This translation is provided for information only. The French version alone is authoritative.
Privacy policy
Last updated: 8 September 2026
This is an informative translation. The French version is the legally binding one and prevails in the event of any divergence. Read the French version.
Kinstrel is a shared family tree. That means the records you create are visible to other users, and records created by others may concern you. This page explains exactly who sees what, why, and how you take back control.
1. Who is the controller
Mathieu Gentges, publisher of the site, whose details appear in the legal notice. For any question about your data: support@kinstrel.com.
2. Legal basis
Processing rests on the legitimate interest in genealogical research (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).
That interest is not unlimited, and we have balanced it against your rights through the strict rules set out in section 4: living people are protected by default, minors more strictly still, and anyone can become entirely invisible.
For deceased people the Regulation does not apply — it protects the living only. We nevertheless apply a principle of respect, and relatives may request the removal of information.
3. What data is processed
For your account: your email address, your language, your sign-in dates, and a non-reversible hash of your IP address for sign-in requests and document access.
For person records: surname, given names, birth surname, sex, dates and places of birth, death and union, occupation, free-form notes, family links, photographs, civil-status documents, links to external sources.
We do not collect health data, political, religious or trade-union opinions, sexual orientation, biometric or genetic data. Uploading identity cards, passports, driving licences, complete family record books and bank details is forbidden, and the upload screen says so before any file is chosen.
4. Who sees what
This is the heart of the system. Visibility depends on the degree of kinship between you and the person concerned, counted in family links.
| Situation | What is visible |
|---|---|
| Deceased person | Any signed-in user sees the record |
| Living person, more than 4 links away | The words “living person”. No name, no date, no photograph, no document |
| Living person, 4 links or fewer | Given name, surname, year of birth only. No exact date, no precise place, no documents |
| Minor | Never visible beyond 2 links. Never a photograph or document accessible to a third party, without exception |
| A record you have taken over | You set its level, up to total invisibility |
This filtering happens on the server, before sending: information you are not entitled to see never reaches your browser, not even hidden. It applies identically to display, search, export and printing.
Someone born more than 110 years ago with no known date of death is automatically presumed deceased.
5. How long
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| User account | As long as the account exists, then deleted |
| Genealogical records | Indefinitely: they are the shared heritage of the graph |
| Sign-in links | 15 minutes |
| Sessions | 90 days (12 hours for the admin console) |
| Document access log | 12 months |
| Administrative action log | 12 months |
| Technical logs | 30 days |
| Merge snapshot, allowing reversal | 30 days |
6. Who else processes your data
The list below is kept current. Any new third-party service is added before it goes live, never after.
| Processor | Country | Purpose | Data concerned |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infomaniak Network SA | Switzerland | Hosting the application and database | All data |
| Sendinblue SAS (Brevo) | France | Sending transactional messages | Recipient email address, message content |
| Anthropic PBC | United States | Machine translation of messages sent to support@kinstrel.com | The content of those messages only |
About machine translation. Only the messages you send to support@kinstrel.com, and the replies sent to you, pass through that service. Never records, never documents, never photographs. Exchanges concerning data protection, deletion of information or individual rights are not machine-translated: they use pre-written, reviewed replies, one per language.
The transfer to the United States is covered by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses. The provider's retention policy is verified and documented before going live.
No trackers, no third-party analytics, no pixels are present on the site. The only cookie used is the strictly necessary one that keeps your session. That is why you are shown no consent banner: there is nothing to consent to.
7. Your rights
All are exercised from your account settings, with no request and no delay:
- Access — view all of your data;
- Rectification — edit your record;
- Portability — export in GEDCOM and JSON, free, at any time, without
watermark or restriction;
- Erasure — delete your account. A screen details exactly, before
confirmation, what is deleted and what is kept;
- Objection — set your visibility, up to becoming invisible everywhere.
If you have no account and find a record concerning you, a reporting form is available from that record and from the site footer. No sign-up is required. You receive an acknowledgement and a reply within one month.
8. What happens to your record if you delete your account
The graph survives; you disappear from it.
- Your record becomes an anonymous node: no name, no date, no place, no
photograph. It only links your parents to your children.
- Records of deceased ancestors you created are kept: others have completed
them, and descendants depend on them.
- Your identity disappears from the edit history, replaced by “deleted
contributor”.
- Documents you uploaded about living people are deleted; those concerning
deceased people are kept.
9. Security
Civil-status documents are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, using a key that is not stored in the database. They have random filenames, are never served directly, and every access is logged. Backups are encrypted and kept off the server.
In the event of a data breach posing a risk to your rights, you will be informed promptly, and the supervisory authority within 72 hours.
10. Complaints
You may lodge a complaint with the French data protection authority (CNIL), 3 place de Fontenoy, TSA 80715, 75334 Paris Cedex 07 — https://www.cnil.fr — or with the authority of your country of residence.