Your privacy

The short version

• We only ever ask for children's first names. Never a surname, a school or a postcode.
• Your photos are only used to make your film, and are deleted 14 days after it arrives.
• We never use your photos or your children's names to train AI.
• We never sell your details or use advertising cookies. Google Analytics only runs if you say yes, and never on your visit or film pages.

What we collect

• Your email address, to send your preview, the film and reminders.
• Each child's first name, an age band and, if you give one, how to say the name, so Santa can find them on his list and say their name.
• The one sentence you write about the year, and what you pick for Santa to have noticed, for his letter.
• Your photos: the way Santa comes in, your tree, the treat you leave out and his wrapping paper. We remove the hidden information phones add to photos (such as location) as soon as they arrive.
• For a gift: the giver's name and email, and the parent's email for the invite.
• Your payment is taken by Stripe. We never see your card. If you choose the posted keepsake, Stripe asks for the address; we look it up once to post it and don't keep it.
• When you agreed to the terms, and which version.

Why we use it

To make and deliver the film you've asked for (that's our contract with you), to send the emails that go with it, and to keep the records we need for our accounts. As the parent or the person giving the gift, you give us the children's details on their behalf.

Who helps us make the film

Santa's film is made with AI. These services do that work for us, and only get what they need for their part:

• Google (Gemini and Veo): checks your photos, finds the door, tree and plate, and animates each scene.
• OpenAI: places Santa into a scene when we can't use our own drawing of him.
• Runway: a backup for animating a scene.
• ElevenLabs: Santa's voice, so it receives the children's first names and his lines.
• Stripe: payments, and the keepsake's posting address.
• Resend: sends our emails.

Some of these are based outside the UK, mainly in the USA. They handle your information under the safeguards UK law requires for that. A real person at the North Pole also looks at each film, and the photos it was made from, before it's sent.

The film is put together on the North Pole workshop's own computer in the UK. It fetches your photos from our server over an encrypted connection while your film is being made, and deletes its copy as soon as there's nothing left to make for you.

How long we keep it

• Photos, and the pictures made from them on the way to the film: deleted 14 days after your film arrives. If you never book, 14 days after your last visit to the site. If you book but your tree photos never arrive, 14 days after 21 December. If you chose the posted keepsake, we keep them until it's in the post, because it prints a still from your doorstep.
• The film is kept so your link keeps working, so you can watch it again next Christmas. Ask us and we'll delete it.
• Your order (first names, your email, what you paid) is kept for our accounts.

Links to your visit

Your visit and your film each have their own private link, which is how we know it's yours. Anyone with the link can see it, so only share the film link with people you'd show the film to. These pages are kept out of search engines.

Cookies

We never use advertising cookies. The site uses what it needs to work, and on our public pages (the home page, gifts, help, privacy and terms) we ask whether you're happy for us to count visits with Google Analytics, through Google Tag Manager. Only if you say yes, it sets Google's cookies and tells Google which of those pages you looked at, roughly where you are and what device you used, so we can see how people find Sleigh Mail. It never runs on your visit, your photos or your film, and Google never sees your children's names. Google keeps this for up to 14 months, and may handle it in the USA. Your answer is kept in your own browser.

With that yes, Google is also told when someone presses to start a visit, plays the sample film or goes to pay for a gift, and, when you book or buy a gift, that a sale happened: the amount, what was bought and our short order reference, linked to the random number Google gave your browser. Never your name, your email, your children's names or anything from your photos.

Where you came from. Whatever your answer, the first page you open notes, in your browser for as long as the tab is open, the name of the campaign in the link you arrived on (for example “facebook”) and which website sent you (just its name, such as facebook.com). If you start a visit or buy a gift, that is saved with it, so we can see which of our posts and adverts help families find us. It never says who you are.

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Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to us (below) and we'll reply within a month. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Getting in touch

Email elves@sleighmail.co.uk, or reply to any email from the North Pole Post Office, and a real person will answer.

See also our terms and help.