The short version
- We collect only what Kitchen Table needs to work: your name, your email address, and what you choose to write.
- We never sell, rent or trade your information, and there are no ads in Kitchen Table.
- A conversation is visible only to the people at its table, and our server checks that on every request.
- No analytics, trackers or AI run on your conversations, and this website doesn't set a single cookie.
- A few trusted services help us run Kitchen Table. Each gets only what it needs, and they're all listed below.
- You can ask for a copy of your information, or for us to delete it, at any time.
Who we are
Kitchen Table is made by Svelte Services LLC ("Svelte Services", "we" or "us"), a small software studio that builds a few careful apps and takes its time with them. You can find us at svelte.llc. We built Kitchen Table to solve a problem in our own family: we wanted a calm place to talk through decisions and big questions together, and to remember how everyone's thinking changed along the way.
Svelte Services LLC is responsible for your information under this policy. In European data protection terms, we're the "controller".
This policy covers the Kitchen Table app at app.kitchentable.fyi, this website at
kitchentable.fyi, and the emails we send.
What we collect
Everything here is something Kitchen Table needs in order to work. Nothing is collected "just in case".
Your account
Your name and email address. Signing in is handled by Clerk (more about them below), so we never see or store a password.
What you create
The questions you ask and the messages you write. Your positions, and your notes on what changed your mind. The sources you add: their links, titles, notes, and the start and end times of YouTube clips. Your takes and every saved version of them. When a decision is concluded, what was decided, the summary, and where everyone finally landed.
Your teams
The teams you belong to and your role on each one, any groups you're in (such as "the parents" or "the kids"), and a nickname if an admin gave you one. Invitations you've sent or received, including the invited person's email address. The settings for your team's question queue.
What the app keeps track of for you
When you last opened each conversation, which takes you follow and which version you last read, and notices such as "someone left the team". This is how badges count only what needs your attention.
Billing
For each team: its plan, whether it's on a free trial, when it renews or ends, and whether it's been canceled. Card details go straight into a secure checkout run by Clerk and Stripe, and never touch our servers. The only thing we learn is whether a card is on file.
Technical information
Our database doesn't record IP addresses, devices or locations. Like every website, Kitchen Table is delivered by a hosting provider (Cloudflare) that handles technical details such as IP addresses in order to deliver pages and fend off attacks. Our server also keeps request and error logs so we can fix problems, and those are deleted automatically after seven days.
What we don't collect
- No analytics, advertising identifiers, tracking pixels or third-party ad scripts, in the app or on this website.
- No location, contacts, photos, microphone or camera access.
- No information bought from data brokers or "partners" to fill in a profile of you.
- No AI processing of your conversations. Kitchen Table doesn't send what you write to any AI service, and we'll never sell or license it to anyone who would train a model on it.
- We don't visit the links you add. A source's title and note are exactly what someone at your table typed.
How we use it
- To run Kitchen Table: showing your conversations to the people at your table, keeping badges and the question queue working, and remembering your settings.
- To send the emails you'd expect. The only email we send ourselves is an invitation when someone invites you to their team. Sign-in codes come from Clerk.
- To handle your team's plan, including trials, renewals and member limits.
- To keep Kitchen Table secure, and to find and fix problems.
- To reply when you write to us.
That's the whole list. We don't use your information for advertising, we don't build profiles of you, and we don't sell or share it for anyone else's marketing. We don't send newsletters or marketing email.
Who can see what
Conversations
When you start a conversation you choose who's at the table: everyone on your team, a few people, or just the two of you. Only those people can read it. Other members of your team who aren't at the table can't. Our server decides this on every request, so nobody can get around it by poking at the app.
Takes
When you write a take, you choose who can read it: everyone at the table, or only people who've already made up their minds. In the second case, our server holds back the words until the reader has decided, so they never reach the device of someone who's still deciding.
Your team
Everyone on a team can see the names and email addresses of the other members, and the email addresses of people who've been invited. Team owners and admins manage members, invitations and billing.
Conversations are shared spaces
A conversation belongs to everyone at its table. Anyone in a conversation can edit or remove its sources, or delete the whole conversation, which removes it for everyone. A team's owners can delete the team and everything in it.
