We wrote this to be read, not skimmed past. It is long because we would rather tell you exactly what happens than hide behind generalities — and because a toy that talks in a child’s bedroom deserves that.
01Who we are and what this covers
This Privacy Policy explains how <TODO legal entity name> (“Squish & Wish”, “we”, “us”) collects, uses and shares information when you use the Squish & Wish website (https://squishandwish.com), the web app at /app, the Squish & Wish mobile app for iOS and Android, the Squish & Wish Club membership, our online store, and the Squish & Wish plush and its voice pod (together, the “Service”).
Squish & Wish is a plush character with a small speaker inside. A grown-up signed in to the app or website types a message; the plush says it aloud in the character’s voice. That is the whole product, and it shapes everything below: the only content in the system is text that a signed-in adult typed.
The plush is a toy for children ages 3 and up. The account, the app and this website are for adults — you must be at least 18 to create an account. Section 9 explains how we think about children’s privacy.
02The short version
- The plush has no microphone and no camera. It cannot hear, record, listen or watch. It only plays audio we made from text you typed.
- We don’t sell your information, we don’t show ads, and we don’t use advertising or analytics trackers on the website. There is no cookie banner because the only cookie we set is the one that keeps you signed in.
- What we keep is what the product needs: your account, your orders, the messages you send (so the plush can play them and you can see history), and a little device telemetry (battery, online status).
- Your Wi-Fi password never leaves the pod. It is stored on the pod itself so it can reconnect; it is not sent to us.
- You can delete everything from the app, from the web at Settings, or by email. See Delete your account.
- We don’t use your messages to train AI. Text is sent to our speech provider only to render it into audio.
03What the plush itself does — and doesn’t — collect
Because the plush is the part that lives with a child, this section is deliberately specific.
The plush does not
- have a microphone, camera, GPS or any other sensor that captures the room;
- record, listen to, or transmit sound;
- generate its own words, hold conversations, or speak unless a message was sent to it;
- collect a child’s name, voice, image, location or anything else about the child.
The voice pod does send us
- Device identity
- A factory-assigned device ID and serial number, and a per-device credential it uses to prove it is your pod. Nothing about the child.
- Health telemetry
- Battery level, firmware version, and a periodic “I’m online” heartbeat. We store only the latest values (plus the time we last saw the pod) so the app can show whether it is online and charged.
- Playback status
- Whether each message actually played, so your history is accurate.
- Network address
- Like any internet-connected device, the pod’s connection reveals your home network’s public IP address to our servers. We use it only to deliver messages and keep the connection secure; we do not use it to locate or profile anyone.
The pod stores your Wi-Fi network name and password only on the pod, in its own memory, so it can reconnect. They are entered during setup over Bluetooth from the mobile app (or on the pod’s own setup page) and are never transmitted to Squish & Wish. A factory reset erases them.
The pod also receives audio files: the spoken versions of messages sent to it, downloaded from our private storage over an encrypted, short-lived link. Squeezing the plush’s foot wakes the pod or replays the last message; it does not create any data about the child.
04Information you give us
- Account
- Email address and password (we only ever store a one-way hash of the password, handled by our authentication provider), plus any names you give your plush characters. Sign-in is by email and password; we do not use social logins today.
- Orders
- Name, shipping address, email, phone number (for the carrier), what you bought, gift-wrap and shipping choices, and a note if you leave one. Payment details go directly to Stripe (and Klarna, if you choose “Pay in 4”); we never see or store your full card number.
- Messages
- The text you type for the plush to say, the character voice and mode you pick, when you sent it, which plush it went to, and whether it played. Scheduled messages and saved “quick sends” are the same kind of text, stored so they can be played later or reused.
- Approved senders
- If you invite someone else to send messages to your plush, their email address and the fact that you invited them. They get their own adult account under this Policy.
- Support
- Whatever you send us when you write in — your email, your order number, photos of a problem.
05Information collected automatically
- Website & web app
- Standard server logs (IP address, browser type, pages requested, timestamps) held briefly for security and debugging, and the sign-in session cookie described in section 10. We run no analytics or advertising trackers on the site today.
- Mobile app
- Device model, operating system version, app version, language, and a push-notification token if you turn notifications on. If the app crashes, a crash report (stack trace, device model, OS version, app version — never message text) is sent to our error-reporting provider so we can fix it. The app does not collect precise location and does not use the advertising identifier.
