What we keep

Everything we hold about you

Six kinds of thing, and a list of the guesses we have made. Each one says what it is, why we have it, how long it stays and who sees it. Each one has a remove button that works.

Using a photograph is not keeping a photograph

Most sites blur these two. We do not. A photograph you put in one gift is used for that gift and lives inside it. It is not added to a library, it is not looked at again, and when you delete the gift it goes.

A photograph you asked us to remember is a different thing with a different button. You have to tick it. Both are listed separately below.

The six kinds

The people you told us about

What it is: A first name, and what they are to you. Mum, Ollie, my sister. Nothing else unless you type it.
Why we keep it: So you do not answer the same question every time you make something for the same person.
How long: Until you remove them. There is no clock on it and we do not tidy it up for you.
Who sees it: You. Our printing team never sees a name, they see a file and an address label.

4 people saved

The dates you saved

What it is: A day and a month you told us matters, and the person it belongs to. Not a year unless you gave us one.
Why we keep it: To tell you it is coming while there is still time to print something and post it.
How long: Until you remove the date or the person. Both controls are on your people page.
Who sees it: You. A date is never shown to the person it is about and never leaves Printerpix.

8 dates saved

Photographs used in one gift

What it is: The photographs inside a gift you made. They live in that gift, not in a library.
Why we keep it: So the thing can be printed, and reprinted if it arrives damaged or you want another one.
How long: As long as the gift exists. Delete the gift and the photographs in it go at the same time.
Who sees it: You, and the press that prints it. Never used to make anything else, and never used to train anything.

6 gifts

Photographs you asked us to remember

What it is: Photographs you ticked to keep. This is the only set we can reach for when we start something new.
Why we keep it: So the next gift can start half-made instead of from an empty page.
How long: Until you remove them. Removing them does not touch a gift you have already printed.
Who sees it: You. Nobody at Printerpix opens this set. It is not used to train anything and it is not sold.

18 photographs kept

What you asked for

What it is: Your answers, who it is for, what is being marked and when, how it should feel, what we can use, and anything you typed.
Why we keep it: So you can come back to a brief and change it rather than start again, and so we can tell when we read you wrong.
How long: Twelve months, then it goes on its own. You can remove it sooner.
Who sees it: You. If you record a voice note it stays on your device and we never receive the audio. If that ever changes, it gets its own line on this page first.

6 briefs

What you bought

What it is: The receipt. What it was, what it cost, where it went, when it arrived.
Why we keep it: A refund, a reprint or a lost parcel all need the record of the order that caused them.
How long: Six years. This is the one thing on this page you cannot delete, and we would rather say so plainly than bury it.
Who sees it: You, and the person who helps you if you get in touch about that order, that order only.

Receipts stay. The photographs and words do not have to.

Nothing removed. All six kinds are held, and each one has its own button.

Told and guessed

What you told us, and what we worked out

Everything above is something you typed or ticked. Below is everything we inferred. It is labelled, it says where it came from, and you can correct it or throw it away.

A guess only ever forms a question. You will never see one of these stated back to you as though it were a fact, and we never act on one until you have answered it.

Is there a date in June that matters to Elaine?Guessed

Where this came from: A few of your photographs of her are from the same week in June. Only answer if you’d like us to remember it.

Was your August 2019 trip to Whitby?Guessed

Where this came from: There’s a harbour in your photographs from that August, and we’d rather ask than guess the name.

Is Sarah’s rabbit called Pip?Guessed

Where this came from: You wrote the name Pip once, beside a photograph of a rabbit.

Five things we do not work out about you

Whether someone has died. A memorial gift is only ever something you tell us you are making, and we never raise it first.
Whether anyone is pregnant, or has stopped being.
What you believe. Buying for Eid or Diwali tells us about a gift, not about you.
Anyone’s health.
Whether a relationship has ended. People stay on your list until you take them off, and nothing changes tone because an order stopped.

If a guess would have landed in one of those five, it does not get made. There is no quiet version of it held back for later.

Photographs

Where your camera wrote the location, we do not have it

Your phone writes more than pixels into a photograph. Tucked in beside the image is a small block of text called EXIF, and in it is usually the exact spot where you were standing.

When you choose a photograph, we don’t take your original file. Your device makes a fresh copy of the picture at the size we need, and that copy holds the picture and nothing else. The location isn’t copied across, so it never reaches us.

It happens on your device, before anything is sent. The original file stays where it is.
It also loses the date and the camera model, which were in the same block. We decided that was the right trade and we are not going to pretend it was free.
Some photographs, HEIC ones straight off an iPhone in particular, the browser cannot open at all. Those are named rather than quietly dropped, so you can see one did not make it.

The rest of it

What we hold is one half. The other half is how the ideas get chosen out of everything we could have shown you, and the people you have told us about.

Example account: the people, dates, guesses and counts on this page are sample content, and the remove buttons change this browser tab only.