Privacy Policy

Kudo Kids, LLC ("we," "us," or "KudoKids") operates the KudoKids mobile application and the website at kudokids.org (collectively, the "Service"). KudoKids is a digital wellbeing platform for children ages 3-12.

Because our Service is directed to children under 13, we comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA"), 15 U.S.C. sections 6501-6506, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)'s COPPA Rule, 16 CFR Part 312, including the April 2025 amendments. This Privacy Policy describes what personal information we collect from parents and children, how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and what rights you have.

If you have questions about this policy, contact us at privacy@kudokids.org.

Kudo Kids, LLC 4030 Wake Forest Road, STE 349 Raleigh, NC 27609 United States Phone: (910) 593-7070

Privacy inquiries: privacy@kudokids.org

When a parent or legal guardian creates an account and manages the family, we collect:

• Account credentials: Email address (used for authentication via one-time passcode) and optional display name.
• Contact details (optional): A first and last name, and an optional phone number, that you can add in Settings → My Profile. If you are an owner or admin of your family, your name and phone number can be shared with another family's owner and admin guardians when your children become friends (see Section 8).
• Parent mode passphrase: A cryptographic hash of your passphrase (we never store the passphrase itself), an optional hint, and biometric enrollment preference.
• Payment information: If you subscribe to a paid plan, payment is processed by Stripe, Inc. We do not receive or store your credit card number. Stripe provides us with your email address, subscription status, and plan type.
• Child profile information you provide: For each child profile, you provide the child's first name and age. You may optionally provide growth areas (behavioral focus areas), wellness feature preferences, and a PIN or image-based PIN for child access.
• Behavioral assessments you provide about your child: You may optionally complete a Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)-based assessment with scores across five domains (emotional, conduct, hyperactivity, peer relationships, prosocial behavior).
• Consent records: When you consent to data collection about your child, we store your typed full legal name, the consent version, a timestamp, and which categories of data you consented to.
• Social feature approvals: If you enable social features for your child (friends, messaging, leaderboards), we record your approval and timestamp.

We collect the following categories of personal information from or about children. All child data collection requires verifiable parental consent (see Section 6). Categories marked "optional" require separate parental opt-in.

4a. Identity Information (required for core Service)

• Child's first name and age (provided by parent)
• Profile avatar and companion selection

4b. Activity Data (required for core Service)

• Task completions and last completion dates
• Kudo Coin transactions -- earned and spent (recorded as an immutable ledger)
• Store purchases (rewards, skins, themes, companions, music, games)
• Game sessions including game type, scores, and play duration

4c. Wellness and Assessment Data (optional -- requires separate parental consent)

• Personality survey: Children ages 5 and older may complete a personality survey (based on the Big Five model) that produces scores for extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness. This survey is only presented if the parent has opted in.
• Emotion check-ins: Children may voluntarily record daily emotion check-ins including a mood valence score (0-5), an arousal score (0-5, ages 8+), and an optional free-text context field. The free-text field may contain unstructured personal information typed by the child.
• Meditation sessions: Duration, frequency, and completion percentage of guided meditation sessions.
• Growth areas: Parent-defined behavioral focus areas (up to 3) used to personalize task recommendations. These may be auto-populated from personality survey results if the parent has enabled the survey.

4d. Social Data (optional -- requires separate parental consent)

• Friend alias: A searchable username (3-20 characters) that your child creates for friend discovery. Other authenticated users can search for this alias.
• Messages: Free-text messages (up to 500 characters each) sent between friends. We retain message edit history for safety auditing. Messages are subject to automated content filtering (URL detection, spam/caps/pattern checks) and are visible to both children's parents.
• Friendship connections: Records of which children are friends, including parent approval status and timestamps.
• Leaderboard participation: If the parent opts in, game scores and rankings appear on game leaderboards that are visible across families with social features enabled. The child's name is shown only to their own family and accepted friends; every other viewer sees the entry as "Anonymous."
• Multiplayer sessions: Game state and scores when playing with friends.

4e. Device and Technical Data

• Push notification tokens: Device-specific identifiers used to deliver push notifications. These are persistent identifiers as defined by COPPA and are treated as personal information. Tokens are stored for both parent and child profiles.
• Access logs: When a profile is selected, we log the profile ID, device type, operating system version, app version, authentication method, and timestamp. Access logs are automatically deleted after 90 days.
• Interaction data: Locally stored counts of companion interactions (taps, gestures) and screen visits. This data remains on the device and is not transmitted to our servers.

4f. Speech Recognition

Some educational features let your child interact by voice. Speech recognition is performed on your child's device whenever the device supports it — the preferred and default path on modern iOS and Android hardware, where the spoken audio never leaves the device. On a small number of older devices or configurations that lack on-device speech support, the operating system's built-in speech service (Apple on iOS, Google on Android) may process the audio in the cloud as a fallback; in that case the audio is handled by Apple or Google under their own privacy policies. KudoKids does not record, store, or retain any audio, and audio is never sent to KudoKids' own servers. See Section 7 for the corresponding third-party disclosure.

