Our Privacy Policy
At kinkofa, your memories—and your trust—matter. This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights when using our platform. Our commitment is simple: we do not sell your data, and we give you control over how your information is shared.
By using kinkofa, you agree to the practices described in this policy.
Last Updated on July 12, 2026
Who We Are
kinkofa is a digital platform that helps individuals, families, communities, and organizations preserve, organize, share, and pass down memories, family history, and cultural records.
kinkofa, Inc. (“kinkofa,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) values the privacy of people who use our websites, applications, and related services, including the kinkofa archive platform, Rememory, Kinnect, Black Cemeteries, and public or community collections. Together, these are our “Services.”
This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and the choices available to you.
It applies to:
People who create kinkofa accounts
People invited to shared Spaces, Collections, or Kinnect events
Event organizers, collaborators, attendees, and guests
People who submit content without creating an account
Visitors to our websites and public pages
Contributors, stewards, and reviewers using Black Cemeteries
People who contact us, attend our programs, or subscribe to communications
Your use of the Services is also subject to our Terms of Service.
If we materially change this Privacy Policy, we will notify you through the Services, by email, or through another appropriate method.
Our Privacy Principles
kinkofa does not sell personal information.
kinkofa does not sell your memories, recordings, photographs, documents, or other User Content.
We do not provide personal information to insurance companies or employers for their independent use.
You control how private archive content is shared through the permissions available in the Services.
You may request access to or deletion of eligible personal information, subject to shared ownership, public-history records, legal requirements, security, fraud prevention, and transaction-record obligations.
What We Collect
We collect information directly from you, automatically when you use the Services, from people who use kinkofa to organize or collaborate with you, and from service providers or public sources.
Information You Provide to Us
Registration and Profile Information
When you create an account, we may collect:
Your name
Email address
Phone number
Password in securely hashed form
Profile photo
Display name
Account preferences
Family, community, or organization information you choose to provide
Google and Other Third-Party Sign-In Information
When you create or access a kinkofa account through Google or another third-party sign-in provider, we may receive:
Your name
Email address
Profile image
Account identifier
Authentication status
Other information you authorize the provider to share
We do not receive your Google password.
You can review or revoke third-party account access through the settings provided by that service. Revoking access does not automatically delete your kinkofa account or information already received.
Content You Upload
We collect the content you choose to upload or create through kinkofa, including:
Photographs
Videos
Audio recordings
Oral histories
Documents
Letters
Funeral programs
Obituaries
Family-history records
Stories and captions
Comments and replies
Voice notes
Dates and locations
People, family, and relationship information
Tags and descriptions
Other memories and archival materials
Content may include information about people who do not have kinkofa accounts.
Rememory and Recording Information
When you use Rememory or another recording feature, we may collect:
Audio and video recordings
Participant names and contact information
Session dates and times
Questions, prompts, responses, and transcripts
Technical information needed to host and process the recording
Consent or participation records made available through the Service
The person initiating a recording is responsible for informing participants and obtaining appropriate consent.
Kinnect Organizer and Event Information
When you create or manage a Kinnect event, we may collect:
Organizer and committee-member information
Event name, date, location, schedule, and description
Collaborator roles and permissions
Registration types and pricing
Refund and cancellation policies
Budget and expense information
Vendor information
Tasks and planning records
Event website and custom-domain information
Family-history content
Event messages and announcements
Payment-account connection status
Kinnect Attendee and Guest Information
Organizers and attendees may provide information about invited guests, registered attendees, household members, party members, and minors.
This may include:
Name
Email address
Phone number
Mailing address
Family branch or household relationship
RSVP status
Registration and attendance status
Ticket, activity, merchandise, or add-on selections
Payment and refund status
Dietary preferences
Accessibility needs
Age or date-of-birth information
Emergency or event-related information
Responses to registration questions
Photos, captions, and guest submissions
A person may appear in Kinnect even if they have not created a kinkofa account.
