How we handle your story
These eight commitments describe how Penmora handles your story - what happens between someone speaking into the app, or typing their memories, and what Penmora does with what they have said.
They sit alongside our principles, which describe how the product is built. Both pages are published because promises matter more when they can be read, tested, and returned to.
One
The recording is the original
When you tell a story, Penmora keeps the audio exactly as recorded. That recording is the permanent original - everything else in Penmora is built on top of it and can always be traced back to it. Nothing edits, re-cuts or replaces the audio. When your family listens, they hear the actual moment.
Two
How the written version is made
Penmora writes down what was said so your stories can be read and searched. The written version is your words as you spoke them. One small kindness is applied: the stray "um"s and "er"s that everyone says are quietly left out of the written page, following a fixed rule - never a judgement call, and never a rewording. The audio underneath keeps every sound.
The written record gets no polish and no paraphrase - no summary ever stands in for the story. If a passage was not recorded clearly, the written version says so rather than guessing.
Three
Corrections are yours, and they are remembered
Machines mishear - especially names. When Penmora gets a word wrong, you can correct it. For proper names it can offer a short list of likely spellings, drawn from real place and family names - but the choice is always yours, your original spelling is always offered first, and nothing changes unless you choose it.
Every correction is kept alongside what was first written, so the record shows both what was heard and what you settled on. A correction can be undone; the audio is never touched.
Four
Where the questions come from
Penmora asks questions to help a story along. Some come from a carefully written question bank. Others are follow-ups drawn from what you have already said - "you mentioned the garden with the pond; what do you remember about it?" Every follow-up is checked, mechanically, against your own words: if a question would assume something you have not said, it is not asked.
Questions never enter your story. They are offered rather than pushed, and "no, something else" is always an answer.
Five
Who can reach your stories
Only the people you have invited, by name. Invitations can be withdrawn at any time, and withdrawing one takes effect immediately. Penmora staff do not browse stories; access to production systems is restricted, logged, and used only to keep the service running.
Six
Deletion means deletion
You can remove a story, part of a story, or your whole account. When you delete something, there is a cooling-off period of around 30 days in case it was a mistake; after that, the recording and the written version are both gone for good. Deletion is always initiated by you - Penmora never removes or rewrites content on its own judgement.
Seven
The companies that help us, and their limits
Penmora uses a small number of specialist services - for example, to turn speech into text. Each one operates under a contract that prohibits training AI models on your content, without exception. We keep a register of these services, and a new one is added only after that bar is in writing.
Your recordings live in UK and EU-based data centres.
Eight
Your recordings leave with you
Everything you record is yours to take: the audio, the written versions, and anything made from them, at no cost, on any plan. Ask us and we will put a full copy together for you. If Penmora ever stopped being the right place for your family's stories, you would take them with you whole.
If you would like to read further:
the six product principles Penmora is built around. They explain what the AI may do, what it must never do, how recordings are protected, and how the storyteller stays in control.
where the idea came from, why Penmora is being built carefully before it opens more widely, and why the product starts from a simple belief: that someone's own words and voice matter more than a polished version created for them.
practical answers to the questions people are likely to ask before trusting Penmora with a life story: how private recordings are kept, what the AI does and does not do, who can access the archive, what can be edited, and what happens if someone changes their mind.