4g. Routine Mastery Progression

• Routine mastery progress: For children ages 3-12, we record routine-mastery progress — internal signals about how consistently a child completes the steps of a routine — so the app can recognize when a child may be ready for more challenging routine steps. This includes a record of the in-app encouragements we have shown a child about progressing (the dates and how many times), used solely to avoid repeating the same encouragement too often.
• Child-initiated request for harder routines (ages 7+): Children aged 7 and older may optionally tap to let their parent know they feel ready for more challenging routines. We record that the child made this request so the parent can review it.

This information stays within KudoKids' systems, is never shared with third parties, and is retained for 1 year, or until the child's profile is deleted (whichever is sooner).

4h. Screen-Time and App-Usage Activity (on by default)

To help families manage healthy screen habits, KudoKids records app-usage activity for each child profile: which sections of the app are used, the categories of features opened, and how long each session lasts. This usage-time tracking is turned on by default for every child profile, and a default daily screen-time limit of one (1) hour per child is applied. Parents can adjust or turn off the daily limit, turn off usage-time tracking entirely, or pause non-essential data collection, at any time from Settings → Screen Time Limits and Settings → Data & Privacy.

This usage activity contains no free-text and no new categories of personal information beyond the activity already described in Section 4b — it is route/feature/session-duration data, used only to power the daily limit, the parent's usage insights, and the weekly digest. It stays entirely within KudoKids' systems (internal Supabase storage), is never shared with any third party, and is never used for advertising or profiling. Raw usage sessions are retained for 90 days and aggregate rollups for 1 year (see Section 9).

4i. Shared Screen-Time Sessions (optional — off by default)

If you enable Shared screen-time for a child, that child can start a device-timer session on one shared device and add any sibling to it; the siblings they add do not need Shared screen-time enabled themselves. Each child's own banked minutes and Kudo Coins pay only for their own seat — costs are never split or pooled. When a child starts a shared session, that child can see the available screen-time minutes and Kudo Coin balance of each participating sibling — including a sibling who is not opted in — so they can pick a length everyone can afford. KudoKids records one session ledger entry per participating child, tagged with which child started the session. All of this stays inside KudoKids — no new third party receives this data. Shared screen-time is off by default and can be turned on or off per child at any time as the gate to start a session.

We use children's personal information for the following purposes:

• Service delivery: To operate the core features -- tracking tasks, managing Kudo Coin balances, delivering rewards, and running games.
• Age-adaptive experience: To adjust content difficulty, UI complexity, and available features based on the child's age.
• Personalized recommendations: Growth areas and (if opted in) personality survey results are used to suggest age-appropriate tasks and educational content.
• Wellness features: Emotion check-in data and meditation history are used to provide wellness insights to parents and to power features like daily affirmations.
• Supportive check-in notifications: Parents and guardians receive an in-app notification, and an optional push notification, when their child completes a check-in indicating they may want extra support (for example, feeling worried or sad), so the caregiver can offer help. These notifications go only to the child's own family, contain no clinical labels, and the underlying information stays inside KudoKids -- no new third party receives it. The push notification is on by default and can be turned off (or back on) at any time in Settings > Notification Preferences.
• Parental reporting: Parents can view their child's activity, progress, assessment results, and social interactions through the parent dashboard.
• Safety and moderation: Messages are automatically screened for inappropriate content. Message edit history is retained for parent audit.

We do not use children's personal information for advertising, behavioral targeting, profiling for commercial purposes, or any purpose not described in this policy.

KudoKids is an app directed to children ages 3-12. We comply with COPPA as follows:

6a. Parental Consent Is Required

All child profiles are created by a parent or legal guardian. Children cannot self-register. Before we collect any personal information about a child, the parent must provide verifiable parental consent ("VPC") through the app's setup wizard by:

1. Authenticating their identity via email one-time passcode.
2. Reviewing a detailed notice describing all categories of data that will be collected, how the data will be used, and the parent's rights.
3. Typing their full legal name as a digital signature of consent.
4. Selecting which optional data categories (behavioral assessments, wellness tracking, social features) to permit.

We store the consent record (typed name, consent version, timestamp, and categories) to demonstrate compliance.

6b. Parental Rights

At any time, a parent may:

• Review all personal information collected about their child through the parent dashboard's data review screen, or request a copy by emailing privacy@kudokids.org.
• Delete their child's personal information. Deletion is permanent and removes data across all systems (profile, assessments, transactions, game sessions, messages, friendships, leaderboard entries, push tokens, and all other associated records). Deletion can be initiated from the parent dashboard or by emailing us.
• Refuse further collection by disabling specific data categories (assessments, emotion tracking, social features) in the child's settings, or by deleting the child's profile entirely.
• Export their family's data in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format through the parent dashboard.

