KidsBank Privacy Policy

KidsBank is a family app where children learn to handle money: they earn "stars" for chores, save up and spend them in a family shop. Adults top up the family with stars by buying them for real money inside the app. The app is developed and maintained by VSTECH INC. This page explains what data we receive, why, and how it can be deleted.

Data we store

• Adult account: name, email address, password (only as a one-way hash). With Google sign-in: name, email address and Google account identifier.
• Family members: name or nickname, emoji avatar and, optionally, gender (for correct wording in messages) and date of birth. Children do not need an email address: a child signs in with a one-time code from an adult and a PIN.
• Family data: star transactions and their purposes, tasks, family shop items, savings goals, loans and notifications.
• Star purchases: which pack was bought, when and by whom, the order number and the purchase confirmation from Google Play or the App Store — so that stars are credited exactly once and refunds can be handled.
• Device: phone model, interface language and push notification address (Firebase Cloud Messaging). The PIN is stored on the server only as a hash.
• Virtual pets: the pet's name, look, items and care state; messages written to the pet and the pet's replies; short notes the pet keeps about its owner (see "Talking to a pet" below).
• Board listings: items and pets a family member puts up for sale to other KidsBank users, their prices and the outcome of the sale.
• Invitations: your personal invite code and which family joined with it, so the "Invite a friend" reward is paid once.

Talking to a pet

Every family member can keep a virtual pet and write to it. The pet's replies are written by an AI language model.

• What is sent to the AI service: the new message, the last few messages of the conversation, the pet's name, kind and mood, the owner's first name and the pet's short notes. For an adult's pet (see below) also the family summary. We do not send email addresses, account identifiers, devices or contact details.
• Photos: a family member can show the pet a photo from the camera or the gallery. For a child this works only after a parent turns it on; the app then warns that photos are processed by the AI service. Before sending, our server redraws the photo at a reduced size, which removes location and all other metadata. The photo is sent to the AI service only to write the reply and is not stored by us: the conversation keeps only a mark that a photo was sent. The pet does not try to recognise people and does not read out addresses, documents or other personal data it may see. Up to 10 photos a day per person.
• Voice messages: a family member can hold the microphone button and say something to the pet. For a child this works only after a parent turns it on; the app then warns that the voice is processed by the AI service. The recording (up to 30 seconds) is checked and rebuilt by our server without any metadata, sent to the AI service only to turn it into text, and then discarded — neither we nor the app keep recordings. The conversation keeps the recognized text with a 🎤 mark and the length of the recording, which counts towards a daily limit (10 minutes a day per person). We do not use the voice to identify anyone.
• Reading replies aloud: the pet can read its replies aloud — always after a voice message, and for other replies if the reader turns it on. To make the voice sound natural, our server sends the text of the pet's reply (and nothing else: no name of the account, no recording, no photo) to a speech service, which returns the audio. The audio is played on the device and is not stored. If the service is unavailable, the phone's built-in speech synthesizer reads the reply on the device instead. Reading aloud is limited per day.
• Parental control: a parent can turn off a child's conversation with the pet and, separately, the photos and the voice messages. With the conversation turned off, nothing the child writes or says is sent to the AI service.
• Who can read it: a conversation is visible only to the pet's owner. Parents cannot read a child's conversation, and children cannot read an adult's.
• Safety rules for the AI: the pet never asks a child for personal details, never talks about money or buying, avoids frightening and adult topics, and encourages a child who seems sad, scared or in danger to talk to a parent or another trusted adult.
• Notes and family advice: from time to time the AI condenses a conversation into short notes: what the child likes, wishes for and what seems to worry them. An adult's pet acts as a family advisor: it uses these notes together with the family's activity in the app (tasks, savings goals, purchases, fines) to suggest how to support the children and how to set chores. It retells in general words and never quotes the child.
• Feedback about the app: when an adult (not a child) tells their pet about a problem with the app or a wish for it, we keep that message, a one-sentence summary written by the AI, the app version and language, so that we can fix problems and improve the app. Only our team sees this feedback. About once a week an adult's pet may ask whether everything in the app is convenient. Children's messages are never collected as feedback. Feedback is deleted after one year, or with the account.
• Warning signs: if a child writes or shows something that suggests bullying, abuse, strong fear, self-harm or danger, the child's parents receive a notification asking them to talk to the child. Other relatives in the family do not. The notification contains no quotes from the conversation.
• Limits and retention: up to 30 messages a day per person. Messages are deleted automatically after one year. The conversation and the notes belong to the person, not to the pet: if a pet is sold or given away, its new owner gets none of them. Notes are deleted together with the person's account.
• The pet is not a doctor or a therapist. Its advice is general and does not replace professional help.

