two of you. With a child under 13, the parent who was there | Never |
| Your repair kit, and what you keep after a hard moment | Only you, and one person you choose to show, until you take it back. From 13, not even a parent. Under 13, written with a parent | Never |
| Not now with someone | Only you. No reason asked, and nobody is told | Never |
| The safety tools you note for a child | That child's parents. Nothing goes to or comes from the service | Never |
The people in a family space
Adults
Use their own password, and see their households' shared things and their own private ones. Parents can also share one sign-in between them, which sees only what's shared, never anyone's private things.
The parents who run it
Look after households, screens and settings. They see every household's shared things, but not what's private to someone else.
Children
Open their own day on a family screen, with their picture and a PIN.
A wall screen
Shows the family's day and its own household's. Never in charge of anything.
What we never do
No ads. No trackers. Nothing for sale.
We never sell your family's data
Not your photographs, your calendar or anything else you keep in the space. We don't sell or rent it, and we never will.
No advertising
Nothing in the space is there to sell you something, and nothing about your family is used to aim an advert.
No tracking
Beyond the sign-in pages, nothing loads from other companies: no analytics, no advertising code, no tracking pixels. Its only cookies are the ones that let your own device into your family's space.
No public links
Nothing in a family space has a public address. Everything in it is served only to someone in your family, checked each time they ask.
Who else is involved
- Cloudflare hosts the space, its database and your photographs, and sends its emails.
- Weekly emails carry titles only: no notes, places or message text.
- Google Fonts supplies the lettering on the sign-in and sign-out pages.
- When a family links a Google or iCloud calendar, the space fetches it from Google or Apple using that calendar's private link.
- Phone notifications travel through your phone or browser maker's push service, carrying only a short, plain line.
- An open weather service is given a rough location near home, to send the forecast. An open map service is given a rounded location, only to name the town where a far-away photograph was taken.
- When you photograph a school flyer to add its dates, an AI model running at Cloudflare reads it, and nothing goes on a calendar until you say so.
Coming
Designed, and not built yet
We'd rather tell you plainly than let a page promise more than the app does. These are designed and on their way.
- Coming
A space of its own for each family
Each founding family's space kept in a database of its own, apart from every other family's.
- Coming
Guests and extended family
Invited by name to the one thing they're shown, never by public link.
- Coming
Teens' own passwords
So a teenager can open their own space from their own phone.
- Coming
A private journal
Sealed with a passphrase only you know.
- Coming
Conversations sealed end to end
One-to-one messages only the people talking can read.
- Coming
Passkeys
Getting in with your phone's fingerprint or face, instead of a password.
- Coming
Asking before you're tagged
A person's say before they're named in a photograph.
- Coming
Taking it all with you
Your whole family space, downloaded. Today you can download your photographs, originals and all.
A family space belongs to the family.
Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established.
Proverbs 24:3
Looking for what the website and waitlist keep? Read the privacy notice.
What could your family become?
The first step is seeing where you are. In a few minutes, find what's already strong, where there's room to grow, and one small practice to try this week. Your results are yours.
About 5 minutes · No email needed · Your answers stay on your device