Payment and Transaction Information
When you make or receive a payment through the Services, our payment provider, such as Stripe, collects payment information.
kinkofa may receive or store information such as:
Payer or payee name
Billing email and address
Transaction amount
Payment status
Card brand and last four digits, when provided by the payment processor
Refund status
Dispute or chargeback information
Payment-provider customer or account identifiers
Connected-account verification status
Payout status
Tax or identity-verification status
Records needed for fraud prevention and financial reconciliation
kinkofa generally does not receive or store full payment-card numbers.
Communications and Support
If you contact us, we may collect:
Your name and contact information
The contents of your message
Attachments
Support history
Information needed to investigate or resolve your request
If you subscribe to a newsletter or promotional communication, we collect the contact information and preferences needed to send it.
Applications, Programs, and Research
When you apply for or participate in a kinkofa program, course, research project, event, or community initiative, we may collect information such as:
Family-history experience
Individual interests and preferences
Accessibility needs
Demographic information
Program responses
Feedback
Participation records
We will provide additional notice where a project collects information for a distinct research or archival purpose.
Ratings and Feedback
If you provide feedback, complete a survey, report a problem, or suggest a feature, we collect the information you choose to provide.
Information We Collect Automatically
Usage Information
We may collect information about how you interact with the Services, including:
Pages and screens viewed
Features used
Searches performed
Buttons and links selected
Files uploaded
Invitations sent or accepted
Events created or joined
Registration steps completed
Dates and times of activity
Referring pages
Campaign or signup source
Errors and performance information
Device and Technical Information
We may collect:
IP address
Browser type
Operating system
Device type
Screen size
Language
Internet or mobile carrier
Device or browser identifiers
User agent
Approximate location based on IP address
Authentication, security, and session information
We do not collect precise device location unless a feature requests it and you give permission.
Email and Message Activity
When we or a Kinnect Organizer sends a message through our Services, we may collect:
Delivery status
Bounce or failure status
Open activity
Link clicks
Unsubscribe activity
SMS delivery status
STOP or other opt-out requests
Message-suppression records
We retain suppression records so that we can respect requests not to receive future messages.
Cookies and Similar Technologies
Cookies are small files stored on your browser or device. We may use session cookies, which disappear after you close your browser, and persistent cookies, which remain for a longer period.
We and our service providers may use cookies, pixels, software development kits, local storage, and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Strictly Necessary Technologies
These help provide essential functions, including:
Login and authentication
Account security
Session management
Checkout
Fraud prevention
Saving privacy preferences
The Services may not function correctly without these technologies.
Functional Technologies
These help us:
Remember your preferences
Recognize you when you return
Personalize your experience
Maintain feature settings
Analytics and Performance Technologies
We use analytics tools to understand how the Services are used, diagnose problems, measure performance, and improve our products.
These providers may include:
Google Analytics
Google Tag Manager
PostHog
Customer.io
Information collected may include:
Page views
Feature interactions
Device and browser details
IP address
Approximate location
Referrer and campaign information
Account or device identifiers
Signup source
Product preferences
Email delivery and engagement activity
Where analytics activity is connected to an account, we may use account identifiers and profile attributes to understand onboarding, feature adoption, and service use.
Advertising and Marketing Technologies
We may use marketing technologies to measure campaigns, understand how people find kinkofa, and provide relevant communications.
We do not use memories, recordings, archive uploads, or genetic information for targeted advertising.
You may be able to manage cookies through our cookie controls or your browser settings. Blocking some cookies may affect how the Services function.
Where required by law, we will request consent before using nonessential cookies.
Information We Receive From Other People
Organizers, Collaborators, and Family Members
A family member, Space Owner, event Organizer, collaborator, or attendee may provide information about you when they:
Invite you to kinkofa
Add you to a family archive
Identify or tag you in content
Add you to a guest list
Register you as part of a household or party
Include you in a family tree
Upload a photograph or recording involving you
Submit family-history information
Send you an event message
If you believe someone submitted your information improperly, contact us at privacy@kinkofa.com.
Public Sources and Archival Records
For public-history services such as Black Cemeteries, we may collect information from:
Public records
Cemetery records
Obituaries
Funeral programs
Historical newspapers
Libraries and archives
Government databases
Public websites
Community surveys
Other publicly available or contributor-provided sources
Public-source information may be reviewed, cited, corrected, connected to related records, or preserved as part of a public-history collection.
