Privacy Policy
Last updated: 20 August 2026
Tale Time Studio makes personalised children's storybooks and colouring-in books. To do that we have to collect personal information, including photographs of children. We take that seriously. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it and what you can ask us to do about it.
It should be read together with our Terms and Conditions.
1. Who is responsible for your information
| Responsible party | Tale Time Studio, a sole proprietorship |
| Owner and Information Officer | Richard Christopher Melvin |
| Physical address | 1 Howie Street, Rynfield, Benoni, 1501, South Africa |
| hello@taletime.studio | |
| Telephone | 072 242 0390 |
We process personal information in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).
2. What we collect
Contact and account information
Name and surname, email address, mobile or telephone number, billing address, delivery address and, where you create one, account login details.
Order and payment information
Order details, product selections, transaction references and payment status. We do not collect or store your card number. Card details are entered on Payfast's secure hosted payment page. See section 6.
Personalisation information
The child's first name, age or age range, language, story preferences, the names and roles of supporting characters such as siblings, grandparents, friends and pets, gift messages and occasion details.
Photographs
Photographs of the child and of any other person or pet who appears in the book. This is special personal information because it relates to a child and includes facial images, which is why section 4 deals with it separately.
Technical and usage information
IP address, browser and device type, operating system, referring source, pages visited, time on page, interactions and cookie data.
3. Why we process it, and on what basis
| What we do | Why we may do it under POPIA |
|---|---|
| Create, personalise, produce and deliver your order | Necessary to perform our contract with you |
| Process payment and prevent fraud | Contract, and our legitimate interest in protecting the business |
| Send previews, order updates and service emails | Contract |
| Provide customer support and handle refunds or reprints | Contract |
| Keep tax, accounting and order records | Legal obligation |
| Improve the website and our products, and measure marketing | Legitimate interest, and your consent for non-essential cookies |
| Send marketing emails | Your consent, which you may withdraw at any time |
| Process photographs of a child | Your explicit consent, given as the parent or legal guardian, or with their permission |
4. Photographs of children, and AI-assisted creation
This is the part of our processing that matters most, so we state it plainly.
What we do with photographs. We use the photographs you upload to create a stylised illustrated character that resembles the person in the photograph. That work is done using digital design tools and artificial intelligence image tools operated by us or by our service providers. The photograph itself never appears in the finished book. What appears is an illustration.
Consent. By uploading a photograph of a child you confirm that you are the parent or legal guardian of that child, or that you have their permission, and that you consent to the processing described here. You may withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us, although we cannot un-print a book that has already been produced.
What we do not do. We do not sell photographs. We do not publish them. We do not use them in advertising, on social media or on our website unless you have separately and expressly agreed in writing. We do not use them to train public artificial intelligence models.
How long we keep them. We keep photographs and the illustrated characters derived from them for 12 months after your order is delivered, so that we can reprint your book if it is lost or damaged and so that a follow-up order can reuse the same characters. After 12 months they are deleted.
Deleting them sooner. You can ask us to delete your photographs at any time after your book has been delivered. Email hello@taletime.studio and we will delete them within 30 days and confirm to you in writing. If you do this, a later reprint would need the photographs again.
5. Cookies, analytics and marketing measurement
We use cookies and similar technologies to keep the website working, remember your preferences, understand how visitors use the site and measure the effectiveness of our marketing. We use Google Analytics for this.
You can control or block cookies through your browser settings. Blocking some cookies may stop parts of the website working properly.
6. Payments
Payments are processed by Payfast. When you pay, you are taken to Payfast's secure hosted payment page.
Card transactions are acquired for Tale Time Studio by Payfast, who use the strongest encryption available and TLS (formerly known as Secure Sockets Layer) to secure the transaction. No card details are stored on the Tale Time Studio website.
Payfast processes your payment information under its own privacy policy, available at https://payfast.io/privacy-policy/.
7. Who we share information with
We do not sell your personal information.
We share only what is needed, and only with parties who help us run the business:
- Payfast, for payment processing
- Our hosting and database providers, for running the website and storing order data
- Our email provider, for order confirmations, previews and support
- Our printing partner in South Africa, which receives the print-ready book file and, for direct despatch, the delivery name and address
- Our courier, which receives the recipient's name, delivery address and mobile number
- Artificial intelligence and image processing providers, which process uploaded photographs solely to produce the illustrations for your book
- Google Analytics, for website measurement
- Our accountant, and any authority where the law requires it
Some of these providers store or process information outside South Africa. Where that happens we satisfy ourselves that the information receives a level of protection substantially similar to POPIA, whether through the provider's contractual commitments or through the law of the receiving country.
8. How long we keep information
| Information | Retention |
|---|---|
| Photographs and derived character illustrations | 12 months after delivery, or sooner on request |
| Order records, invoices and payment references | 5 years, as required by South African tax law |
| Contact and marketing preferences | Until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them |
| Website analytics data | As per our analytics provider's standard retention |
9. Security
We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect personal information against loss, misuse and unauthorised access. These include encrypted connections to the website, access controls on our systems and limiting who inside the business can see what.
No online system can be guaranteed completely secure. If a security compromise affects your personal information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.
10. Your rights
Subject to law, you may:
- ask what personal information we hold about you and get a copy of it
- ask us to correct or complete it
- ask us to delete it
- object to processing based on our legitimate interests
- withdraw consent for marketing or for photograph processing
- complain to us, and to the Information Regulator
To exercise any of these, email hello@taletime.studio. We respond within 30 days.
Information Regulator of South Africa
Website: https://inforegulator.org.za
Email: complaints.IR@justice.gov.za
11. Children using the website
The website is intended for adults buying a product for a child. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from a child. Any information about a child reaches us through a parent, guardian or authorised adult as part of an order.
12. Third-party links
The website may link to other sites. We are not responsible for how they handle personal information. Please read their policies before giving them anything.
13. Marketing
If you opt in, we may send you product news, offers and updates. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link, and you can also unsubscribe by emailing us. Unsubscribing from marketing does not stop transactional emails about an order you have placed.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. The updated version will be published here with a new "last updated" date. If a change materially affects how we handle your photographs, we will tell you directly.
15. Contact us
Tale Time Studio
- Email: hello@taletime.studio
- Telephone and WhatsApp: 072 242 0390
- Physical address: 1 Howie Street, Rynfield, Benoni, 1501, South Africa