Privacy

Privacy notice

Last updated: 2 November 2026

Banyan (“Banyan”, “we”, “us”) is a private family-tree application owned and operated by S.J Consulting Group Asia. This notice explains how we collect, use, share and protect personal data when you use the Banyan website and related services (the “Services”).

Operator website: https://sjconsultinggroup.com/en

We design this notice to align with the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173) and implementing rules of the National Privacy Commission (NPC) of the Philippines, and with good practice for users in other places where a family may invite relatives (for example Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom). Local rules may also apply where you live.

This notice is a product notice for the live application. Have counsel review it before a public or commercial launch, and complete any registrations your markets require.

1. Who is responsible

S.J Consulting Group Asia, operating Banyan, is the personal information controller for data collected through the Services, unless this notice says otherwise.

Privacy requests: [email protected], or contact channels published on sjconsultinggroup.com. We may appoint a Data Protection Officer and register with the NPC or other authorities where required.

2. Scope

This notice covers:

People who create a Banyan account (by phone and name, or by Google when enabled)
Family leaders, editors, contributors and viewers who join a private tree by invite
People whose names, photos, countries, relationships, stories or contact details are written onto a family tree by someone with access
The site operator (admin) when supporting a user or correcting a record

It does not cover third-party sites you open from Banyan (for example Google’s sign-in screens, map tile providers, or a relative’s email or messaging app). Those parties have their own policies.

3. What we collect

3.1 Account and sign-in

Name you give when you register
Phone number and country dialling code, used with your password when you choose phone sign-in
Password (stored only as a one-way hash; we cannot read your password back)
Email if you add it, or if Google sign-in provides one
Google account identifiers (such as a Google subject id, name and email) when you choose Continue with Google or Create account with Google
Email sign-in — if you save an email on your account, you can sign in with it instead of your phone number, using the same password
Stay signed in — if you tick “Stay signed in”, we store a sign-in token for up to 30 days. We keep only a scrambled (hashed) copy, replace it each time it is used, and delete it when you sign out or change your password
Reading preferences — your text size and high-contrast choices, and the language you read Banyan in
Email preferences — whether you want the weekly family email
Family calendar link — a private link you can add to Google, Apple or Outlook Calendar, and what it includes. It shows only names, birthdays, remembrance days and how people are related to you, following the same rules as the family tree. Your calendar app keeps a copy under that provider’s own privacy terms. You can make a new link at any time in Your profile, and the old one stops working
Role and membership for each family tree you belong to (leader, editor, contributor or viewer)
Accounts set up for you — if a Banyan site admin creates your account (for example because sign-up did not work for you), they enter your name, phone or email, language, and sometimes a family and role. You receive a one-time sign-in link, choose your own password, and agree to these terms yourself. Admins never set or see your password. Site admins can also keep short private notes about an account for support, which are deleted with the account
Plan details — the date a 7-day trial ends, subscription status, and, when you subscribe, a Stripe customer id and subscription id. We do not store your card number

3.2 Family tree content

A short family description written in Family settings, shown under that family’s name to people in the tree
Person cards: given name, family name, other names, how to refer to someone, birth and death dates, living or deceased status
Birthdays (day and month) when your family adds them, used for the “Coming up” list, the weekly family email, and your own family calendar link if you choose to add it to a calendar app
Countries of birth and current residence, optionally the country where someone grew up, optional heritage words, optional photos
Relationships (parent, child, partner, sibling and related links)
Optional contact details on a person card (email, phone, Facebook) and whether the whole family or only leaders may see them
Short stories on person cards (including voice notes), story answers, family story text, emblems and reunion pages
Short in-family notes between members (optional emoji, optional link to a person card), kept inside that private tree
Invites you create or accept, including optional phone or email on an invite
Change history used for “what’s new” and leader undo

3.3 Information we generate or observe

Session cookies needed to keep you signed in and to protect forms (CSRF)
Technical logs such as approximate time of access, and basic server logs needed to run and secure the site
Error logs on our server, used to find and fix problems. These record technical details, not family content
Local preferences stored in your browser (for example tree layout)
Admin notes when the site operator assists a user

3.4 What we do not collect as a product feature

Street addresses or precise GPS tracks
DNA or genetic data
Payment card numbers. When a yearly plan is offered, Stripe collects and stores the card. Banyan keeps only the Stripe customer id, subscription status, and renewal date
Government ID numbers as a required sign-in field