When you leave a conversation or a team, what you've already said stays in its conversations, so they still make sense to everyone else, and it's shown as coming from a "Former member". If you'd like it removed too, ask us and we will.
Us
We don't read your conversations. As with any online service, the people at Svelte Services who run Kitchen Table can technically reach the database. We'll only look at your information if you ask us to help with something, to investigate abuse or a security problem, or if the law requires it.
Services we rely on
We're a small team, so a few established services do some of the heavy lifting. We picked each one for how well it protects data, and each gets only what it needs to do its job. None of them gets your conversations except Cloudflare, which stores them for us, encrypted.
| Service | What it does | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosts the app and this website, stores our database, and delivers our emails. | Everything stored in Kitchen Table, encrypted at rest. Technical request data. For invitation emails, the recipient, subject and delivery status, kept for 31 days. |
| Clerk | Sign-in, accounts, team organizations and billing. | Your name and email address, your sign-in details, your teams' names, who's on each team and their roles, and each team's plan. Never your conversations. |
| Stripe | Processes card payments for Clerk's billing. | The payment details you enter at checkout, directly from your browser. Never your conversations. |
| Gravatar | Profile pictures. | Your browser asks Gravatar for your and your teammates' pictures using a scrambled (SHA-256 hashed) form of each email address. People without a Gravatar get their initials instead. |
| YouTube | Plays clips that people add as sources. | When a conversation has a YouTube source, your browser loads its thumbnail from YouTube. The video loads only when you press play, in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode. |
Sources link to other websites. If you follow one, that website's own privacy policy applies.
How long we keep it
- While you use Kitchen Table, we keep your information so it's there when you come back.
- If a team's plan lapses, the team becomes read-only and nothing is deleted, so you can pick up where you left off.
- When something is deleted (a conversation, a source or a whole team), it's removed from our database straight away. Our database provider keeps a rolling history so we can recover from accidents, and deleted information ages out of it within 30 days.
- Server logs are deleted after 7 days, and email delivery records after 31 days.
- If you ask us to delete your account, we'll delete your account details and your Clerk sign-in within 30 days, along with anything you've written in shared conversations if you ask for that too.
Your choices and rights
In the app
You can change your name, leave any team, and delete conversations you're part of. Owners can delete a team and everything in it.
By writing to us
Email privacy@svelte.llc and we'll help you:
- get a copy of the information we hold about you,
- correct anything that's wrong,
- delete your account and your personal information, or
- ask any question about how your information is handled.
We'll reply within 30 days, and usually much sooner. These requests are handled by a person today: building self-serve export and account deletion into the app is on our list. You get these rights wherever you live, they're free, and using them won't change how we treat you.
Legal details, if you need them
We use your information to provide the service you've asked for, to keep it secure and working (our legitimate interests), and where the law requires it. We don't sell or "share" personal information as California law defines those words, and we don't use it for targeted advertising. Our providers may process information in the United States and other countries where they operate. If you're in the EU or UK and aren't happy with how we've handled your information, you can complain to your local data protection authority, though we'd love the chance to put it right first.
Children
Kitchen Table is made for families, and family conversations often include kids. Even so, you need to be at least 13 (or the minimum age where you live, if that's higher) to have your own account, and Kitchen Table isn't directed at children under 13. Younger children are welcome at the real table, with a parent doing the typing.
If you think a child under 13 has created an account, tell us at privacy@svelte.llc and we'll delete it.
Security
Your information is encrypted on its way to us and encrypted where it's stored. Who can see each conversation is enforced by our server, and sign-in and payments run on specialist services. Our security page explains all of it in detail, and how to report a problem if you find one.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we'll update the date at the top and let you know in the app or by email before the change takes effect. We'll never quietly change it to allow selling your information. That isn't the business we're in.
Contact us
Kitchen Table is run by Svelte Services LLC. Every message reaches the people who build it.
- Privacy requests (a copy of your information, corrections, deletion): privacy@svelte.llc
- Anything else about Kitchen Table: hello@kitchentable.fyi
- Security problems: security@svelte.llc