Privacy notice
Last updated 24 September 2026
The short version. This site sets no cookies and counts no visitors. The printable pages need no email address and no account. If you buy a book, we are told your child’s first name and the other words you chose, because they get printed in the book — and we delete them once the book has been printed and the return period has passed. Nothing about you or your child is ever sold, shared for advertising, or used for anything but making and sending the thing you ordered.
Who is responsible
StoriesAhead is run by Iain Brown, based in Portugal. For data-protection purposes he is the controller of the personal information described here, and the way to reach him about any of it is hello@storiesaheadbooks.com.
This website
There are no cookies on this site, no analytics, and no tracking of any kind. We do not count visitors and we could not tell you how many there have been. That is why you have never seen a cookie banner here: there is nothing to consent to.
The printable pages are ordinary files. Downloading them tells us nothing about you — no address, no account, no record that you were here.
Your child’s name, and what happens to it
This is the part worth reading properly, because it is the part that is genuinely personal.
Each book is personalised. When you order, you give the name your child is called, the name they call the grown-up who will be with them, what their comfort object is called, and sometimes the name of the dentist or teacher they are about to meet. On the card at the back you may also write their age.
- Where it goes. You give it to Etsy when you order. Etsy passes it to us. We pass it to our printer, Gelato, because the words have to reach the machine that prints them.
- Where it is printed. Gelato prints in whichever of its production countries is nearest to your delivery address, which may be outside Europe. That is how the book reaches you quickly and with a small carbon cost, and it means your child’s first name may be processed outside the EEA.
- What we do with it. Make your book. Nothing else. It is not added to any mailing list, not used to work out anything about your child, and not kept to make selling to you easier later.
- How long. Until the book has been printed and the return period has passed, after which we delete the personalisation details. We keep what the tax rules oblige us to keep about the sale itself — that is the order, not your child.
- What we never ask for. Whether your child is autistic, or has any diagnosis, or anything at all about their health. We do not want to know and we have no box for it.
Etsy is the shop the order is placed through and collects its own information when you buy. What they do with it is governed by their privacy notice rather than this one.
If you join the mailing list
There is an optional box on the printables page where you can leave your email address. Nothing is hidden behind it — the printable pages download freely whether you fill it in or not. The box itself offers two separate ticks, and you may choose either, both, or neither.
- “Tell me when there are new printable pages.” A short message when we add new ones.
- “Tell me about new books as well.” Asked separately and on purpose. Ticking the first does not tick this one, and consent to one is never read as consent to the other.
If you tick neither, we do not add you at all, and we tell you so rather than quietly signing you up.
- What is stored: your email address, which of the two ticks you chose, when you first gave it and when it last changed. We also store a one-way scrambled version of your internet address as evidence of when consent was given — it cannot be turned back into your address, and we do not keep the original.
- The legal basis is your consent, given separately for each tick, and you can withdraw either at any time without giving a reason.
- Where it is kept: in Cloudflare’s storage, which also serves this site. Cloudflare is a United States company and this storage replicates across its network, so your address may be held outside the EEA. Emails are sent from a mailbox on Zoho Mail’s European data centres.
- How long: until you come off, or until the list is wound up. It will not be kept “just in case”.
- How to come off: every email carries an unsubscribe link that works without a login and does not expire. Using it deletes your address rather than marking it as inactive. You can also simply write to us.
If you tell us about a day you are dreading
There is a second box asking what we should write about next. It is deliberately anonymous: it has no email field, and we could not reply to you even if we wanted to.
- What is stored: the words you typed and the date. Nothing else — no address, no scrambled internet address, nothing that could connect it to you or to an order.
- How long: ninety days, after which it deletes itself automatically rather than waiting for somebody to remember.
- Please do not name your child or write anything that identifies them. We only need the occasion. If something identifying does arrive, we remove it.
Who else is involved
- Cloudflare — serves this website and stores the mailing list.
- Etsy — the shop where orders are placed and paid for.
- Gelato — prints and ships the books.
- Zoho Mail — the mailbox we write from, on European servers.
Nobody else. Your information is never sold, rented, or passed to anyone to advertise at you.
Your rights
You can ask to see what is held about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to how it is used, to receive a copy in a portable form, and to withdraw consent at any time. Ask at hello@storiesaheadbooks.com and it will be done rather than merely acknowledged.
If you think any of this has been handled badly, you can complain to your national data-protection authority. In Portugal that is the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (CNPD), and complaining is free.
Changes to this notice
If this notice changes, the date at the top changes with it. Nothing already collected will be put to a new purpose without asking you first.