Privacy Policy
Version 1.0.0-draftEffective 16 August 2026Updated 15 August 2026
Kibu is a family app used by parents and by children. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and how you control it. Because most of our users are children, we hold ourselves to children's privacy rules everywhere we operate — not only where the law compels it.
1. Who we are
Kibu is operated by Kibu Company, 8098 Hajr, Dhahran 34254, Saudi Arabia. We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy — meaning we decide what is collected and why.
You can reach our privacy team at [email protected]. If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you may also contact our representative for your region — see section 14.
2. Who this policy covers
Kibu has two kinds of user. A parent or guardian holds the account, pays for the subscription and controls the family's settings. A child uses a separate, limited profile created by that parent.
A child cannot create a Kibu account. Only a parent or guardian can create a child profile, and only after giving the consents described in section 5.
There is a plain-language version of this policy written for children at getkibu.com/privacy-for-kids. Children should read that one.
3. What we collect
We separate this into what we collect about parents and what we collect about children, because the rules and our commitments differ.
3.1 About parents and guardians
| Data | Why we collect it | Legal basis (UK/EU) |
|---|---|---|
| Full name, email address, password (stored only as a cryptographic hash) | To create and secure your account | Performance of a contract |
| Phone number (in some countries) | To verify it is really you, and to recover your account | Performance of a contract; legitimate interests in account security |
| Country, derived once at registration | To apply the right children's privacy rules and the right language to your family | Legal obligation |
| Your relationship to the child (for example parent, guardian, elder sibling) | To set what you are permitted to do in the family | Performance of a contract |
| Subscription and transaction identifiers | To manage billing and to verify parental consent | Performance of a contract; legal obligation |
| Messages you send to our AI assistant | To answer your questions about your family's activity | Performance of a contract |
| Consent records: what you agreed to, when, the notice version, your IP address, device and app version | To prove we obtained your consent lawfully | Legal obligation |
| Device and app diagnostics | To keep the app working and fix faults | Legitimate interests |
3.2 About children
Everything below is collected only after a parent has given the consents in section 5. Some of it the parent provides; some the child provides themselves inside the app.
| Data | Who provides it | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Full name, date of birth, gender | Parent | To personalise the app and to set age-appropriate activities |
| Username and PIN | Child | To let the child sign in to their own profile |
| A photograph of the child's face | Child, using the camera | Used once to generate a cartoon avatar, then deleted. See section 9. |
| The generated cartoon avatar | Derived | Shown as the child's picture in the app, and to friends if the social feature is on |
| Photographs attached to completed missions | Child | So a parent can see and approve what the child did |
| Posts: captions and photographs | Child | Shared with approved friends, if the social feature is on |
| Messages within the family chat | Child | To let family members talk to each other. Children cannot message anyone outside their family. |
| Friend connections, reactions and stickers | Child | To run the social feature |
| Mission history, points, level, streak, badges, coins | Derived | To run the game mechanics and produce the weekly report |
| Answers to the daily question | Child | To generate the family's daily activity |
| Device notification token | Device | To deliver notifications to the child's device |
3.3 What we deliberately do not collect
- We do not collect a child's email address, phone number or home address.
- We do not collect precise location from children.
- We do not retain the original photograph of a child's face after their avatar is generated.
- We do not serve advertising of any kind, to anyone, and we do not sell personal data.
- We do not let children talk to an AI chatbot. The AI assistant is available to parents only.
- We do not request the advertising identifier on any platform.
4. How we use what we collect
We do not use children's personal data for behavioural advertising, and we do not build advertising profiles. We do not use children's personal data to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.
- To run the app: accounts, sign-in, missions, rewards, chat, notifications.
- To generate a cartoon avatar from a photograph the child takes.
- To produce mission suggestions and a weekly summary for the parent.
- To keep children safe: screening content, handling reports, enforcing our community guidelines.
- To take payment and manage subscriptions.
- To understand how the app is used and improve it — for children, only where a parent has given verified consent.
- To meet our legal obligations and to prove we did.