6c. Data Minimization

We do not require children to provide more personal information than is reasonably necessary to participate in the core Service (task management and rewards). Behavioral assessments, personality surveys, emotion tracking, and social features are all optional and individually controlled by the parent. No features are conditioned on providing optional data.

6d. No Behavioral Advertising

We do not display advertising to children. We do not use children's personal information for targeted advertising, behavioral advertising, or any form of commercial profiling. We do not sell children's personal information.

We use the following third-party service providers to operate the Service. Each provider receives only the data necessary for its function:

• Supabase, Inc. (cloud database, authentication, real-time subscriptions): Supabase hosts our database and handles parent authentication (email OTP). All family data -- including children's personal information -- is stored on Supabase's infrastructure in the United States (AWS us-east-1 region). Supabase processes data in accordance with its Privacy Policy and Data Processing Agreement.
• Expo / Expo Application Services (push notifications): We use Expo's push notification service to deliver notifications to devices. When sending a notification, Expo's servers receive the device push token (a persistent identifier) and the notification content. Notification payloads may include references to child profiles. Device push tokens are considered persistent identifiers under COPPA; Expo processes these tokens in accordance with its terms of service.
• Stripe, Inc. (payment processing — app and website): Stripe processes payments for KudoKids subscriptions and one-time purchases on both the KudoKids mobile app and the KudoKids website (kudokids.org) via Stripe Checkout. When a parent makes a purchase, payment details (card number, billing address) are sent directly to Stripe and are never stored on KudoKids servers. Stripe also receives the parent's email address and plan selection for receipt delivery and entitlement. Stripe processes data under its Privacy Policy. No child data is sent to Stripe. (On iOS, in-app purchases are instead processed by Apple's In-App Purchase system — see the Apple In-App Purchase entry above. Web and other platforms use Stripe.)
• Apple Inc. / Google LLC (speech recognition): When a voice feature is used, speech recognition is performed on the device by default on modern hardware, and no audio is transmitted. On older devices lacking on-device speech support, the operating system's Apple or Google speech service may process the audio in the cloud as a fallback, under Apple's or Google's own privacy policies. KudoKids never stores audio recordings and never receives the audio. We do not control how Apple or Google process or retain any fallback audio; refer to their respective privacy policies.
• Apple Inc. (in-app purchases via App Store / StoreKit 2): On iOS, subscription and one-time purchases inside the KudoKids app are processed by Apple's In-App Purchase system using StoreKit 2 via the expo-iap library. When a parent initiates a purchase, Apple receives the parent's Apple ID, device identifier, payment instrument (handled entirely by Apple — KudoKids never sees credit card data), and transaction metadata (product identifier, purchase date). Apple returns to KudoKids a signed transaction object (JWS) containing original_transaction_id, transaction_id, environment (Sandbox or Production), productId, purchaseDate, and expirationDate — used to grant entitlements and validate receipts server-side. No child data is sent to Apple. Purchases can only be initiated from the parent-gated subscription screen; child profiles cannot initiate or complete in-app purchases. Web purchases continue to be processed by Stripe (see the Stripe entry below). Apple processes data in accordance with its Privacy Policy at https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/.
• Sentry (error monitoring and diagnostics): Sentry receives error context (stack traces, device information) and the parent user ID for debugging purposes. When errors occur, Sentry may capture a masked recording of the app screen to help our team diagnose issues. All text, images, and visual content are automatically replaced with placeholder blocks before transmission -- no child names, messages, or personal content is visible in these recordings. Only screen layout and interaction patterns (tap locations, navigation flow) are captured alongside a device identifier for debugging purposes. This data collection is performed under COPPA's support for internal operations exception (16 CFR section 312.5(c)(7)) as the sole personal information collected is a persistent identifier used for maintaining and debugging the app. In child mode, breadcrumb collection is disabled and child identifiers are not transmitted. Sentry processes data in accordance with its Privacy Policy.
• Resend (email delivery): We use Resend to deliver email notifications to parents (e.g., approval requests, security alerts, weekly reports). Resend receives only the parent's email address and the notification content. No child data is sent to Resend. Resend processes data in accordance with its Privacy Policy.
• Google Gemini (text-to-speech synthesis): We use Google's Gemini API to synthesize speech for non-personalized content such as story narration and generic companion phrases. Child names and other personal identifiers are never transmitted to Google; personalized speech (e.g., affirmations containing the child's name) uses on-device synthesis exclusively.

We do not use advertising networks, analytics SDKs in the mobile app, data brokers, or any service that monetizes user data. The kudokids.org website uses two analytics services — Google Analytics 4 for aggregate page-view statistics and Microsoft Clarity for session analytics — each loaded only while analytics consent is active for that visitor: the visitor's own choice, or, for US visitors, the on-by-default setting described in Section 13, which can be switched off at any time. Separately from cookies, completed founding checkouts are counted server-side in our own Google Analytics property as strictly first-party measurement (see Section 13). Website analytics do not track children.

