Privacy policy

Last updated: 31 August 2026

The Story Nook respects your privacy and understands the importance of protecting the personal information, photographs and family memories you trust us with.

Our personalised books are created using photographs and information supplied by our customers. These photographs may include children and other family members, and we take the responsibility of handling this content seriously.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store and disclose information when you visit The Story Nook website, place an order, upload photographs, contact us or otherwise use our services.

1. Information We Collect

When you visit our website, contact us or purchase a personalised product, we may collect information including:

your name;
email address;
telephone number;
billing and delivery address;
order and transaction information;
information required to process payments;
photographs uploaded for your personalised book;
names, dedications and other personalised text you provide;
correspondence you send to us;
information about your browser, device and interaction with our website; and
information collected through cookies and similar technologies.

2. Family Photographs and Images of Children

Our products are designed to incorporate photographs supplied by our customers. These photographs may include children, parents, grandparents and other family members.

We collect and process these photographs for the purpose of creating and fulfilling the personalised product you have ordered and providing associated customer service.

The Story Nook does not sell customer photographs.

We do not use your family photographs for our own advertising, social media or promotional materials without your permission.

By uploading a photograph to The Story Nook, you confirm that you have the right or appropriate authority to provide that photograph to us and allow it to be processed for the purpose of creating your personalised product.

If a photograph contains a child, the person placing the order is responsible for ensuring they have appropriate authority to provide and use that photograph.

Please do not upload photographs or personal information that you do not have permission or authority to provide.

3. How We Collect Your Information

We may collect personal information when you:

browse our website;
place an order;
upload photographs;
provide names, dedications or other personalisation information;
contact us through our website, email or social media;
subscribe to marketing communications;
participate in a promotion or competition; or
otherwise communicate with The Story Nook.

Certain technical information may also be collected automatically when you visit or interact with our website.

4. How We Use Your Information

We may use the information we collect to:

create your personalised book;
transform photographs into storybook-style illustrations;
process and fulfil your order;
communicate with you regarding your order;
arrange printing, binding and delivery;
provide shipping and tracking information;
respond to questions, requests or complaints;
process payments and refunds;
prevent fraud and maintain website security;
maintain appropriate transaction and business records;
improve our products, website and customer experience;
understand how customers interact with our website;
comply with applicable legal obligations; and
send marketing communications where you have chosen to receive them or where otherwise permitted.

We aim to collect and use only the information reasonably necessary to provide our products and operate The Story Nook.

5. Creating Your Storybook Illustrations

The photographs you provide are transformed into storybook-style illustrations as part of creating your personalised Story Nook book.

We currently use BeFunky, a third-party photo-editing platform, to assist with processing and transforming photographs.

BeFunky provides digital and AI-assisted image-processing tools. According to BeFunky’s current privacy information, photographs and graphics uploaded to its website are private and are used to provide its service. BeFunky also states that images uploaded for editing are not stored on its servers unless the user specifically chooses to save them to their BeFunky account.

The Story Nook does not provide your photographs to BeFunky for advertising or promotional purposes.

Once the illustrations have been created, they are incorporated into the personalised book created for your order.

You retain any rights you have in the original photographs you provide, subject to the permissions reasonably necessary for The Story Nook and its service providers to process those photographs and produce the product you have requested.

6. Photo Uploads

We use third-party technology to allow customers to upload the photographs and information required to create their personalised books.

This means photographs may be temporarily stored or processed through our file-upload provider so that they can be accessed by The Story Nook to complete your order.

Uploaded files are used for purposes associated with creating, processing and fulfilling your personalised order.

Third-party service providers may retain information according to their own applicable privacy, security and data-retention practices.

7. Shopify

Our online store is operated using Shopify, which provides the ecommerce technology that enables customers to browse our products, place orders and complete checkout.

When you visit our website or place an order, certain personal information may be processed by Shopify in order to provide services including checkout, payment processing, security, store functionality and analytics.

Shopify handles information in accordance with its own applicable privacy practices.

8. Printing and Fulfilment

Our personalised books are printed and fulfilled using Lulu Press, Inc. (“Lulu”), a print-on-demand provider.

Once your personalised book has been completed, print-ready files are provided to Lulu so your book can be printed, bound and prepared for delivery.

These files contain the finished pages of your personalised book and may therefore include:

storybook illustrations created from your photographs;
names;
dedications;
personalised text; and
other information you have chosen to include in your book.

Information reasonably necessary to fulfil and deliver your order may also be provided to Lulu, including your name, delivery address and relevant delivery information.

Lulu may retain information and uploaded book files in accordance with its own privacy, security and content-retention practices.

The Story Nook provides this information to Lulu for purposes associated with producing and fulfilling your personalised order.

9. Payments

Payments are processed using third-party payment providers available through our ecommerce platform.

The Story Nook does not generally receive or store your complete payment card details.

Payment providers may process information necessary to authorise your payment, prevent fraud, process refunds and complete transactions in accordance with their own privacy and security practices.