4. Why we use personal data

Create and secure your account, and recognise you when you return
Let you build and view private family trees you are invited to
Run the 7-day trial and, when billing is turned on, the yearly plan for up to two family trees you lead, including a few short notes about the trial (a welcome, a tip on day 3, and reminders around the end of the trial), shown in Banyan and emailed if you gave an address
Send or honour invite links your family shares outside Banyan
Show one family photo to anyone who has a shared photo link, if your family allows it (see section 6)
Show relationship labels, maps by country of residence, reports, stories and emblems
Let a family leader undo recent mistakes, merge duplicate cards, or export that family’s record
Send a weekly family email with what is new and upcoming birthdays, to members who have saved an email. You can turn it off in Your profile or with the link in every email
Let a family leader download the family as a GEDCOM file, or import a GEDCOM file from another family-tree service as a new family
Let the site operator support users, restore access, or correct a card when asked
Protect the Services against abuse, and comply with law

We do not sell personal data. We do not show a public directory of families. Knowing a family name is not enough to enter a tree.

5. Lawful basis

Depending on the activity, we rely on:

Consent — optional Google sign-in; optional contact details and photos you or your family add; optional heritage words
Contract / requested service — running your account and the private trees you create or join
Legitimate interests — securing the site, preventing abuse, operating invite and role controls, product improvement with care for your rights
Legal obligation — where regulators or courts require retention or disclosure

6. Family privacy and multi-tree use

Each tree is private to its members. Content one family saves is not shown to another family.
The same person may belong to more than one tree. Banyan does not tell one family that another tree exists.
If another tree you belong to has a card with your name, only you may be asked whether that card is you. Relatives are never copied across trees automatically.
Contact details on a person card follow the visibility the family set (whole family or leaders only).
A family leader can choose that only leaders and editors see the exact birthdays of living relatives. Others see the year only.

7. Sharing

7.1 Your family

People with access to a tree can see person cards and other content according to their role and the contact-visibility setting. A family leader can limit a member to one branch of the tree; that member then sees only the person cards in that branch, and not the family’s photos, notes, stories, change history, or member list. A family leader can also start a separate tree from a branch: this copies the person cards in that branch (including their photos and any contact details on them) into a new private tree that the leader controls. Invite links are shared by the family through their own channels (text, WhatsApp, email, Messenger).

Photos shared outside Banyan. If a family allows it in Family settings, a leader, an editor, or the person who uploaded a photo can make a link that shows that one photo and its caption to anyone who has the link, without signing in. The page also shows the family’s name. The link is not an invite: it does not show the tree, other photos, people’s names, or contact details. It ends after 14 days. The person who made it, or a family leader, can stop it sooner in Family settings, and turning sharing off stops every link the family has open. Search engines are asked not to list these pages. Once someone has seen or saved the photo, Banyan cannot take it back, so please share only photos everyone in them would be happy to share.

7.2 Service providers

Banyan runs on servers operated by S.J Consulting Group Asia. These providers help us run it, on our instructions or under their own terms for the step you use:

Cloudflare carries traffic to the site, runs the optional human check (Turnstile), and tells us the visitor’s country so we can suggest a phone dialling code. We do not send your address to any other location service
Amazon Web Services (SES) delivers our emails: invites, password resets, and the weekly family email
DeepSeek translates Banyan’s own words (menus, buttons, pages, and help) into other languages. Only that site text is sent; names, family details, photos, stories, and notes are never sent
Google, only when you choose Google sign-in
Stripe, when you subscribe to a yearly plan. Stripe’s own terms cover the card payment
Map tiles (for example OpenStreetMap / Leaflet providers), and font or flag image services, so pages and the map display correctly

Providers may process data outside your country; we expect appropriate care for security.

7.3 S.J Consulting Group Asia

As the operator of Banyan, S.J Consulting Group Asia personnel with a need to know may access data to run, support and secure the Services, under internal access controls. An admin visit to a tree the operator does not belong to is treated as leader-level access for support and is logged.

7.4 Legal and safety

We may disclose data to comply with law, enforce our terms, or protect users from serious harm or fraud.

