Privacy and data safety

StoryBeam Kids keeps the listening room local.

StoryBeam Kids is a closed-catalog kids audio app. The website does not require accounts, does not run ads, and does not load analytics. The listening room is designed so a child can browse reviewed audio without chat, comments, open search, or surprise feeds.

This page describes the StoryBeam Kids website at storybeamkids.com, and the iOS app that shows that same listening room. If a parent opens the App Store, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or another outside service from Parent Corner, that service handles its own data under its own policy.

What stays in the browser

• Watchlists and playlists: saved only in the browser's local storage on the device.
• Filters and player state: saved locally so the listening room feels familiar when it reopens.
• Night Glow, Calm Mode, and Dark Mode: saved locally so bedtime settings can load before the page paints, on the listening room and in the Reading Nook alike.
• Reading Nook storybooks: the text size you picked, how far you have read in each storybook, and which books a grown-up has stamped as read together are saved locally, so a book can open back to your spot and a finished book can wear its star (and heart) on the shelf.
• Grown-up check attempts: when the math check is answered wrong a few times in a row, the count and a short wait (up to thirty seconds) are saved locally so reloading the page cannot skip the wait. It clears itself after ten quiet minutes or as soon as the check is passed.
• Service worker cache: stores the app's own shell files and local assets so the page can load on weak bedtime wifi.
• Episodes you keep offline: when "Keep offline" is pressed on an episode, that episode's audio file is downloaded and stored on the device so it plays without a connection. Nothing is uploaded, and unpinning the episode deletes the stored copy.
• Listener names: adding or renaming a listener is behind the grown-up check, so a child cannot be prompted for their name on their own. Whatever a grown-up types is saved on this device alongside that listener's stickers and resume points, and is never sent anywhere. A first name or nickname is all the app needs.

In the iOS app

What the app saves outside the browser

The iOS app shows the same listening room, so everything above applies inside it too. The app itself saves two small things of its own, which sit in the app's own storage rather than the browser's:

• Welcome screen: whether the opening screen has already been shown, so the app does not greet you again on every launch.
• Grown-up check attempts: the same wrong-answer count and short wait described above, kept by the app as well so that quitting and reopening it cannot skip the wait.

Neither is sent anywhere, and neither is attached to a name or an account. Deleting the app removes both, along with everything the listening room saved inside it.

What the website does not ask for

• StoryBeam Kids does not ask children to create accounts.
• StoryBeam Kids does not include comments, messaging, or chat.
• StoryBeam Kids does not load advertising pixels or analytics scripts on the website.
• StoryBeam Kids does not host or re-upload podcast audio. Episodes stream from each publisher's own host, which means the publisher's server sees the request the way it would in any podcast app. The only copies StoryBeam Kids stores are episodes explicitly saved for offline listening, and those stay on the device.
• Many podcast feeds wrap their episode links in advertising-measurement redirects that log a listen before passing it along. StoryBeam Kids strips those hops and points at the publisher's file directly, so pressing play does not route your child through a measurement chain. A check runs against the catalog to keep it that way.

Emails you choose to send

Book nominations. Nominating a book happens in your own email app rather than in a form here. The ready-to-fill email asks for a book title and author. A first name or nickname and an age are optional, and they exist for one reason: if we read the book, the credit goes in the episode title, the way "Nominated by Aziza, age 5" does.

That credit is public and permanent once the episode is published. It travels in the episode title to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and we cannot pull it back out of a podcast app that already downloaded the feed. So send a nickname instead if you would rather, and please leave out photos, school names, addresses, and anything else private. If you change your mind, write to the same address and we will rename what we still control here.

Support email. The support page and the iOS app's Settings screen can open your email app to support@storybeamkids.com. If you write, our inbox receives your email address and whatever you put in the message. We use it to reply and troubleshoot. Please leave out a child's name, photo, voice recording, location, school, and other personal details.

Seeing and erasing what is stored

• Open Grown-ups in the listening room and pass the grown-up check. The On this device panel lists what is saved: listener names, playlists, watchlist shows, stickers, and offline episodes. The full list of everything the browser keeps is above.
• Erase everything on this device in that same panel clears all of it, including audio kept for offline listening and any grown-up check wait. It asks for confirmation first and cannot be undone.
• Clearing the browser's site data for storybeamkids.com does the same thing on the web, because nothing the site saves lives on a server. In the iOS app, deleting the app clears the same data, plus the two app-only values described above. There is no account to close. Emails you choose to send us do not live on your device: a book nomination or support note sits in our inbox like any other email, and a published nomination credit works the way described above.

Parent links only

Where outside links live

Outside links never open straight from the kids' listening room. Every App Store, podcast, social, book, and research link on this site opens through the grown-up check. They live on the parent-facing pages: the episode guide and episode pages, the blog, Parent Corner, and the shared story page a friend can send you.