10. Sharing Information With Service Providers

To operate The Story Nook and fulfil your order, we may disclose information where reasonably necessary to service providers including:

Shopify;
payment processors;
photo-upload and file-storage providers;
BeFunky;
Lulu;
delivery and postal providers;
website and technology providers;
analytics providers;
professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers where necessary; and
government, regulatory or law-enforcement authorities where required or authorised by law.

We only disclose information where reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose.

The Story Nook does not sell or rent your family photographs or personal information to third parties for their own marketing purposes.

11. Overseas Processing

Some of the third-party services used by The Story Nook operate outside Australia or use technology infrastructure located overseas.

As a result, personal information, photographs, files or order information may in some circumstances be processed or stored outside Australia.

The location of processing may vary depending on the particular service provider and its infrastructure.

Where we use third-party service providers, we aim to provide only the information reasonably necessary for them to perform the relevant service.

12. How Long We Keep Your Information

We retain personal information, photographs and working files only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes for which they were collected, including:

creating and fulfilling your order;
resolving printing or delivery problems;
handling replacements or customer-service enquiries;
maintaining appropriate business and transaction records; and
complying with applicable legal obligations.

Third-party providers may retain information or files according to their own privacy and data-retention policies.

You may contact us to request deletion of photographs or personal information held directly by The Story Nook, subject to any information we are required or reasonably entitled to retain.

13. Marketing

If you choose to receive marketing communications from The Story Nook, we may use your contact information to send you information about products, new releases, promotions or other updates.

You can unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time by using the unsubscribe option included in the communication or by contacting us.

Unsubscribing from marketing communications will not prevent us from sending necessary transactional messages relating to an order you have placed.

14. Cookies and Website Analytics

Our website and its service providers may use cookies and similar technologies to:

operate essential website functions;
remember preferences;
maintain security;
understand how visitors use our website;
measure website performance;
improve our services;
provide analytics; and
where enabled, measure or personalise advertising.

You may be able to manage cookies through your browser settings and privacy controls provided through our website.

15. Security

We take reasonable steps to protect the personal information and family photographs entrusted to us from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

This includes using reputable third-party service providers, password-protected accounts, appropriate digital security practices and limiting access to customer photographs and files to what is reasonably necessary to complete orders.

However, no electronic transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

If we become aware of a data breach involving personal information, we will assess and respond to the incident in accordance with any applicable legal requirements.

16. Your Rights and Choices

You may contact The Story Nook to:

ask what personal information we hold about you;
request access to that information;
request correction of inaccurate information;
request deletion of photographs or other personal information where appropriate;
ask questions about how your information has been handled;
withdraw from marketing communications; or
make a privacy complaint.

We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling certain requests.

Some information may need to be retained where required by law or reasonably necessary for purposes such as maintaining transaction records, preventing fraud or resolving disputes.

17. Photographs and Information About Other People

Our personalised books are often purchased as gifts and may contain photographs of people other than the person placing the order.

By supplying photographs or personal information relating to another person, you confirm that you have appropriate authority or permission to provide and use that information for the purpose of creating the personalised product.

This is particularly important when photographs include children.

The Story Nook relies on the customer placing the order to ensure that they have appropriate authority to supply the photographs and information they upload.

18. Social Media, Reviews and Promotional Use

We love seeing Story Nook books being enjoyed by families. However, purchasing a book from us does not automatically give The Story Nook permission to use your family photographs for our own marketing.

We will not use customer-supplied family photographs or identifiable personalised book pages in our advertising, website, social media or promotional materials without appropriate permission.

If we would like to feature your book, photographs, testimonial or other customer content publicly, we may contact you to request permission.

If you voluntarily tag The Story Nook, mention us or send us content through social media, this does not automatically mean we will use that content in paid advertising or other promotional material.

19. Children’s Privacy

Our products are designed for families and may contain photographs and information relating to children.

Orders must be placed by an adult who has appropriate authority to provide the photographs and personalisation information submitted with the order.

We do not knowingly ask children to independently provide personal information to us for the purpose of purchasing our products.

If you believe information relating to a child has been supplied to us without appropriate authority, please contact us so we can investigate and, where appropriate, remove the information we hold.

20. Third-Party Websites and Services

Our website may contain links to websites or services operated by third parties.

The Story Nook is not responsible for the privacy practices of websites or services that we do not control.

We encourage you to review the privacy information of relevant third-party providers if you would like further information about how they handle personal information.

21. Privacy Questions and Complaints

If you have a question or concern about the way The Story Nook has handled your personal information or photographs, please contact us using the details below.

Please provide enough information for us to understand and investigate your concern.

We will aim to respond within a reasonable period.

Where applicable, you may also have rights to make a privacy complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

22. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes to our products, business practices, technology, service providers or legal obligations.

The current version will be published on our website, and the “Last updated” date at the beginning of the policy will be updated when changes are made.