We do not sell personal information. We do not rent, trade, or share personal information with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Affiliate and Partner Application Data

If you apply to our affiliate or partner program, we collect your name, email address, primary platform URL, audience size, platform types, and optional notes about your interest. This data is stored in Supabase and used solely to evaluate your application and manage the partnership. Affiliate application data is retained for the duration of the partnership plus 3 years for tax and legal compliance purposes. You may request deletion of your affiliate data by emailing privacy@kudokids.org.

• Meta Platforms, Inc. (advertising — sharing of adult website-visitor data): The KudoKids website uses the Meta Pixel and Meta Conversions API (CAPI) to measure and optimize our advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Only when you (an adult website visitor — a parent or prospective customer) consent to advertising cookies, the Meta Pixel sets _fbp/_fbc cookies and sends event data (page views, content views, form submissions, purchases) to Meta, and our server sends hashed versions of information you provide in forms (email, name, phone, country, state) plus your IP address and browser user agent to Meta's Conversions API for matching and deduplication. All personally identifiable values are SHA-256 hashed before transmission. This disclosure of hashed adult identifiers to Meta to build and optimize advertising audiences is a "sale" and a "share" of personal information under the CPRA and similar state laws (see Sections 16 and 17). Meta may use this data to measure conversions, build retargeting audiences, and optimize ad delivery. You can stop this sharing at any time — withdraw advertising consent in the cookie-preferences panel, send a Global Privacy Control signal, or use our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page (Section 16). Meta processes data under its Data Policy. No child data is ever shared with Meta — the Pixel and CAPI fire only on the public marketing website, never inside the child-facing app, and never on any child profile.

• Google LLC (website analytics): The KudoKids website uses Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to understand aggregate website traffic patterns when you consent to analytics cookies. IP anonymization is enabled, and no advertising, remarketing, or demographic features are activated in our GA4 configuration. Google processes this data in accordance with its Privacy Policy. Separately, when you complete a founding checkout, our server reports the completed purchase to this same GA4 property via the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol regardless of your cookie choices, with advertising signals sent as denied unless you consented to advertising cookies — see Section 13 for exactly what is sent.

• Microsoft Corporation (website session analytics — Microsoft Clarity): The kudokids.org website uses Microsoft Clarity to understand how visitors use the site through heatmaps and session replays (recordings of scrolling, clicking, and page navigation). Clarity loads only while analytics consent is active for you (your explicit choice, or — for US visitors — the on-by-default setting described in Section 13 unless you opt out), never loads on any child-reachable page, and text you type into forms is masked before it leaves your browser. We instruct Microsoft to deny advertising storage for every visitor — Clarity is used for analytics only. Microsoft collects this data as an independent controller and processes it in accordance with the Microsoft Privacy Statement. No child data is collected — Clarity runs only on the public marketing website, never in the app.

• Netlify, Inc. (website hosting): Netlify hosts and serves the KudoKids website. Netlify processes server logs that include IP addresses and browser user agents as part of standard web hosting. Netlify processes data in accordance with its Privacy Policy.

Additional providers (bundled assets and on-device-only — no user data processed)

The following providers and SDKs appear in the KudoKids app or website but do not transmit any user, family, or child data to those providers at runtime. They are disclosed here for completeness:

• Higgsfield, Inc. (static art-asset generation — internal use only): KudoKids uses Higgsfield's image and video generation APIs as an internal tool to produce companion character art, splash assets, and celebration loops for the rewards store. Generated assets are uploaded once to KudoKids' own Supabase Storage bucket or bundled with the app binary. No user-generated content, child data, or family data is ever sent to Higgsfield. Prompts sent to Higgsfield describe generic art assets only and do not contain any user-identifying information.
• Apple Inc. (Quick Look AR viewer, iOS): On iOS, augmented-reality companion previews are rendered by Apple's Quick Look AR viewer (ARKit). All camera frames, world-tracking data, and rendered content remain on the device — nothing is transmitted to Apple or KudoKids. AR screenshots are saved to the device gallery only when you explicitly tap the save button.
• Google LLC (Scene Viewer AR viewer, Android): On Android, augmented-reality companion previews are rendered by Google's Scene Viewer (ARCore). All camera frames, world-tracking data, and rendered content remain on the device — nothing is transmitted to Google or KudoKids.
• Apple Inc. (LocalAuthentication framework — Face ID / Touch ID): When you approve a cross-device sign-in via QR pairing or perform other sensitive parent actions, KudoKids prompts Apple's LocalAuthentication framework for Face ID or Touch ID. The biometric template is processed by Apple's Secure Enclave on the device only; it is never transmitted to Apple or KudoKids, and is never readable by KudoKids. Children are never prompted for biometrics.
• Google Fonts (Caveat and Bungee typefaces — bundled at build time): The "Caveat" and "Bungee" display fonts are bundled into the KudoKids app binary at build time using the @expo-google-fonts/caveat and @expo-google-fonts/bungee packages. There is no runtime network call to Google Fonts; no user data, telemetry, or identifiers are sent. The fonts are used for visual styling only (e.g., streak banner display text and rank pill).
• Google LLC (on-device face detection — ML Kit and MediaPipe — no data transmitted): KudoKids' optional wellness camera features (the wellness-break eye-rest "peek" detection and the exercise movement mirror — see Section 21) perform face detection on the device. On iOS and Android this uses Google's ML Kit on-device face detector; on the web it uses Google's MediaPipe face-landmark model, which KudoKids self-hosts and serves from its own website domain — it is not loaded from any Google or third-party content-delivery network. These components estimate only whether a face is present and roughly how the head is oriented; no image, video frame, facial measurement, landmark, or any other data is transmitted to Google, to KudoKids, or to any other party. They perform face detection, never face recognition — they build no faceprint, face template, or biometric identifier, and cannot be used to identify anyone. See Section 21.