- Permissions the app asks for
- Camera — only to scan the QR code on your plush’s box (nothing is stored). Bluetooth — only to send Wi-Fi settings to the pod during setup. Notifications — to tell you a message played, the battery is low, or the plush went offline. Each is optional and can be revoked in your phone’s settings.
06How we use information
- To run the Service: create your account, link your plush, turn your text into speech, deliver it to your plush, show your history, and keep the pod connected.
- To fulfil orders: charge you, calculate sales tax, ship the plush, send order and shipping emails, handle returns and warranty claims.
- To bill the Club: start, renew, pause or cancel your membership and meter your monthly message quota.
- To keep the plush safe: every message passes through an automated content filter before it is spoken (section 7). We may review a message if it is reported or trips the filter.
- To keep the Service secure: detect abuse, rate-limit, prevent fraud, and protect accounts and devices.
- To support you: answer your emails and investigate problems you report.
- To tell you things you need to know: receipts, renewal reminders, safety notices, changes to these policies. These service emails come with the account and cannot be opted out of while you have one.
- Marketing email — only if you ask: we send news and offers only if you opted in, and every such email has an unsubscribe link.
- To comply with law and enforce our Terms.
We do not make automated decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects, and we do not build profiles of you or of any child.
07Your messages, the content filter, and AI
A message is personal speech played aloud in someone’s home, so we treat message text and its audio as sensitive. Audio lives in private storage and is fetched only through short-lived, single-file links minted after we check the request is authorized.
Before any message is rendered, its text goes through an automated moderation filter. Text the filter rejects is never spoken and is not sent to our speech provider. We do not read your messages as a matter of course; a person may look at one only when it is reported, flagged, needed to answer your support request, or required by law.
The “AI” in Squish & Wish is text-to-speech. To make the plush speak, we send the message text and the chosen character voice to our speech provider, which returns audio. We do not use your messages, your child’s use of the plush, or your account to train any AI model, and our contracts with providers do not allow them to do so either. Identical text in the same voice is rendered once and reused, so the same goodnight message does not have to be sent to the provider twice.
09Children’s privacy
Squish & Wish is designed so that the child who hugs the plush is never a “user” of an online service. Here is how that works and what we commit to:
- Accounts are for adults. You must be at least 18 to create an account, buy a plush or join the Club. We do not offer accounts, profiles or logins for children, and we do not ask for a child’s name, birthday or photo anywhere in the Service.
- The plush collects nothing from the child. It has no microphone or camera, no way to type, and no on-plush controls other than a squeeze that wakes it or replays the last message. The only data it sends are the device-health details in section 3, which we use solely to operate and secure the Service (“support for internal operations” under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, COPPA).
- Everything the plush says was typed by an adult the account holder approved. Parents and guardians control who can send, and can see, delete or unlink everything from the app.
- If we learn that a child under 13 has created an account or given us personal information without a parent’s consent, we will delete it promptly. Write to privacy@squishandwish.com and we will confirm when it is done.
- No ads, no in-plush purchases, no child-directed marketing inside the Service.
We will not add a microphone, camera, child login or any feature that collects information from children without first updating this Policy and, where COPPA requires it, obtaining verifiable parental consent.
11How long we keep information
| Information | Kept for | Then |
|---|---|---|
| Account (email, settings, plush links) | While your account exists | Deleted when you delete your account; backups purged within 30 days |
| Messages and their audio | Your plan’s history window — 365 days for Club members — measured from when the message was sent | Deleted within 30 days of leaving the window, or immediately when you delete the message or your account |
| Scheduled messages & quick sends | Until you delete them or your account | Deleted |
| Device telemetry (battery, online status, firmware) | Latest values only — each report overwrites the last | Cleared when the plush is unlinked or the account deleted |
| Notifications in the app | 90 days | Deleted automatically |
| Orders, invoices, refunds, tax records | 7 years | Deleted (required for tax and accounting law) |
| Membership billing records | 7 years from the last charge | Deleted |
| Support emails | 3 years after the ticket closes | Deleted |
| Server and security logs | Up to 30 days | Deleted |
| A record that an account was deleted (an internal ID, no name or email) | Indefinitely | Kept so we can prove we honoured the request |
If you cancel the Club, your message history stays visible for the remainder of the paid period and is then subject to the same window; nothing is deleted the moment you cancel.
12How we protect information
- Everything travels over TLS — between your browser or phone and us, between the pod and us, and between us and our providers.
- Audio and firmware sit in private storage with no public listing; each file is reachable only through a link that expires within minutes and is issued only after an authorization check.
