After Words
Privacy Policy
Last updated 9 September 2026
After Words lets you write letters now and have them delivered later — on a date you choose, after a period of inactivity, or when people you trust confirm you have died. That purpose means we hold writing that is private and often deeply personal. This policy explains exactly what we store, who processes it, and how to get it deleted.
The short versionWe store your account details, the letters you write, and the contact details of the people you name. The free version of the app shows ads, supplied by Google AdMob, which involves sharing limited device information with Google. We never sell your letters, and we never use their contents to target advertising. A Premium subscription removes ads entirely. Deleting your account erases your letters from our systems.
1. Who we are
After Words is the data controller for the information described here. Contact us at support@wordsafter.org for any privacy question or request.
2. What we collect
| Data | Why we hold it |
|---|---|
| Email address and password | To create and secure your account. Passwords are handled by Google Firebase Authentication and are stored hashed; we never see them. |
| Display name | To address you in the app and to identify you to the people you invite as verifiers. |
| Letter content — title and body | This is the service. Letters are stored so they can be delivered later. |
| Recipient name and email address | To deliver each letter to the person you chose. |
| Verifier name, email address and relationship | To invite the people you nominate and record whether they have confirmed. |
| Delivery settings | The trigger you picked — a scheduled date, a period of inactivity, or verifier confirmation — and the delivery status of each letter. |
| Last-active date | Required for the inactivity trigger. We record when you last opened the app, not what you did in it. |
| Advertising identifiers and ad interaction data | Collected by Google AdMob in the free version of the app, to select and measure ads. See section 6. |
| Subscription status | Whether you hold an active Premium subscription. Supplied by Apple; we never see your payment details. |
We do not collect location, contacts, photos or health data, and we run no analytics product. We never read the contents of your letters for advertising, and no advertiser receives them.
3. Data about other people
When you name a recipient or a verifier, you give us another person's name and email address. Please only enter details of people you reasonably expect to hear from you, and consider telling verifiers before you nominate them — they will receive an email from us asking them to accept a role that concerns your death.
If you are named as a recipient or verifier and want your details removed, email support@wordsafter.org and we will remove them, which may mean a letter addressed to you is never delivered.
4. Why we may process your data
- To perform our contract with you — storing your letters and delivering them as you instructed.
- Legitimate interests — keeping the service secure, preventing abuse, and fixing faults.
- Legal obligation — where we are required to retain or disclose information by law.
5. Who processes your data
We use a small number of providers, and only to run the service:
- Google Firebase (Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions) — hosts your account and stores your letters and settings.
- Resend — sends the emails we deliver on your behalf, including verifier invitations, account verification and the letters themselves. Message content passes through Resend in order to be delivered.
- Google AdMob — serves the ads shown in the free version of the app. Google acts as an independent controller for the data it collects through advertising; see Google's own privacy policy.
- Apple — processes subscription payments and tells the app whether a subscription is active. We never receive your card details.
These providers process data on our instructions. We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.
6. Advertising
The free version of After Words shows ads supplied by Google AdMob: a banner on the letters and verifiers lists, a full-screen ad after you create a letter or invite a verifier, and an optional video you may choose to watch in exchange for writing an additional letter. There are no ads while you are reading or writing a letter.
To serve these ads, Google collects information about your device and how you interact with the ads. On first launch iOS asks whether you allow tracking across other companies' apps and websites. If you decline — or ignore the prompt — you still see ads, but they are not personalised. You can change this at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
Your letters, your recipients and your verifiers are never shared with Google or any advertiser, and are never used to choose which ads you see.
A Premium subscription removes all advertising, and with it the data collection described in this section.
7. Payments and subscriptions
Premium subscriptions are sold and processed by Apple through the App Store. We never see or store your payment details. Apple tells the app only whether a valid subscription exists. Billing questions, cancellations and refunds are handled by Apple, in your App Store account.
8. Where your data is stored
Firebase stores data on Google infrastructure, which may be located outside your country. Our email delivery runs in Resend's EU region. By using After Words you accept that your data may be transferred and processed in these locations.
9. How long we keep it
We keep your letters until they are delivered, until you delete them, or until you delete your account — whichever comes first. Delivered letters remain in the recipient's mailbox and are outside our control once sent; we cannot recall an email that has been delivered.
10. Deleting your account
Settings → Delete account removes your letters, your verifiers, your user record and your sign-in identity from our systems. This cannot be undone, and any undelivered letters are destroyed with it. Backups held by our providers may persist for a short period before expiring on their normal cycle.
11. Security
Data is encrypted in transit. Access to your letters is restricted to your own account by server-side security rules. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee that your data will never be accessed unlawfully. Choose a strong, unique password and do not reuse it elsewhere.
12. Children
After Words is not intended for children. Do not use the service if you are under 16.
13. Your rights
You may ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, or delete it, and you may object to or ask us to restrict certain processing. Write to support@wordsafter.org. Most deletion requests can be completed immediately in the app. If you believe we have mishandled your data, you may complain to your local data protection authority.
14. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy we will update the date above and, for significant changes, tell you in the app or by email.