Service Providers and Partners
We may receive information from service providers that support:
Authentication
Payments
Hosting
File processing
Analytics
Email and SMS delivery
Security
Fraud prevention
Customer support
How We Use Your Information
We may use the information we collect from you for various purposes, including:
Provide, maintain, and operate the Services
Create and manage accounts
Authenticate users
Store, organize, display, and share User Content according to selected permissions
Support Spaces, Collections, Rememory, Kinnect, and Black Cemeteries
Process registrations, transactions, refunds, and payouts
Send account, security, transaction, and event communications
Allow Kinnect Organizers to communicate with attendees
Generate transcripts, previews, thumbnails, and converted media formats
Provide search, tagging, organization, and accessibility features
Personalize the user experience
Understand how the Services are used
Improve existing features and develop new ones
Diagnose technical problems and measure performance
Provide customer support
Prevent fraud, spam, abuse, and security threats
Moderate public content and investigate reported content
Verify permissions, stewardship, and account authority
Enforce our Terms of Service and other policies
Comply with legal and financial obligations
Protect kinkofa, our users, and the public
Send promotional communications where permitted
Create aggregated or deidentified information
Carry out another purpose disclosed when information is collected
We may use automated systems to provide features you request, including transcription, search, tagging, content organization, media processing, accessibility, duplicate detection, moderation, and security.
How We Share Information
We do not sell personal information.
We may share information in the following circumstances.
Vendors and Service Providers
We share information with providers that help us operate kinkofa, including providers supporting:
Authentication and databases
Hosting and infrastructure
File uploads and media storage
Analytics and product measurement
Email and lifecycle messaging
SMS delivery
Payment processing
Mapping and location
Security and fraud prevention
Customer support
Current providers may include Google, Supabase, PostHog, Customer.io, Stripe, Twilio, Uploadcare, Vercel, Amazon Web Services, Cloudflare, and other providers supporting the Services.
These providers may only use information as permitted by their agreements with us and applicable law.
We may maintain a separate list of subprocessors or major providers and update it as our infrastructure changes.
Other Users and People You Choose
We share information with:
People invited to your Spaces or Collections
Kinnect Organizers and authorized collaborators
Attendees and guests where needed to provide event features
People who can access content through a public or shared link
The public when content is intentionally published
The information available depends on your permissions, the product, and the actions of authorized owners or administrators.
Payment Providers
We share transaction information with Stripe and other payment providers to:
Process payments
Verify connected accounts
Issue refunds
Make payouts
Prevent fraud
Handle disputes and chargebacks
Comply with financial and legal obligations
Analytics and Communication Providers
Analytics and messaging providers process usage, device, account, delivery, and engagement information to help us:
Understand product use
Improve onboarding
Measure campaigns
Send account and event messages
Diagnose delivery problems
Respect opt-outs
Legal Requirements and Safety
We may access, preserve, or disclose information when we reasonably believe it is necessary to:
Comply with applicable law, a court order, subpoena, or valid legal process
Respond to an emergency involving safety
Investigate fraud, abuse, or security threats
Enforce our Terms
Protect the rights, property, dignity, or safety of kinkofa, our users, or others
Where legally permitted and reasonably possible, we may notify affected users of a legal request.
With Your Permission
We may share information when you direct us to do so or give us permission.
Aggregated and Deidentified Information
We may use and share aggregated or deidentified information that does not reasonably identify an individual.
We will not attempt to reidentify deidentified information except where necessary to test whether our deidentification processes work or as otherwise permitted by law.
Communications and Your Choices
kinkofa Communications
We may send:
Authentication and security messages
Account notices
Invitations
Upload and storage notices
Subscription and billing information
Transaction and refund information
Terms and policy updates
Support communications
Product announcements
Marketing messages
You may unsubscribe from promotional emails using the link provided in the message.
Even after opting out of marketing, you may continue to receive necessary account, security, transaction, legal, and service messages.
Kinnect Organizer Communications
Kinnect Organizers may send:
Registration confirmations
Payment reminders
Schedule changes
Event announcements
Safety information
Other event-related messages
Organizer-authored messages may be sent through Customer.io, Twilio, or other communication providers used by kinkofa.