- Every database table is protected by row-level security, so one account cannot read another’s data even if our application code had a bug.
- Each pod authenticates with its own credential, which is rotated when the plush is claimed and revoked if it is reported lost or stolen.
- We never store card numbers; payments run through Stripe, a PCI DSS Level 1 provider.
- Passwords are stored only as salted one-way hashes.
No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a breach that affects your information we will notify you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.
13Your choices and rights
Wherever you live, you can:
- See and download what we hold about you — your history is in the app; for a full export, email us.
- Correct your email, plush names and addresses in the app or by writing to us.
- Delete a message (in the app), unlink a plush (in the app), or delete your whole account — in the app under Settings, on the web at /app/settings, or by email. See Delete your account for what is erased and what we must keep.
- Turn off push notifications in the app or your phone settings, and unsubscribe from marketing email with the link in any such email.
- Revoke camera and Bluetooth permissions in your phone settings (setup will need them again later).
To make a request, email privacy@squishandwish.com from the address on your account (or tell us which account it is about). We will verify it is you — usually by replying to your account email — and respond within 45 days. You can ask someone to make a request for you if they can show you authorized them. We will never treat you differently for exercising a privacy right.
14Your California privacy rights
This section is our notice under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (together, “CCPA”). We honour these rights for everyone, whether or not the CCPA’s thresholds apply to us in a given year.
Notice at collection
| Category (Cal. Civ. Code §1798.140) | Examples we collect | Source | Purpose | Disclosed to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identifiers | Email, name, shipping address, IP address, device IDs | You; your device | Provide the Service, fulfil orders, security | Service providers (§8) |
| Customer records (Cal. Civ. Code §1798.80) | Name, address, phone, payment method (held by Stripe) | You | Orders, billing | Stripe, Klarna, carriers |
| Commercial information | Purchase and membership history | You; Stripe; app stores | Billing, support, tax | Stripe, RevenueCat |
| Internet or network activity | App version, crash reports, server logs | Your device | Debugging, security | Sentry, web host |
| Audio, electronic or similar information | Audio we render from the text you typed (not a recording of anyone) | Generated from your text | Playing your message on the plush | ElevenLabs (text in), Cloudflare (audio stored) |
| Sensitive personal information | Account login credentials | You | Signing you in only | Supabase |
| Inferences | None | — | — | — |
We do not sell personal information, do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, have not done so in the preceding 12 months, and do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16. We use sensitive personal information only to provide the Service, so no “limit the use of my sensitive personal information” link is required. Retention periods are in section 11.
Your rights
- Know what personal information we collect, use, disclose, and the categories of sources and recipients (this Policy, plus a copy on request).
- Delete your personal information, subject to exceptions (for example, records we must keep for tax law).
- Correct inaccurate personal information.
- Opt out of sale or sharing — not needed, because we do none.
- Non-discrimination for exercising any right.
Submit a request at privacy@squishandwish.com or by mail to <TODO legal entity name>, <TODO business street address>. We verify requests by matching them to the email on your account and may ask for one more piece of information tied to the account. An authorized agent may submit a request with your signed permission. We respond within 45 days (extendable once by 45 days with notice).
“Shine the Light” (Cal. Civ. Code §1798.83): we do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct-marketing purposes.
15Residents of other US states
If you live in Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana, Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Tennessee, Minnesota, Maryland, Indiana, Kentucky, Rhode Island or another state with a comprehensive privacy law, you may have the rights to access, correct, delete and obtain a portable copy of your personal data, and to opt out of targeted advertising, sale, or profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects. We do not sell personal data, do not engage in targeted advertising, and do not profile — so there is nothing to opt out of — and we extend the access, correction, deletion and portability rights to everyone (section 13).
If we decline a request, you may appeal by replying to our decision with “Appeal” in the subject line; we will respond within 45 days. If we deny the appeal, we will tell you how to contact your state Attorney General.
16Where information is stored
Squish & Wish is offered in the United States and our systems and providers store information in the United States. If you use the Service from elsewhere, you understand that your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may not offer the same data-protection rules as your country.
17Changes to this Policy
We will post any changes here and update the “Last updated” date. If a change materially reduces your rights or changes how we use information you already gave us, we will email account holders at least 14 days before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after that date means you accept the updated Policy.
18Contact
Privacy questions and requests: privacy@squishandwish.com
General support: help@squishandwish.com
Post: <TODO legal entity name>, <TODO business street address>
More ways to reach us are on the Contact page.