What we do not do

• We do not show ads and do not include advertising or analytics services.
• We do not sell data or share it with third parties for marketing.
• We do not use the advertising ID.
• We do not collect location, contacts or files. Photos and voice recordings are used only as described in "Talking to a pet" and are not stored.
• We do not receive or store bank card details.

Purchases with real money

• Stars are bought with real money as an in-app purchase. Payment is processed by Google Play (Android) or the App Store (iPhone) under their own terms; only the store receives card details, we receive just a confirmation that the purchase took place.
• Only adult family members — parents and relatives such as grandparents — can buy stars, and only through Google Play or the App Store. Children cannot make purchases; the purchase screen is not shown to them.
• Stars are an internal family currency. We do not exchange them back for money or transfer them between families as money; how they are spent is up to the family in its own shop.
• Refunds are handled by Google Play or the App Store under the store's rules. If a purchase is refunded, the corresponding stars are deducted.

App permissions

• Camera — to scan an invitation QR code (the image is neither stored nor sent anywhere) and, if allowed, to take a photo to show the pet (see "Talking to a pet").
• Microphone — only while the microphone button is held, to record a voice message to the pet, if allowed (see "Talking to a pet"). The app asks for this permission the first time the button is used.
• Notifications — to tell you about tasks, purchases and transfers.
• Fingerprint — optional, for quick sign-in. The fingerprint stays on the phone; neither the app nor the server receives it.

Service providers

• DigitalOcean — server and database hosting.
• Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) — push notification delivery.
• Google — sign-in verification when you choose "Sign in with Google".
• Google Play and Apple App Store — payment for star purchases and confirmation of those purchases.
• OpenAI (speech recognition and synthesis) — turns voice messages to the pet into text, and the text of the pet's replies into speech when they are read aloud. It receives only the recording of a voice message (without metadata and without any account details) or the text of a reply. Recordings are not stored by us. Under OpenAI's API terms this data is not used to train its models.
• Z.ai (GLM language model) — writes the pet's replies, the pet's notes and family advice, looks at the photos shown to the pet and, only if OpenAI is unavailable, turns voice messages into text. It receives only what is listed in "Talking to a pet".

Data is shared only to the extent these functions require, and only over an encrypted connection (HTTPS).

Children's privacy

KidsBank is designed to be used by children together with their family, including children under 13. We follow the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Google Play's Families policy.

Parental consent. A child cannot sign up alone. A child's account can only be created by an adult in the family — the family owner or a parent given that permission. The adult enters the child's details and issues a one-time invitation code or QR code. Creating the account and handing the code to the child is the adult's consent to the collection described below. Nothing is collected from the child before that.

What we collect about a child:

• a first name or nickname and an emoji avatar, entered by the adult; optionally gender and date of birth;
• a PIN chosen by the child, stored on the server only as a one-way hash;
• the child's star activity: transfers and their notes, tasks taken and completed, family shop purchases, savings goals, loans and notifications;
• the child's virtual pet, messages the child writes to it and the pet's short notes (see "Talking to a pet"), and the child's board listings;
• the child's device: phone model, interface language and push notification address.

