Terms of Use

Using the app

We give you permission to use Kinestry for as long as you like, on as many of your own devices as you like, at no cost. That permission is personal to you, it is not exclusive, you cannot pass it on, and it lasts until you stop using the app or we stop offering it. You may not sell it, repackage it, rent it, or distribute modified copies of it as though they were ours, and you may not take it apart to build a competing copy. The app itself, its name and its design stay ours; everything you put into it stays yours.

If you break these terms, the permission ends — but nothing we do can reach the tree on your phone, so your family history is unaffected either way. Export a backup whenever you like; it is yours to keep.

How old you need to be

Kinestry is written for adults, and you should be 16 or older to use it on your own. Younger than that, use it with a parent or guardian — not because the app is unsuitable, but because a family tree is full of other people's personal details and that deserves an adult's judgement. We collect nothing from anybody, of any age, so there is no account to verify and nothing for us to hold.

Some countries set a higher age for handling other people's personal information on your own. India, where Kinestry is published, treats anyone under 18 that way. If your country sets a higher age than ours, follow your country's.

Your family tree is yours

Everything you enter belongs to you. We claim no ownership of it and no rights over it. We cannot access it — it lives on your device, not on any server of ours. You can export it as a backup, GEDCOM, PDF or image at any time, and take it elsewhere.

Backups are your responsibility

Because nothing is stored in the cloud, if you lose your phone, or wipe it, or uninstall the app, your tree goes with it. Kinestry includes a backup feature and reminds you to use it. Please do. We cannot recover a tree for you, because we never had a copy.

Desktop Mode, and the network you use it on

Desktop Mode lets a browser on your own Wi-Fi network view and edit your tree while your phone is serving it. Pairing needs a code shown on the phone and your approval of each device, and the feature does nothing at all until you switch it on.

The connection is not encrypted. While Desktop Mode is running, the names, dates and photos in your tree travel across your local network in a form that another device on that same network could in principle read. On your own home Wi-Fi that is the same exposure as anything else on it. On Wi-Fi you share with strangers, such as a cafe, a hotel, an office or student housing, leave Desktop Mode off. Choosing which network to turn it on is your decision, and the privacy policy sets out what happens in more detail under "Internet access".

Files you open from elsewhere

Kinestry can open a family file another app hands it — a Kinestry backup, or a Family Tree Builder .ftz archive. It always opens as a new family tree, so the tree you already have is not overwritten or merged into.

Two things are worth knowing. A file is only as good as whoever made it: if it is damaged, Kinestry refuses it before touching anything, and if parts of it do not make sense it tells you what it had to leave out. And a file from someone else may contain personal information about living people. Whether you have the right to hold that information is your decision, not ours.

The people in your tree

A family tree is mostly other people, and many of them never agreed to be in it. Deciding what is fair to record about a living relative is your call, not ours, and the law in your country may have something to say about it. We cannot advise you, because we cannot see any of it.

If someone asks you to remove their details, you are the only one who can do it. Pointing them at us achieves nothing: we hold no copy of your tree and cannot search for, change or delete anything in it. Our privacy policy says the same thing to them, in the same words.

So, plainly: by recording someone, you are telling us you are entitled to — to hold what you have written about them and to share any export you choose to make. We take you at your word, because we have no way to check and no wish to read it.

And the obvious thing, said once: Kinestry is for keeping a family's history. It is not for following someone, building a file on them, or frightening them. Using it for stalking, harassment or any other unlawful purpose is a breach of these terms, whatever else they say.

No warranty

Kinestry is provided "as is". We build it carefully and test it, but we cannot promise it will be free of faults, that it will suit a particular purpose, or that it will never lose data. To the fullest extent the law where you live allows, we give no warranties beyond those that cannot legally be excluded.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of Kinestry — including lost data, lost time, or lost records. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, and nothing here affects consumer rights you hold under the law of the country you live in.

Official builds only

The only official Kinestry is the one published by us on Google Play. If you installed a copy from anywhere else, it may have been modified by someone else, and these terms — along with everything our privacy policy promises about your data staying on your device — describe the official app, not that copy.

Accuracy of what you record

Kinestry is a place to keep family history. It is not a legal record. Nothing in it should be relied upon as proof of identity, descent, inheritance or citizenship.

Which law applies

Kinestry is published from India, and these terms are governed by Indian law. Any dispute that cannot be settled by writing to us first may be brought before the courts of India.

That does not take anything away from you. If you live somewhere whose consumer law gives you rights that cannot be signed away — much of the EU and the UK, among others — you keep those rights in full, and you may bring a claim in your own country's courts if its law entitles you to. Nothing here is meant to limit a protection your own law guarantees you.

Changes

If these terms change, the updated version will be published at this address and the date above will change.

Contact

Questions: kinestryapp@gmail.com