Beyond the service providers listed above, personal information may be visible to other users in the following circumstances, all of which require explicit parental consent:

• Friend discovery: If social features are enabled, the child's friend alias (username) is searchable by other authenticated users.
• Messaging: Messages are visible to the recipient child and to both children's parents (for safety monitoring).
• Leaderboards: If opted in by the parent, a child's game scores and rankings appear on game leaderboards that are visible to children in other families that have social features enabled — not only the child's own friends. The child's name is shown only to their own family and accepted friends; every other viewer sees the entry as "Anonymous."
• Shared screen-time sessions: If the parent enables Shared screen-time, a child starting a shared session can see each participating sibling’s available screen-time minutes and Kudo Coin balance (see Section 4i). This visibility stays within the family.
• Guardian contact sharing (adult data): When a parent or guardian approves a friend connection between their child and a child in another family, the two families become linked. The owner and admin guardians of each linked family can then see each other's first name, last name, and phone number (if one has been added in Settings → My Profile), so the grown-ups can reach each other about their kids. Only owners' and admins' details are shared — never those of other family members such as grandparents or caregivers — and this sharing is disclosed on the approval screen before you approve.

We may also disclose personal information if required by law, court order, or governmental regulation, or if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the safety of a child.

We retain children's personal information only as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this policy. Our retention schedule is:

When a parent deletes a child's profile, all associated personal information is permanently removed from our systems. We do not retain copies after deletion except for consent records, which are retained for compliance documentation purposes.

Automated purge processes run on a regular schedule to enforce retention limits. Data that has exceeded its retention period is permanently deleted.

We maintain a written information security program proportionate to the sensitivity of the data we collect. Our security measures include:

• Encryption in transit: All data transmitted between the app and our servers is encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS).
• Encryption at rest: Our database provider (Supabase) provides disk-level encryption for all stored data.
• Row-Level Security (RLS): Database access controls ensure that each family can only access its own data. All queries are filtered by family membership.
• Authentication security: Parent PINs and passphrases are stored as cryptographic hashes, never in plaintext. Rate limiting and account lockout protect against brute-force attacks.
• Access controls: Server-side functions that bypass normal access controls validate caller identity and ownership before executing.

No system is perfectly secure. While we implement reasonable safeguards, we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we discover a data breach affecting children's personal information, we will notify affected parents without unreasonable delay, and in no event later than 72 hours after discovery, and report to applicable authorities as required by law.

Parents and guardians have the following rights:

• Access: Review all personal information we hold about your child, either in-app or by contacting us.
• Correction: Update or correct any inaccurate information through the app or by contacting us.
• Deletion: Request permanent deletion of your child's profile and all associated data.
• Refuse collection: Opt out of any optional data collection category at any time without affecting access to core features.
• Revoke consent: Withdraw consent for data collection, which will result in deletion of the associated data.
• Data export: Export your family's data in JSON format from the parent dashboard.

To exercise any of these rights, use the parent dashboard in the app or email us at privacy@kudokids.org. We will respond within 30 days.

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. When we make material changes, we will:

• Post the revised policy on this page with an updated effective date.
• Send notice via email to the address associated with your account.
• Display a notice within the app.

If we make material changes to how we collect, use, or share children's personal information, we will obtain new verifiable parental consent before implementing the changes.

Which optional cookies are active on kudokids.org depends on where you are visiting from:

• Visiting from the United States: analytics and advertising cookies are on by default. We show a notice on your first page view (our "notice at collection" — see Section 16), and you can switch either category off at any time with one click — from that notice, from the Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page, or from Cookie Settings in the website footer. An opt-out never expires: once you switch a category off, we keep it off unless you yourself later switch it back on.
• Visiting from anywhere else — including the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland: analytics and advertising cookies stay off until you affirmatively turn them on in the cookie banner. If we cannot determine your region, we treat you the same way (opt-in).
• Global Privacy Control: a GPC signal from your browser automatically opts you out of analytics and advertising cookies in every region (see Section 17).