We do not ask a child for an email address, phone number, home address, photos, location or any other contact details. A child can show the pet a photo or send it a voice message only if a parent has turned this on; photos and recordings are not stored. We use a child's data only to run the app for their family. Children's data is never used for advertising, profiling or marketing. The app has no ads and no analytics or tracking services, and it does not use the advertising ID.

What others can see. Family members see each other's names and avatars. Adults with the relevant permissions also see children's balances and transactions. A child can send stars to an account in another family by account number. The recipient then sees the child's name, avatar and the note attached to the transfer, but never the child's balance or history. On the board, members of other families (children and adults) see the seller's name, avatar, the item and its price; there is no messaging between them. A child's conversation with their pet is visible only to the child. Adults of the family see that a pet exists and how it is doing, receive notifications about the child's spending on pets; the parents also receive a warning if the child seems to be in trouble. Children cannot make real-money purchases.

Parents' rights. The family owner, or a parent with permission to manage members, can at any time:

• review the child's information and full transaction history in the app;
• change the child's name, avatar and gender;
• unlink the child's phone so the app can no longer be used on it;
• stop further collection by removing the child from the family ("Member → Remove from the family"). The child's accounts are closed and all their devices are signed out. Their name stays on the family's past transactions so the family's history adds up;
• ask us to delete the child's data completely, including their name in past transactions, by emailing info@vstechfl.com from the family owner's email address.

We do not contact children directly. If you believe a child's data was collected without a parent's consent, email us and we will delete it.

Delete your KidsBank account and data

To delete your KidsBank account, a child's account or your whole family and all its data:

1. Send an email to info@vstechfl.com with the subject "KidsBank account deletion".
2. Send it from the email address you use to sign in to KidsBank. For a child's account or the whole family, send it from the family owner's address.
3. Say what to delete: your own account, a specific child (give their name in the app) or the entire family.
4. We will confirm by email and delete the data within 30 days.

What is deleted: names, email address, avatars, PIN and password hashes, devices, transactions, tasks, shop items, savings goals, loans, notifications, pets, pet conversations and notes, and board listings. Database backups are overwritten within 14 days after that. Records of real-money purchases (order number, date, pack) may be kept longer where tax and accounting rules require it.

Without deleting the whole account, the family owner can also remove a member right in the app: "Member → Remove from the family". This closes the member's accounts and signs out all their devices.

Retention

Data is kept while the account exists. Messages to pets are deleted after one year. Database backups are kept for 14 days.

Changes to this policy

If we change what data we collect or how we use it, we will update this page and the date above, and announce significant changes in the app.

Credits

KidsBank uses artwork created by others, under their licenses:

• Emoji avatars: Noto Emoji by Google, licensed under the Apache License 2.0.
• Avatar builder: DiceBear (MIT license) with these styles:
  • "Adventurer" by Lisa Wischofsky, licensed under CC BY 4.0;
  • "Big Smile" by Ashley Seo, licensed under CC BY 4.0;
  • "Avataaars" by Pablo Stanley, free for personal and commercial use;
  • "Bottts" by Pablo Stanley, free for personal and commercial use;
  • "Avatar Illustration System" (Micah) by Micah Lanier, licensed under CC BY 4.0;
  • "Lorelei" by Lisa Wischofsky, released under CC0 1.0;
  • "Face Generator" (Big Ears) by The Visual Team, licensed under CC BY 4.0;
  • "Pixel Art" by DiceBear, released under CC0 1.0;
  • "Croodles - Doodle your face" by vijay verma, licensed under CC BY 4.0;
  • "Thumbs" by DiceBear, released under CC0 1.0;
  • "Miniavs - Free Avatar Creator" by Webpixels, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
  The avatars are drawn from these styles; no changes are made to the original artwork beyond choosing its parts and colors.

Contact

VSTECH INC
Email: info@vstechfl.com