Privacy and safety
A private magazine for one person.
Who can see what, who decides what goes in, and what AI does and doesn't do, in plain words. The formal versions are the Privacy Policy and the Terms; if anything here reads differently, they are what count.
Private by design
Paper Route is not a social network and nothing in it is public. There is no feed, no profile page and nothing to follow. Each magazine is made for one reader, printed once, and mailed to one address.
What people send is used to make that reader's magazine. We never sell personal information, we don't show ads, and we don't use what you send for advertising or to train AI models. The Privacy Policy sets this out in full.
Who sees what
| Who | What they can see |
|---|---|
| The reader | The printed magazine. Nothing digital: no account, no login, no app. |
| The person who set it up | Everything for the magazines they run: the details they gave us at setup, everything sent in, who sent it, the list of contributors, the proof before print, and past issues in their account. |
| Contributors | The reader's first name, and what they sent themselves. Not anyone else's photos or stories, not the issue, and none of the setup details: no address, no dates, nothing on the never-mention list. |
| Paper Route | What we need to make and mail the issue. We read what's sent in, write and lay out the pages, and check every page before it prints. |
Control and consent
- The person who sets it up chooses who contributes.They invite each contributor by email, or share a link they can replace at any time. Contributors can't invite anyone else.
- Contributors choose what they send, and where.Someone who contributes to more than one magazine picks which ones each photo goes to when they send it on the web.
- Anything can come out before it prints.The person who set it up can edit a caption or remove anything sent in for an issue.
Before anything prints
Every page is checked.
- The never-mention list. At setup we ask what should never appear. Contributors never see that list, and every page is checked against it.
- A proof for the person who set it up. They see the issue before it goes to print, and can correct it.
- Names come from people. Nobody in a photograph is named by guesswork.
What AI does, and what it doesn't
Two kinds of pages. Every issue mixes what family and friends sent with reading written for the reader's interests. We keep them distinct.
- What people send stays theirs.AI helps set people's own words in the magazine's voice. It doesn't invent facts, and it never guesses who is in a photograph.
- The interest pages are written for the reader.A team's results, the garden in season, news from their hometown. Results and standings come from a sports data feed, and the news pages are written from what actually happened that month. These pages are never presented as something a person in the reader's life did or said.
- Caption help is a draft.On the web, a sender can ask for help with a caption. The draft is written only from what they typed; the sender edits it or ignores it.
Children and vulnerable readers
Paper Route is for adults. Children don't have accounts. Photos and stories about children are sent by adults who are the child's parent or guardian, or who have their permission.
Anyone in a photograph can ask for it to come out, whether or not they use Paper Route. A parent or guardian can ask on a child's behalf. Write to us and we'll take it out.
For readers living with memory loss, captions are written as statements, never as quizzes, so there is nothing in the issue anyone can fail. Everyone in a photograph is named, every time.
Your data
- A short list of vendors.We use a small number of providers to run the service: payments, the database, file storage, email and text messaging, and AI writing tools. The Privacy Policy names each one and what it receives.
- We never see your card number.Payments are handled by Stripe.
- No ads, no tracking.We don't sell personal information, share it for advertising, or show ads.
- Nothing is deleted on a timer.What you send stays with the magazine until you ask us to remove it.
- You can ask.To see, correct or remove what we hold about you, write to [email protected].
Report a problem
If something in an issue is wrong, if a photo should come out, or if someone is sending things they shouldn't, tell us.
- Privacy requests, and anything about what we hold[email protected]
- Anything else[email protected], or use the contact page.
Good stories deserve to be shared.
Make something personal. Make it last.