Tohil is an interactive audiobook. This page says what we collect, why, which companies process it for us and where, and how long we keep it.
The short version: we keep what we need to run your stories. We don’t show ads, we don’t sell your data, we don’t use tracking cookies, and we don’t train AI models on your stories.
Who we are
Tohil is made in Wellington, New Zealand, and Cancún, Mexico. The operator is TODO: legal name. Questions about your data: TODO: contact email.
What we collect
- Your account: the email address you sign in with (we send you a code; there is no password). If you play as a guest, your account has no email until you add one.
- Your sessions: while you are signed in, our sign-in system (Better Auth) stores each session with the IP address and user agent (your browser and device type) it was opened from. We use them to keep you signed in and to spot abuse.
- Your stories: your worlds (seeds), stories in progress (sprouts) and finished stories (trees): the text of every turn, your actions and choices, and the state of the story. Each story is saved as one file on our servers, with an index of your stories (title, last update, size) in our database.
- Narration audio: the audio of each turn and its word timings, stored so a replay costs nothing. This includes a short voice sample made for each character the first time they speak, so they keep the same voice.
- What you’ve played: a count of your play in sunstones, to apply the free daily allowance.
- On your device: your settings (such as text size and autoplay) in your browser’s local storage, and a cached copy of your stories so they resume instantly. Both stay on your device.
We don’t collect anything else. Tohil has no voice input and never uses your microphone. We don’t use advertising or analytics trackers.
Who processes your data, and where
These companies process data for us, each only what it needs for its task. The text we send to the AI and voice providers is your story’s text; it doesn’t include your email.
| Processor | What it handles | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Runs the site and the app. Stores your account, sessions, stories and audio. Sends sign-in emails, checks that a sign-in comes from a person (Turnstile), and routes requests to the narrator. | Cloudflare’s global network: each request is handled at a nearby location (for example Sydney). Database and storage region: TODO. |
| DeepSeek | The narrator and the Game Master: the story so far, your actions and your questions. The web searches made for a turn. | DeepSeek’s servers in the People’s Republic of China. |
| BytePlus | Full-cast voices (Seed Audio): the script of each turn, and each character’s voice sample as a reference. | BytePlus’s Singapore endpoint. |
| DeepInfra | Narrated stories read by the Kokoro voice: the text of each turn. | United States. |
| Kitten TTS | Narrated stories read by the Kitten voice: the text of each turn. | TODO: provider and location. |
| Your browser | Narrated stories read by an on-device voice (Web Speech): the text of each turn. | On your device. Some browsers send the text to their maker’s servers to speak it, for example Chrome’s Google voices. |
How long we keep it
- Your account: until you delete it.
- Sessions, with their IP address and user agent: until you sign out or the session expires.
- Sign-in codes: a few minutes.
- Your stories: until you delete them, or your account.
- Narration audio: deleted 180 days after it was last played. A story you come back to keeps its audio; if you return after the audio is gone, the turn’s text is still there.
Sharing a story
When you share a sprout or a tree, anyone with the link or the file can read the story and hear its audio. A shared story doesn’t include your email.
Your choices
- Download any of your stories as a file, and its narration as audio files.
- Delete a story, or your whole account and everything stored with it, from Settings.
- Ask us what we hold about you, or to correct it, at the contact address above.
Depending on where you live, you may have further rights, for example under New Zealand’s Privacy Act 2020 or Mexico’s federal data protection law.
Age
Tohil is for adults, 18 and over.
Running your own Tohil
Tohil is open source. If you run your own copy with your own keys, you are its operator, and this policy doesn’t cover it.
Changes
When this policy changes, we update this page and the date at the top.