8. Retention

Account data — while your account is active, then for a limited period for disputes or security
Subscription status and Stripe ids — while the account is active, and as long as needed for billing records and disputes. Card numbers stay with Stripe
Family tree content — while the family keeps the tree, or until a leader deletes people or the operator removes access as allowed
Invite and login links — until they expire or are used
Stay-signed-in tokens — up to 30 days, or until you sign out or change your password
Files you import (GEDCOM) — read once to create the family, then not kept
Change history and admin notes — as needed for undo, support and accountability
Security and rate-limit records — for a limited period to detect abuse and account for support access
Exports a leader downloads — stored on the device or place they choose; outside Banyan’s control after download

9. Security

We design Banyan so family data stays inside invited trees. In particular we use:

Private trees — membership and role checks on every family; there is no public directory
Invite and login secrets — invite and admin sign-in links are stored as one-way hashes; raw links expire (invites after 14 days)
Session and form protection — HTTP-only session cookies (Secure when the site is served over HTTPS), CSRF tokens on state-changing forms, and session regeneration on sign-in
Private media — family photos and uploads are not meant to be listed as public files; they are served through membership-checked routes where the host allows
Transport — on the live site we expect HTTPS; the operator can force HTTP visitors onto HTTPS
Browser hardening — security headers such as Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, and Referrer-Policy to reduce common web abuse
Abuse controls — rate limits on sign-in, invite creation, join attempts, and one-time sign-in links
Bot and automated-agent checks — when the operator enables Cloudflare Turnstile, sign-in, registration, and invite-join require a human verification step before the server accepts the request (this slows scripted account creation and probing; it does not replace private membership)
No public family index — pages are marked so search engines should not index private app surfaces; knowing a family name is not enough to enter a tree
Security log — sign-ins, wrong passwords, sign-outs, password, email and phone changes, family role changes, family downloads, and everything a site admin does (including support visits to a tree they do not belong to) are written to an internal security log. Each entry keeps the time, the IP address, the country it came from (as reported by our network provider, Cloudflare), and the kind of device and browser (for example “Safari on iPhone”). For a wrong password on a phone number we keep only its last four digits
How long the log is kept — blocked bot attempts for about 90 days, other entries for about 12 months, and site admin actions for about 3 years, then they are deleted automatically. Admin entries are protected so that changes to them can be detected
Alerts and your account activity — site admins are emailed about serious events, such as many wrong passwords on one account. In Your profile → Your account activity you can see your recent sign-ins (with country and device) and sign out on every other phone and computer

Automated scrapers, AI crawlers, and attackers may still probe public pages such as sign-in. They should not be able to read family trees, photos, or member lists without a valid invite and membership. No method is perfectly secure. Use a device you trust, sign out on shared computers, treat invite links as secrets, and tell the family leader or operator if something looks wrong.

10. Your rights

Subject to applicable law and reasonable verification, you may request:

Access to personal data we hold about your account
Correction of inaccurate account data
Deletion or blocking, where applicable (tree content may also need a family leader’s action)
Withdrawal of Google linking or optional contact details you control
A complaint to a relevant privacy authority (for example the NPC in the Philippines)

Delete your account yourself: go to Your profile → Delete my account. This removes your name, phone, email, password, photo and Google link, and signs you out everywhere. Person cards about you stay on family trees as part of the family’s record; a family leader can change or remove them, or you can ask us.

Email [email protected] or use https://sjconsultinggroup.com/en. We will respond within the periods required by applicable rules.

11. Children

Banyan is meant for families recording relatives of all ages on a tree, but accounts should be created by adults (or by someone old enough to agree to these terms in their place). Do not use a child’s phone number as a sign-in without a parent or guardian’s involvement. Photos and stories of minors stay inside the private family that saved them.

12. Cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies as described in our Cookies notice. Essential cookies are required for sign-in and form security, including the optional 30-day “Stay signed in” cookie. Small functional cookies remember your text size and contrast choices, and browser local storage remembers layout choices on your device.

13. Copyright and ownership

Banyan branding, software and original product materials are owned by S.J Consulting Group Asia or its licensors. Family content (names, photos, stories, emblems you upload) remains with the family that provided it, subject to the licence needed to host and display it inside Banyan. See also our Terms of use.

14. Changes

We may update this notice. We will change the “Last updated” date and, for material changes, provide additional notice where required.

15. Contact

Operator: S.J Consulting Group Asia — https://sjconsultinggroup.com/en
Privacy requests: [email protected]
Related notices: Terms · Cookies