5. Parental consent
Before we collect anything from a child, we ask the parent for consent — separately, for each distinct purpose, so agreeing to one does not silently agree to another.
We verify that the person consenting is the account holder by reference to the payment transaction on the account. Kibu has no free tier, so every family has a payment on record.
The full text of each consent notice is published at getkibu.com/parental-consent. Each is separately revocable at any time from Settings, and revoking one does not close the account.
| Consent | What it allows | If you decline |
|---|---|---|
| Child profile | Collecting the child's name, date of birth and gender, and creating their profile | The child profile cannot be created. This consent is required to use Kibu with a child. |
| Kibu Club (social) | Letting the child connect with approved friends in other families and share posts with them | The child uses Kibu without the social features. Everything else works. |
| Avatar generation | Sending a photograph of the child's face to our AI provider once, to create a cartoon avatar | The child picks a ready-made character instead. No photograph is taken. |
| AI personalisation | Sending information about the child's activity to our AI provider to suggest missions and write your weekly report | You get standard missions and a weekly report without AI commentary. |
| Product analytics | Sending information about how the child uses the app to our analytics provider | Nothing about the child is sent to our analytics provider. The app works identically. |
6. Analytics, and how we treat children differently
We use a third-party analytics provider to understand how Kibu is used. For adults this runs on our legitimate interest in improving the product, and you can object at any time.
For children it is different, and stricter. If a parent has not given verified consent for analytics, we collect nothing at all about that child — not a reduced set, not an anonymised event. No event is sent.
Where consent has been given, a child's analytics is still limited: a fixed list of permitted fields, no location, no advertising identifier, and no marketing profile. We do not create analytics profiles for children.
We do not rely on the COPPA 'support for internal operations' exception to collect from children without consent.
8. Artificial intelligence
Kibu uses AI in four places, all described in full at getkibu.com/ai. In summary: generating a cartoon avatar from a photograph; screening what a child types before it is used; suggesting missions to a parent; and writing the parent's weekly summary.
No AI provider is permitted to train on your family's data. Children cannot converse with an AI. The avatar is AI-generated imagery and is labelled as such in the app.
9. Photographs of children
This is the most sensitive thing we handle, so we are specific about it.
When a child creates an avatar, they take a photograph. It is sent once to our AI provider, used to generate a cartoon, and then deleted. We do not keep the original photograph. If the child wants a different avatar later, they take a new photograph.
Mission photographs and post photographs are kept for the periods in our retention policy and are deleted when that period ends, when the parent deletes them, or when the account is deleted.
We do not use facial recognition. We do not create or store faceprints or facial templates. We do not attempt to identify anyone from a photograph.
Photographs are stored encrypted and are not publicly accessible. Access requires an authenticated request from the family the photograph belongs to, or from our support staff under the access controls in our security programme.
10. How long we keep it
We do not keep children's personal data indefinitely. Every category has a defined retention period and an automated deletion process.
The full table — what we keep, why we need to keep it, and for how long — is published at getkibu.com/data-retention. It forms part of this policy.
One deliberate exception: records of the consents you gave survive account deletion, because they are the evidence that we collected your child's data lawfully. They contain no content about your child.
11. Your rights and controls
As a parent or guardian you can, at any time and from within the app: review everything we hold about your child; download it as a file; correct it; delete an individual item, the child's profile, or the whole family account; withdraw any consent; and turn the social features off.
Depending on where you live you may also have rights to object to processing, to restrict it, to portability, and to complain to a regulator. How to exercise each, what we need from you, and how quickly we respond is set out at getkibu.com/your-rights.
We never charge for these, and we never require you to create an account or install anything to exercise them.
12. Security
We maintain a written information security programme covering children's personal data, with a named individual responsible for it, regular risk assessments, and annual review. A summary is published at getkibu.com/security.
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access by our staff is limited to those who need it and is logged. We require the same standard in writing from every service provider.
13. International transfers
Kibu is operated from Saudi Arabia and uses service providers located in PROCESSOR_REGIONS. This means personal data may be transferred across borders.
Where data leaves the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, we rely on TRANSFER_MECHANISM — for example, Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum — together with technical measures. Where data leaves Saudi Arabia, we comply with the transfer conditions in the Personal Data Protection Law.