You may use the unsubscribe method provided in an email or reply STOP to eligible text messages.
We may retain an opt-out or suppression record so that your request continues to be honored.
Analytics and Cookies
You may manage cookies through available cookie controls or your browser settings.
You may also use tools provided by analytics providers, such as Google’s browser opt-out tools, where available.
Blocking analytics cookies does not necessarily stop strictly necessary account, security, fraud-prevention, or transaction processing.
Data Retention
We keep personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Policy, including providing the Services, maintaining security, complying with law, resolving disputes, and preserving public-history records.
Retention depends on the type of information and why it was collected.
Account Information
We generally retain account information while your account remains active and for a reasonable period afterward for security, support, fraud prevention, and legal obligations.
User Content
We retain User Content while it remains stored in your account, Space, Collection, or shared workspace.
When eligible content is deleted, it may remain temporarily in backups or recovery systems before being removed or overwritten.
Shared Content
Deleting your account may not delete content that is separately retained or controlled by another authorized user or shared workspace.
Kinnect Records
We may retain:
Event records
Registration records
Attendee transaction histories
Refund records
Chargeback evidence
Organizer and collaborator activity
Payment and payout information
Communications and delivery logs
These records may remain after an event ends or is deleted when needed for support, accounting, disputes, fraud prevention, or legal compliance.
Consent and Acceptance Records
We may retain records showing:
Acceptance of Terms
Privacy notices presented
Recording or contribution acknowledgments
Refund-policy acknowledgments
Communication consent or opt-out activity
Suppression Records
We may retain email and phone-number suppression records for as long as needed to prevent messages from being sent after an opt-out request.
Public-History Information
Black Cemeteries and other public-history contributions may be retained for archival, provenance, research, correction, moderation, and public-interest purposes, even if a contributor closes their account.
Public attribution may be removed or adjusted where appropriate without deleting the underlying historical record.
Security and Technical Records
We retain security logs, audit records, fraud signals, and technical information for periods appropriate to maintaining platform security and investigating misuse.
How Content Sharing Works
kinkofa includes private, shared, link-accessible, and public experiences.
Private and Shared Content
Private Spaces and Collections are available to people who have been granted access based on their assigned roles.
Owners and administrators control who has access, but kinkofa cannot prevent an authorized person from downloading, capturing, copying, or sharing information outside the platform.
Public and Link-Accessible Content
Content may become public or broadly available when you or an authorized collaborator:
Publish a Kinnect event website
Approve a guest photo for a public gallery
Create or share a public link
Publish to a public collection
Submit content to Black Cemeteries
Select another public-sharing option
Public content may be viewed, indexed by search engines, downloaded, copied, captured, or reshared.
Removing content from kinkofa may not remove copies already obtained or published by others.
Profile and Attribution Information
Your name, profile image, username, contributor credit, or role may be visible to other people depending on how you use the Services.
Black Cemeteries may publicly display contributor or steward usernames, source credits, and contribution history.
Kinnect and Information Provided by Organizers
Kinnect Organizers independently determine much of the information collected through their event pages and registration forms.
For certain Kinnect information:
The Organizer decides what questions to ask and how event information is used.
kinkofa provides the tools used to collect, store, communicate, and process the information.
Both kinkofa and the Organizer may have responsibilities for protecting attendee information.
Organizers may use attendee information for legitimate event administration, including:
Invitations
Registration
Payment tracking
Attendance planning
Event updates
Schedule changes
Family-history activities
Guest support
Organizers may not use attendee information for unrelated marketing, sell it, or provide it to unrelated parties without an appropriate legal basis.
Questions about an Organizer’s event practices should generally be directed to the Organizer. You may also contact kinkofa when the concern involves our platform, payments, security, or privacy practices.
How Content Sharing Works
You decide what gets shared and with whom. Each Space and Collection has role-based permissions (Owner, Editor, Contributor, Viewer), and your content is only visible to the people you’ve approved access for.
You can delete your content or close your account at any time.
Security
Security
We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information.