To decide which model applies, we look up your approximate region (country level) once per visit from your network address. Only a coarse region bucket (US / Europe / other) is kept, in your browser's session storage for the current tab; the country code is not stored with any data about you. We do not use cookies in the KudoKids mobile app.

Analytics cookies (on by default for US visitors; opt-in elsewhere)

Advertising cookies (on by default for US visitors; opt-in elsewhere)

Essential cookies and local storage (always active)

While advertising consent is active for you — your explicit grant, or the US default unless you opt out — the Meta Pixel tracks page views, content views, waitlist signups (Lead events), and purchases on our website, and our server sends a redundant event to Meta's Conversions API with hashed personal information (email, name, phone, location) and your IP address for improved event matching. This is a "sale"/"share" of personal information under the CPRA and similar state laws (see Sections 16 and 17). You can withdraw advertising consent at any time via the cookie-preferences panel in the website footer; a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal from your browser will also automatically suppress both the Meta Pixel and the server-side Conversions API send (see Section 17). Advertising cookies and CAPI never fire on a child profile or inside the app — they exist only on the public marketing website and process adult-visitor data only.

Server-side purchase measurement (founding checkouts — no cookies required)

When you complete a founding checkout on kudokids.org, our server records the completed purchase in our own Google Analytics 4 property using the GA4 Measurement Protocol. This happens regardless of your cookie choices, because it is strictly first-party measurement of our own sales: Google Ads data sharing is turned off for these events, and the advertising signals (ad_user_data and ad_personalization) are sent as denied unless you consented to advertising cookies — so the event cannot be used for ad personalization or cross-context behavioral advertising.

What is sent to Google: the purchase amount and currency, the founding tier purchased, the Stripe checkout session identifier (used as the transaction id), campaign (UTM) parameters, and a pseudonymous client identifier — your Google Analytics client id if you consented to analytics cookies, otherwise a random-looking identifier derived from the checkout session that is not linked to any cookie on your device. Your name, email address, and payment details are never sent to Google. To make this measurement work, pseudonymous browser identifiers (ga_client_id, and Meta's _fbp/_fbc values when you granted advertising consent) travel with your checkout inside Stripe Checkout metadata; Stripe already processes your payment and receives no new personal information from this. A purchase event is sent to Meta only if you consented to advertising cookies (see Section 7).

The KudoKids website (kudokids.org) collects information from parents and prospective users through our waitlist signup form. No child data is collected on the website -- child data collection occurs only within the KudoKids mobile app.

Information collected via the waitlist

• Name: First and last name (required)
• Email address: Used for authentication and waitlist communication (required)
• Phone number: Country code and number (optional)
• Location: Country and state/province (optional)
• Interest level and referral source: How you heard about us and your interest level (optional)
• Referral tracking: If you arrive via a referral link, we store the referrer's code (referred_by URL parameter) to credit the referring user
• Marketing consent: Whether you opted in to receive product updates via email

Retention

Waitlist data is retained until the waitlist campaign concludes or 24 months from signup, whichever is sooner. You may request deletion of your waitlist data at any time by emailing privacy@kudokids.org.

KudoKids is currently a United States service. Our servers and data infrastructure are located in the US. If you access KudoKids from outside the United States, please be aware that your data will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those in your country.

For Families in the European Economic Area (EEA)

If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the following additional information applies to you.

Lawful Basis for Processing: We process personal data on the following legal bases: (a) parental consent for child data under COPPA and GDPR Article 8; (b) performance of a contract when you create an account and use our services; (c) legitimate interests for website analytics and security, where these interests are not overridden by your rights.

Your Additional Rights: In addition to the rights described above, you have the right to: lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority; request restriction of processing; and object to processing based on legitimate interests.

International Data Transfers: Your data may be transferred to and processed in the United States, where our servers and service providers (Supabase, Stripe, Expo, Apple) are located. We rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission to safeguard these transfers.

Data Protection Contact: For GDPR-related inquiries, contact us at privacy@kudokids.org.

KudoKids is offered only in the United States

KudoKids is offered only in the United States. The Service is directed to families in the United States; we do not market, target, or knowingly make the Service available to users in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from individuals located there. Our servers and infrastructure are in the United States. If you believe you have accessed the Service from the EEA/UK, contact us at privacy@kudokids.org and we will address your request, including deletion. Because we do not offer the Service in the EEA/UK, we do not designate an Article 27 representative; should we begin offering the Service there, we will update this Policy with an EEA/UK representative, a lawful basis for special-category data, and member-state age-of-consent handling before doing so.

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), provides you with additional rights regarding your personal information.