You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards that apply to any specific transfer.
14. Our representatives in the UK and EU
Because Kibu is established outside the United Kingdom and the European Union, we have appointed representatives you can contact directly about your data.
European Union: EU_REPRESENTATIVE_NAME, EU_REPRESENTATIVE_ADDRESS, EU_REPRESENTATIVE_EMAIL.
United Kingdom: UK_REPRESENTATIVE_NAME, UK_REPRESENTATIVE_ADDRESS, UK_REPRESENTATIVE_EMAIL.
Contacting a representative has the same effect as contacting us.
15. Complaints
Please contact us first at [email protected] — we would rather fix it. You also have the right to complain directly to a regulator.
Saudi Arabia: the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA). United Kingdom: the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). European Union: your national supervisory authority. United States: the Federal Trade Commission (ftc.gov), and your State Attorney General.
16. Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle children's personal data in a way that goes beyond what you already agreed to, we will not apply the change to your family until we have asked you again and you have said yes. Silence is never treated as agreement.
For other changes we will tell you in the app and by email at least 30 days beforehand. Every previous version stays available at getkibu.com/privacy-policy/archive.
The full policy set
This policy is one of 13. The rest cover children’s privacy, consent, retention, security, AI and the terms you agree to.
For parents
Children's Privacy Policy
This is the notice required by the United States Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and it also serves as our children's privacy statement for the United Kingdom, the European Union, Saudi Arabia and the US states with children's design codes. It sits alongside our main Privacy Policy and, where the two differ, this one governs anything to do with a child.
/childrens-privacy
For parents
Parental Consent Notices
Kibu asks for your consent separately for each thing we want to do with your child's information, so that agreeing to one never silently agrees to another. This page holds the full text of every consent we ask for. Each is the notice referenced by the corresponding checkbox in the app.
/parental-consent
For parents
Data Retention Policy
How long Kibu keeps each kind of information, why we need to keep it that long, and what happens when the time is up. COPPA requires us to publish this, and we treat it as a specification our systems must actually implement — not a statement of intent.
/data-retention
For parents
Terms of Service
The agreement between you and Kibu. It covers who may hold an account, what you are responsible for, subscriptions and refunds, and how either of us can end the agreement.
/terms
For parents
Cookies and Tracking
What the Kibu website stores on your device, and what the Kibu app stores on your phone. There is no advertising tracking anywhere in Kibu, and nothing at all is tracked on a child's device without a parent's verified consent.
/cookies
Parents and kids
Community Guidelines and Content Moderation Policy
What is allowed on Kibu, how we check, what happens when something breaks the rules, and how to report it. This is a safety document as much as a legal one — it exists because children can see what other children post.
/community-guidelines
For parents
Your Rights and How to Use Them
What you can ask us to do with your family's data, how to ask, what we need from you, and how long we take. Everything here is free, and most of it you can do yourself in the app without contacting us at all.
/your-rights
For parents
Service Providers and Sub-processors
Every company that handles your family's data on our behalf, what each one receives, where it is processed, and what we require of them in writing. We publish this because you cannot judge whether your child's data is safe without knowing who holds it.
/subprocessors
For parents
How Kibu Uses AI
Kibu uses AI in four places. This page says exactly where, what is sent, who receives it, what we forbid them to do with it, and what your child can and cannot do with AI. Children never talk to an AI in Kibu.
/ai
For schools
Kibu and Schools — FERPA and Student Privacy
Kibu is a consumer family product. We contract with parents, not with schools, and we hold no education records. This page explains our position on FERPA and US state student-privacy laws, and states plainly what we will not do.
/schools
For parents
Security at Kibu
A public summary of how we protect your family's data. The full written programme is an internal document; this page tells you what it covers and how to reach us if you find a problem.
/security
Written for kids
Your Privacy, Explained
A version of our privacy policy written for the children who use Kibu. Required by the ICO Children's Code, which says information must be presented in a way children can actually understand — and by the EU's rules on protecting minors online.
/privacy-for-kids