Your data, in plain words

Parenthèse is free, has no ads, and sells nothing. This page explains what the app stores, why, who can see it, and how to get your data back or erase it. It is written from the code, not from a privacy policy template.

Who is responsible

Ilies Allali, who designs and hosts Parenthèse. For any question or request about your data, just send an email to pro.allali.ilies@gmail.com.

What Parenthèse stores

Your account. Your email address and your password, stored as a hash (bcrypt), so no one can read it back, including me. The date the account was created and the last tree you opened, to take you back to it when you log in. The first name asked for at sign-up is not sent to the server, it stays in your browser.

Your trees. The name, the description, the sharing address, the settings, and the sharing password. It is hashed to check access, and kept encrypted so the owner can read it again and send it to their family.

The people. What you enter for each of them (first name, last name, birth name, dates and places of birth and death, occupation, region, nationality, sex, notes, portrait). And the unions and parent-child links that connect them.

The media. Photos, videos, audio recordings, documents, GPS tracks, quotes and YouTube links attached to a person, with their caption and source. A photo can be up to 5 MB, any other file up to 20 MB. Photos are saved again without their metadata (GPS location, device, date taken), and the location is removed from phone videos. On top of that come the annotations placed on the tree itself, such as text, drawings, stickers and photos.

Contributions. When someone suggests a change, Parenthèse keeps the suggestion, the state before and after, who submitted it (a member's email address, or for access by password the first name the person gave, otherwise “Contributor”) and the decision made.

The tree's log. Every creation, change and deletion is dated and attributed to an account or to an access by password. The owner can view it. It is there to know who changed what.

Visits. Each time a tree is opened, it is recorded with the date, the type of device (phone, tablet or computer), the account if there is one, and the first name if the person gave it when opening the tree. The IP address is not kept. Only a fingerprint that cannot be reversed is used to count distinct visitors. The owner of the tree can see these visits. They are erased after one year.

Technical logs. Like any web server, the Parenthèse server records the requests it receives (IP address, page requested, errors) to run and troubleshoot the service.

Why

To make the tree work, and nothing else. No profiling, no advertising, no reselling, no sharing with third parties other than the technical service providers named on this page. Viewing a shared tree does not require an account, the link and a password are enough.

Who can see what

A tree is never public. The app blocks search engines from indexing it, and none of its content is visible without the link and a password.

• The owner, the account that created the tree, sees and edits everything. They choose the sharing password, approve contributions, view the log and the visits, and export and delete the tree.
• The family has received the link and the sharing password. They can view everything and suggest additions, memories, photos, people. By default, these wait for the owner's approval before they appear.

Anyone who has the link and a password sees the whole tree, including living people with their dates, places and notes, and can export it as a GEDCOM file.

The sharing password opens a 24-hour session. An account session lasts 7 days, or less if you log out. When the owner changes the sharing password, every session opened with the old one is closed, including those linked to an account.

Where it is hosted, and for how long

On a server rented from Hostinger, which I manage. The database (PostgreSQL) and the media files are stored there. The files sit in a folder outside the web, and are only served to someone with a valid access session for the tree. Traffic between you and the site and the app goes over HTTPS.

Backups of the database and the media are kept for 14 days, then deleted. Data you erase in the app can therefore still exist in a backup for two weeks.

Your data is kept for as long as your account exists.

What comes from elsewhere

The fonts of the site and the app are served by Parenthèse, with no call to Google.

Two outside services are only contacted when someone opens the content that uses them. A YouTube video added to a tree loads from youtube-nocookie.com, when it is opened. A map that shows a single place is displayed over an OpenStreetMap background, when it is opened (tracks are drawn by Parenthèse itself). YouTube or OpenStreetMap then receive the IP address of the person watching, never the address of the tree.

Audience measurement

Parenthèse uses PostHog to count visits and see what gets used. PostHog is hosted in the United States, and the usage data described here is sent there.

Here is what is measured, and nothing more. On the website, page views, scrolling, clicks on the “Start your tree” buttons, with where they came from (previous page, mobile or computer). In the app, opening the account screen, creating an account or a tree, and for shared trees, opening them, the time spent and the type of content viewed (text, photo, video), with the type of access. The tree is identified there by a scrambled code, never by its name.

There is no automatic capture of clicks or pages, and no session recording. No tree content (name, person, photo) is sent, and neither is the address of the tree, which is removed from links before anything is sent. When you are logged in to your account, a technical account identifier (never your email address) links your visits together. A cookie is set on parenthese.io and its subdomains to recognize the same visit across the site and the app.

Your rights

• View. Everything Parenthèse knows about your tree is in the app.
• Export. Tree settings, Data section, “Download .ged” button. GEDCOM is a standard file format that other family tree software can read. It contains the people and their links, not the media files.
• Delete a tree. Tree settings, Advanced tab, “Delete this tree”. The tree disappears right away for everyone, the owner included. It is permanently erased (people, links, media, contributions and log) from the database as well as from the disk. Only the backups still hold it, for 14 days at most.
• Delete your account. Account menu, “My account” then “Manage my account”, “Delete my account” button, then your password to confirm. Your account and the trees you created are permanently erased, along with their media. Other families' trees that you had access to stay with their owners. Your contributions to them are kept, anonymized, without your name or your email address. All your sessions are closed, on all your devices.
• Waiting list. It is closed. If you signed up before the launch, your email, your first name and the page you signed up from are still stored in the database and at Resend, the service provider that sent the confirmation. Just send an email to have them removed.
• Complaints. If you believe your rights are not being respected, you can file a complaint with the CNIL, France's data protection authority.

Keeping your data at home

The code of Parenthèse is public, under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 license. A family that would rather not entrust anything to anyone can install Parenthèse on its own server. It then has everything (database, files and backups) without going through me. The code and the instructions are on github.com/IliesAllali/parenthese.

Last updated

September 30, 2026. This page changes when the code changes.