Your rights

• Right to know: You have the right to request that we disclose what personal information we collect, use, disclose, and sell.
• Right to delete: You have the right to request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.
• Right to correct: You have the right to request correction of inaccurate personal information.
• Right to opt out of sale/sharing: KudoKids does share certain personal information of adult website visitors (hashed identifiers and event data) with Meta Platforms for advertising measurement, audience-building, and optimization. Under the CPRA this is a "sale" and a "share" for cross-context behavioral advertising. We never sell or share any child's personal information, and this advertising sharing never occurs inside the app or on any child profile — only on the public kudokids.org website. For US visitors, this advertising sharing is on by default (see Section 13) unless and until you opt out. You have the right to opt out, and you can do so at any time via our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page, by declining advertising cookies in the cookie-preferences panel, or by sending a Global Privacy Control signal (which we honor as a valid opt-out — see Section 17).
• Right to limit use of sensitive information: You have the right to limit our use of sensitive personal information to purposes necessary for providing the Service.
• Right to non-discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights.

Notice at Collection for Website Visitors (Cal. Civ. Code §1798.100(a))

When you visit kudokids.org we collect, via the cookies described in Section 13: identifiers (pseudonymous cookie and device identifiers such as _ga, _clck, and _fbp) and internet or other electronic network activity information (pages viewed, clicks and scrolling, session interactions, and ad-click identifiers). We use them for two purposes: website analytics (understanding aggregate traffic and improving the site) and advertising measurement and optimization (measuring whether our Facebook and Instagram ads work). For visitors in the United States, both categories are collected by default, and the advertising portion is "shared" with Meta Platforms for cross-context behavioral advertising unless and until you opt out. We do not sell personal information for money, we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information to infer characteristics, and we never sell or share children's personal information. Retention: per-cookie lifetimes are listed in Section 13 and the Cookie Policy; how long our providers retain the corresponding server-side data is governed by their own policies (Section 7). You can opt out at any time via any of three surfaces: the first-visit notice banner, the Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page, or Cookie Settings in the website footer.

Financial incentive disclosure

KudoKids offers a referral program that provides free premium subscription months to users who refer new paying subscribers. Under the CCPA, this may constitute a "financial incentive" program because the reward is linked to providing personal information (the referral relationship). Participation is voluntary. You may opt out at any time without affecting your access to the Service. The value of the incentive is reasonably related to the value of the data provided, based on the cost of the premium subscription tier.

How to submit a request

To exercise your California privacy rights, email us at privacy@kudokids.org. We will verify your identity and respond within 45 days. If you are an authorized agent, include proof of authorization with your request.

KudoKids does not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any purpose other than providing and securing the Service; we do not "sell" or "share" sensitive personal information.

Residents of certain US states have additional privacy rights under state law, including but not limited to the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA), Colorado Privacy Act (CPA), Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CTDPA), and Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA). If you reside in one of these states, you may have the right to:

• Access, correct, or delete your personal data
• Obtain a portable copy of your personal data
• Opt out of the processing of personal data for targeted advertising, sale, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects

Right to appeal

If we decline a privacy request, you have the right to appeal our decision. To appeal, email privacy@kudokids.org with the subject line "Privacy Request Appeal." We will respond to your appeal within 60 days. If you are not satisfied with the outcome, you may contact your state attorney general.

Global Privacy Control

We honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal. If your browser sends a GPC signal, we treat it as a valid opt-out of sale and of cross-context behavioral advertising under applicable state laws (including the CCPA/CPRA and the Colorado CPA), and we will automatically suppress both our advertising tags — the Meta Pixel and the server-side Meta Conversions API send — and our analytics cookies. Because GPC suppresses the advertising tags, no advertising-related sharing of your data with Meta occurs while GPC is active.

Do Not Track

Our website does not currently respond to Do Not Track (DNT) browser signals, as there is no industry-standard protocol for DNT. However, you can manage your tracking preferences through our Cookie Settings (available in the website footer) or by enabling Global Privacy Control in your browser.

In accordance with the April 2025 COPPA amendments, we provide a separate, simplified direct notice for parents that summarizes our children's data practices. You can view this notice at our Parents' Notice: Children's Data Practices page.

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

Kudo Kids, LLC 4030 Wake Forest Road, STE 349 Raleigh, NC 27609 Email: privacy@kudokids.org Phone: (910) 593-7070

We will respond to all privacy-related inquiries within 30 days.

If you believe we have collected personal information from your child without your consent, please contact us immediately and we will delete the information promptly.

Parents may opt in to submit a public testimonial about their family's experience with KudoKids — either about the family as a whole, or specifically about one of their children. Testimonials are written inside the parent's account at Settings > Support > Share your story.

What we collect: the testimonial text you write, a display name you choose, and (optionally) a parent-only photo you upload or a companion image from your family's catalogue. We never publish photos of children. By default, a child you mention appears publicly only as a first initial plus age (for example, "E, age 7"); you can opt up to first name plus age. The snapshotted first name and age are stored at write time so a later rename or birthday does not silently change already-approved public text.