These may include:
Encryption in transit
Encryption at rest where supported
Authentication and access controls
Role-based permissions
Logging and monitoring
Secure hosting providers
Backup and recovery measures
Fraud and abuse prevention
No electronic transmission, storage system, or online service can be guaranteed to be completely secure.
You are responsible for protecting your login credentials and choosing appropriate people to invite into shared Spaces, Collections, and Kinnect events.
If a security incident affects your information, we will provide notice when required by applicable law.
Data Security
We take data security seriously and employ industry-standard measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. We keep your content safe by protecting it every step of the way — when you upload it and while it’s stored with us. kinkofa uses trusted cloud services and follow security best practices to guard your memories.
If you delete a photo, video, or even your whole account, we remove it from our active storage right away. Sometimes, copies might remain in backups for a short time, but we don’t access or use deleted content during that period.
Third-Party Disclosure
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your personal information to third parties without your consent, except as required by law or as necessary to provide our services. We may share your information with trusted third-party service providers who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, provided that they agree to keep your information confidential.
Your Rights
You have the right to:
Request deletion of your account and data
Export your content
Opt out of non-essential communications
Cookies
We keep it minimal. We use essential cookies and analytics tools to understand how people use kinkofa and to improve the experience.
Our website may use cookies to enhance your browsing experience and collect information about how you interact with our site. You can adjust your browser settings to refuse cookies or alert you when cookies are being sent, but some features of the site may not function properly without cookies.
Black Cemeteries Privacy Notice
Effective Date: June 17, 2026
Applies to: Black Cemeteries by kinkofa
This Black Cemeteries Privacy Notice supplements kinkofa’s Privacy Policy. It explains how kinkofa collects, uses, shares, reviews, and protects information connected to Black Cemeteries.
1. What Black Cemeteries is
Black Cemeteries is a public-history and preservation project documenting historically Black cemeteries, burial grounds, burial places, deceased individuals, source evidence, cemetery conditions, and related community history.
Because Black Cemeteries involves public and community history, some approved information may be publicly visible.
2. Categories of information we may collect
For Black Cemeteries, we may collect the following categories of information.
Account and contributor information
name, username, email address, login information, and account identifiers;
contributor history;
submissions, corrections, source links, photos, documents, and comments;
stewardship requests;
moderation and review activity.
Cemetery and burial-place information
cemetery name, alternate names, location, address, county, state, coordinates, condition, access status, cemetery type, documentation status, history, sources, photos, and related notes.
Deceased-person and burial profile information
name, birth date, death date, burial place, grave location, family connections, biographical details, source evidence, photos, documents, and obituary-derived facts.
Information that may relate to living people
contributor usernames and account information;
page steward details;
family relationships or survivor names appearing in obituaries or submitted sources;
contact information submitted for stewardship, correction, or support;
information in photos, documents, or uploaded materials.
Source and evidence information
source URLs, source titles, publisher names, archive names, funeral home names, cemetery directory references, short excerpts, citation notes, access dates, and confidence or review metadata.
Crawler and public-source discovery information
URLs crawled or reviewed;
raw page metadata;
extracted candidate fields;
evidence snippets;
candidate match results;
confidence scores;
review status;
crawl logs and error logs.
3. Sources of information
We may collect Black Cemeteries information from:
you and other contributors;
page stewards or managers;
public cemetery records;
public archives;
public websites;
cemetery directories;
funeral home or obituary pages;
government records;
local history organizations;
preservation organizations;
libraries, museums, and historical societies;
crawler or automated discovery tools;
kinkofa review and moderation workflows.
4. How we use Black Cemeteries information
We use Black Cemeteries information to:
document historically Black cemeteries and burial grounds;
create and maintain cemetery, burial-place, and deceased-person records;
display approved public records;
review, moderate, approve, reject, or merge contributions;
evaluate stewardship requests;
identify duplicate or conflicting records;
preserve source attribution;
maintain Page Status and contribution history;
improve search, matching, and discovery;
identify candidate cemeteries and person profiles;
prevent abuse, fraud, spam, infringement, and misuse;
respond to correction, removal, privacy, and support requests;
comply with legal obligations;
improve kinkofa products and preservation workflows.
