Privacy Policy

At Panel & Ink, we take your privacy seriously. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our service.

Information We Collect

Information You Provide

We collect information you provide directly to us, such as:

• Account information: When you create an account, we collect your email address and password. Passwords are securely hashed and never stored in plain text.
• Profile information: You may provide additional information such as your name and profile picture.
• Payment information: When you make a purchase, our payment processor (Stripe) collects your payment card details. We do not store your full card number—only a tokenized reference and last four digits for display.
• Communications: When you contact us for support, we collect the information you provide in your messages.

Information Collected Automatically

When you use our service, we automatically collect:

• Usage data: Pages visited, features used, and actions taken within the application via PostHog analytics.
• Device information: Browser type, operating system, screen resolution, and device identifiers.
• Log data: IP address, access times, referring URLs, and error logs for debugging.

How We Use Your Information

• Provide, maintain, and improve our services
• Process purchases and provide access to purchased products and updates
• Send transactional emails (purchase confirmations, password resets, notifications) via Resend
• Respond to your comments, questions, and support requests
• Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities to improve the product
• Detect, investigate, and prevent fraudulent transactions or unauthorized access
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service

Information Sharing

We may share your information with:

• Service providers: Stripe (payments), Supabase (auth + database), PostHog (analytics), Resend (email), and Vercel (hosting).
• Cloudflare Turnstile: a bot check on sign-up, sign-in and password reset; receives your IP address and browser signals to tell a person from a bot.
• fal.ai: runs the image models that draw panels and cast portraits; receives the prompts and any reference photo you attach, returns the images.
• Vercel AI Gateway (Anthropic, OpenAI): runs the text models that develop comics, write scripts, score them, judge panels, moderate text, and the speech model that narrates; receives the text of your comic.
• Google / YouTube: only when you connect a channel — receives the videos you publish and returns their view counts.
• Legal requirements: If required by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities.
• Business transfers: In connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• With your consent: When you have given us explicit permission.

We do not sell your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

Data Retention

• Your account, comics, issues, scripts, cast, and credit ledger: kept while your account is active. Deleting your account (Settings › Account) deletes them at once, with the images, narration, and photos stored for them; there is no recovery period.
• Payment records: Stripe keeps its own record of each payment, invoice, and refund for as long as tax and financial law require; deleting your account cancels any plan but does not erase Stripe's records.
• Security log: a short record of account events (sign-ins, data exports, deletions, each time you confirmed permission to use a photo, and your one-time 18+ confirmation if you make a Mature comic) is kept after deletion, without your comics, so we can answer questions about them.
• Usage analytics and support email: PostHog events and messages you send us are not erased automatically when you delete your account; write to us and we erase them.
• Generated panels, narration and issues: kept while your account is active so continuity can compound; deleted with the comic or the account.
• Uploaded reference photos (likenesses): kept while the cast member or place exists; deleted with the comic or with the account. A photo you added in the new-comic flow but did not use stays in your account until you delete the account. Not used to train models.
• Your place in the beta queue: your email and the note you wrote while waiting are kept while you wait or have access, and deleted with your account — unless the account was turned away, in which case we keep that record so a deleted account cannot simply sign up again.
• Mailing list: if you joined the waitlist or newsletter on our front page, that subscription is separate from your account and is not deleted with it; every email has an unsubscribe link, or write to us to have it erased.
• Tips and offers by email: only if you said yes — the box on the sign-up form, the question in the studio, or Settings › Account. We keep your answer and when you gave it. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and you can turn it off in Settings › Account at any time. Emails about your own comics, credits and payments are sent either way.

Security

We implement industry-standard security measures: TLS/HTTPS encryption in transit, hashed passwords, database Row Level Security (RLS), PCI-compliant payment processing (Stripe), and regular security audits. However, no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure.

Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict processing of, or port your personal information, and to withdraw consent. EU/EEA residents have additional rights under the GDPR, including lodging a complaint with a supervisory authority. California residents have rights under the CCPA; we do not sell personal information. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@hammaridgeventures.com.

Who We Are

Panel & Ink is operated by Hamma Ridge Ventures LLC, a Washington limited liability company. Hamma Ridge Ventures LLC is the controller of the personal information described in this policy. This policy is governed by the laws of the State of Washington, United States. Write to support@hammaridgeventures.com about anything in it.

Photos of People

You can upload a photo of a real person to draw a character from. Each time, you confirm you have permission to use that person's likeness, and we record that you did (in the security log above). The photo is sent to our image-model provider to draw from and is not used to train models.

YouTube Data

If you connect a YouTube channel, Panel & Ink uses YouTube API Services and stores an encrypted access token for your channel. We use it only to upload the issues you publish, set their "altered or synthetic content" label, and read back the view counts you see in the studio. We do not read your private videos, comments, or subscribers. Our use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. The Google Privacy Policy applies to Google's side. You can revoke our access at any time from the channel page in the studio or from your Google account permissions; disconnecting or deleting your account revokes it and deletes the token.

Content Checks

Text you enter (premises, descriptions, instructions) is checked by a model against our acceptable-use policy before it is used to draw. The check sees the text and a field name, nothing else about you; refusals are recorded as an event without the text.

Cookies and Tracking

We use essential cookies (authentication, required), analytics cookies (PostHog, opt-out available), and preference cookies (e.g. dark mode). Some features may not function without essential cookies.

Children's Privacy

Our service is not directed to individuals under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post the new policy on this page, update the "Last updated" date, and email account holders of material changes.

Contact Us

Questions about this Privacy Policy? Contact us at support@hammaridgeventures.com.