Consent and review: the editor surfaces an explicit consent acknowledgment before the form unlocks, captures an acknowledgment timestamp plus version (2026-05-v1), and routes every testimonial through KudoKids staff review before it appears on kudokids.org or on a referral landing page. When you write about one of your children, you confirm that you are their parent or legal guardian and consent to publishing the version you submit.

Where it appears: approved testimonials may be shown publicly on kudokids.org and on referral pages you share with friends. We do not use testimonials in paid advertising without separate written permission from you.

Your controls: you can unpublish a testimonial at any time from the same screen where you submitted it — it disappears from the public site on the next page render. You may also fully delete a testimonial, which removes the row from our database and the uploaded photo (if any) from storage; activity-log audit entries tied to that testimonial are scrubbed 30 days after the delete. We do not give any incentive, coupon, free product, or other compensation in exchange for submitting a testimonial.

Data flow: testimonial text, parent display name, and any uploaded photo are stored in our Supabase database and our public asset bucket; no new third-party recipients are introduced by this feature.

KudoKids uses your device's camera and microphone only for a small number of optional features, and only ever on the device itself. In every case described below, nothing the camera or microphone captures is recorded, stored, transmitted to KudoKids or any third party, or used to identify anyone. Each reading is processed in real time on the device and immediately discarded. Your device's own system permissions ultimately control camera and microphone access, and — for the wellness features described below — KudoKids never triggers the system camera or microphone permission prompt without first showing a one-time explanation written for a parent or guardian.

21a. Augmented Reality (AR) companions

KudoKids includes optional AR features that display 3D companions in your real environment using your device's camera. AR processing happens entirely on-device via Apple ARKit (iOS), Google ARCore (Android), Apple Quick Look (iOS web), or Google Scene Viewer (Android web). Camera frames are never transmitted, stored, or processed by KudoKids. The 3D companion models themselves are served from our content delivery network. Camera screenshots are saved to your device's photo gallery only when you explicitly tap the screenshot button in the native AR viewer. AR is enabled by default rather than as an opt-in feature because it is 100% on-device and no camera frames are ever transmitted, stored, or collected — so it does not "collect" personal information under COPPA — but parents can turn it off per child at any time in Family Settings. Device system permissions ultimately control camera access.

21b. Wellness-break "peek" detection (eye-rest step)

During a wellness break's short "look far away" eye-rest step, KudoKids can use the front camera so a child's companion can playfully encourage them to rest their eyes — for example, gently calling out "No peeking!" if the child keeps looking at the screen, and cheering them on when the rest is complete. To do this, the app performs face detection on the device: it estimates only whether a face is present, roughly which way the head is turned, and whether the eyes appear open.

This is not facial recognition. KudoKids does not create a faceprint or face template, does not store facial geometry, and never attempts to identify who the child is or match them against any other image. No camera frame, measurement, landmark, score, or result is recorded, saved, transmitted, or written to our servers — each reading powers only the companion's in-the-moment reaction and is then immediately discarded. The feature is playful only: it never affects Kudo Coins, timers, break completion, or any other outcome, and a break can always be finished with the camera off. A visible on-screen indicator appears whenever the camera is active, and a child's face is analyzed only during the eye-rest step of a wellness break — never elsewhere in the app.

The on-device face detection is provided by the device's built-in machine-learning components (Google's ML Kit on iOS and Android, and a self-hosted Google MediaPipe model on the web that KudoKids serves from its own domain — never a third-party content-delivery network). None of these components send any image or data to their vendors or to us; they run entirely on the device (see Section 7).

Because this feature processes facial data momentarily on the device, KudoKids adds an extra layer of parental control. Before the camera is ever used, the app shows a one-time explanation written for a grown-up (reached behind the parent passphrase) describing exactly what the camera does and this privacy promise; the device's own camera-permission prompt appears only after that. If a parent declines, the device does not support the feature, or camera permission is denied, the feature is simply absent and the break works exactly as it otherwise would. Peek detection can be turned on or off per child at any time in Family Settings under Kids Access → Movement Breaks.

21c. Exercise "movement mirror" and microphone level meter (wellness exercises)

Some wellness exercises offer an optional movement mirror — a live on-screen camera preview a child can see of themselves as they move — and an optional microphone level meter that shows how loudly a child is speaking or making sounds during a spoken exercise. Both are off by default and are turned on per child by a parent. Like the features above, they run entirely on the device: the camera preview is displayed on screen only and is never recorded or transmitted, and the microphone is used solely to measure sound loudness in real time. No audio is recorded, stored, transmitted, or converted to text, and no video frame, pose, accuracy score, or measurement is saved. (Separate voice-based educational features that recognize spoken words are described in Section 4f; those, too, are processed on-device by default.)