Privacy Policy

Honored Lives is built on the belief that a person's story is sacred. We treat the information you share with us as something held in trust, not something to be marketed, sold, or exploited. We do not sell family stories. We do not run advertising against memorials. We do not build engagement systems designed to compete for your attention during a season of grief.

The purpose of this policy is simple: to help you understand what we do with the information you entrust to us, and to make it easy for you to remain in control of it.

We collect only what is needed to preserve memorials, keep accounts secure, and support the families who use Honored Lives.

Account information

When you create an account, we collect your name, email address, and a securely stored password. If you sign in with a trusted provider such as Google, we receive basic profile details from that provider so we can create your account.

Family Portal information

Family Stewards may add details about the person being remembered, invite additional stewards or contributors, and configure how a memorial is shared. This information is stored so the memorial can be maintained across time and across generations.

Memorial contributions

Visitors and invited family members may contribute to a memorial in several ways, including photographs, videos, audio recordings, written memories, and guest book messages. When you contribute, we store the content itself along with the name (or chosen display name) you provide.

• Photos are preserved in their original form.
• Videos and audio recordings are preserved and streamed only within the memorial context.
• Written memories and guest book messages are stored as you submit them.

Invitations

When a Family Steward invites someone to participate in a memorial, we process the invited person's email address only for the purpose of delivering that invitation and, if accepted, connecting their account to the memorial.

Donations and payment processing

Gifts of Support and other payments are processed by trusted third-party providers such as PayPal. Honored Lives does not receive or store full payment card details. We receive only the confirmation information needed to record the gift and, where appropriate, thank the giver.

Cookies and essential website technologies

We use a small number of essential cookies and similar technologies to keep you signed in, remember your preferences, and keep the platform secure. We do not use advertising cookies or cross-site tracking cookies.

Analytics

If we use analytics, we use them in a privacy-respecting way, focused on aggregated information such as which pages are visited and whether the site is performing well. We do not build advertising profiles about you.

We use the information you share with us to:

• Create, preserve, and display memorials as directed by Family Stewards.
• Allow families and invited contributors to add and manage content.
• Deliver invitations, notifications, and account-related messages.
• Keep accounts secure and prevent abuse of the platform.
• Improve reliability, accessibility, and the overall quality of the service.

We do not use family memories to train advertising systems, and we do not use them to generate content shown to unrelated visitors.

We share information only in the limited circumstances described below.

• Public versus private memorial content. Each memorial has visibility settings controlled by its Family Steward. Content marked public may be viewed by anyone with the memorial link. Content kept private is visible only to invited family members.
• Family Steward permissions. Family Stewards can see the content contributed to memorials they care for, and can approve, hide, or remove content based on the permissions of their role.
• Trusted service providers. We work with a small number of providers for hosting, email delivery, and payment processing. They may process information on our behalf only to the extent needed to provide their service.
• Legal obligations. We may disclose information when required by law, or to protect the safety, rights, or property of families, contributors, or the platform.

We do not sell your information, and we never will.

We protect information with encryption in transit, access controls, secure authentication, and careful engineering practices. Sensitive actions are audited. Original files that families entrust to us are preserved untouched. Family Stewards may enable an authenticator app for an additional layer of protection on their account.

No system can promise perfect security, but we design Honored Lives with the understanding that we are caring for something irreplaceable.

Memorials are intended to endure. We preserve memorial content for as long as the memorial remains active, and originals remain downloadable at any time. When a Family Steward requests deletion, we honor that request with a soft-delete grace period before permanent removal, so nothing precious is lost by mistake.

Account information is retained while your account is active. If you close your account, we retain only what is necessary to comply with legal or safety obligations.

The memories, photographs, recordings, documents, and stories entrusted to Honored Lives remain under the control of the individuals and families who contribute them.

Authorized Family Stewards may request a secure Legacy Archive at any time. This archive helps ensure families always retain access to the memories they have preserved.

You may request to view, correct, export, or delete the information we hold about you or about a memorial you steward. You may also update your account details and communication preferences at any time from within the Family Portal, or by contacting us.

To make a request, please write to Info@HonoredLives.org. We respond to every message personally.

Honored Lives is not directed to children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Family Stewards may include photographs and remembrances of children within a memorial, with the understanding that they are responsible for those contributions. If you believe a child has created an account without the involvement of a parent or guardian, please contact us and we will remove the account.

We may update this Privacy Policy as Honored Lives grows and as best practices evolve. When we make meaningful changes, we will update the date below and, where appropriate, notify Family Stewards directly. Earlier versions remain part of our own record so that the history of our commitments is preserved.

For any question about privacy, or to make a request about the information we hold, please write to Info@HonoredLives.org. A real person will read your message.