5. What may become public
Approved Black Cemeteries records may publicly display:
cemetery names and locations;
historical descriptions;
cemetery condition notes;
photos and media;
source citations;
deceased-person profile information;
burial information;
family names represented;
documentation status;
page steward username;
contributor usernames;
approved contribution details;
Page Status details.
Do not submit information you are not comfortable having reviewed or, if approved, made public.
6. What remains internal or review-only
The following may remain internal, private, or review-only:
draft submissions;
pending contributions;
rejected contributions;
request-to-manage forms;
internal moderation notes;
candidate records from crawler discovery;
raw crawl logs;
confidence scores;
duplicate-matching notes;
private account information;
support communications;
legal, privacy, or abuse reports.
7. Sensitive historical and community context
Black Cemeteries documents historically Black burial grounds and Black community history. This work may involve information that reflects race, ethnicity, religion, family relationships, geography, community institutions, and historic discrimination.
We use this information for archival, historical, preservation, research, moderation, stewardship, and community-documentation purposes. We do not use Black Cemeteries information to make eligibility decisions, employment decisions, credit decisions, housing decisions, insurance decisions, or other decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.
8. Living-person information
Although Black Cemeteries focuses on cemeteries and deceased people, submitted or public-source materials may mention living people.
We may limit, suppress, or remove living-person information where appropriate, especially where information creates privacy, safety, dignity, or misuse concerns.
You should avoid submitting sensitive living-person information unless you have permission or another appropriate basis to submit it.
9. Obituaries
We may use obituary information as source evidence. We generally prefer structured facts, source links, citation details, and short evidence snippets rather than full obituary text.
We may remove or limit obituary-derived information if it raises privacy, safety, copyright, or dignity concerns.
10. Public-source and crawler-discovered data
We may use public-source discovery tools to identify candidate records. Candidate records are not automatically public records.
Crawler-discovered information may be reviewed before publication. We may store crawl metadata, source URLs, extracted fields, evidence snippets, match results, and review status.
We do not knowingly use crawlers to bypass paywalls, login walls, technical access controls, or private systems.
11. Sharing and disclosure
We may share Black Cemeteries information:
publicly, when records are approved for publication;
with service providers that help us operate kinkofa;
with reviewers, page stewards, or administrators as needed for moderation;
with partners where needed for preservation, research, programming, or community archive work;
in response to legal process or legal obligations;
to protect rights, safety, security, and integrity;
with your consent.
We do not sell Black Cemeteries personal information.
12. Retention
We retain Black Cemeteries information for as long as reasonably necessary for archival, historical, preservation, legal, moderation, security, and operational purposes.
We may retain approved public records indefinitely as part of the historical archive.
We may retain internal review records, rejected submissions, crawler candidates, and source evidence for quality control, dispute resolution, auditability, and abuse prevention.
We may delete or reduce raw crawl data after extracting structured facts, source links, snippets, and review metadata.
13. Correction, deletion, suppression, and dispute requests
You may ask us to correct, delete, suppress, or review Black Cemeteries information.
Because Black Cemeteries is an archival and public-history project, we may not remove all historically relevant or lawfully obtained public information. However, we will review requests involving inaccurate information, living-person privacy, safety, dignity, source attribution, copyright, or disputed stewardship.
Submit requests at:
privacy@kinkofa.com
Black Cemeteries correction/removal form
14. Your privacy rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or limit certain uses of your personal information. kinkofa will respond to privacy requests as required by applicable law.
Some privacy rights may apply differently to archival, public-interest, historical, or publicly available information. We will evaluate requests case by case.
15. Children
Black Cemeteries is not intended for children under [13/16]. Users should not submit personal information from children without appropriate permission.
16. Security
We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect Black Cemeteries information. No system is completely secure.
17. Contact
For privacy questions or requests:
privacy@kinkofa.com
legal@kinkofa.com
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to update or change this Privacy Policy at any time. Any changes will be posted on this page, and the effective date will be updated accordingly. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any updates.
Contact Us
Questions, concerns, or data requests? Email us at: privacy@kinkofa.com