Trust, consent, and safety.
Preserving someone’s voice is a serious thing to do, and an easy thing to do badly. Here is exactly how we handle it, in plain language, including the parts that make us slower than we could be.
No voice is created without a completed consent record.
This is enforced in software, not just written in a policy. There are three paths, and which one you get is decided by whose voice you say it is.
Your own voice
You confirm the voice is yours and agree to our terms. The simplest case, and the one we encourage people to start with.
A living person’s voice
We email them directly. They must personally confirm consent before any voice is generated. There is no way for you to complete this step on their behalf, and no way to skip it. If they never confirm, the voice is never created.
Someone who has died
You complete an affidavit: your relationship to them, an attestation under penalty of perjury that you are authorized to act on their behalf, and an acknowledgment that other family members may ask us to review or remove the profile. You may attach a death certificate, which strengthens the record if anyone ever raises a question.
Every clip we generate is watermarked.
Audio produced by Heirloom Vocals carries an inaudible watermark identifying it as AI-generated. You cannot hear it. It means that if a clip is ever used somewhere it shouldn’t be, it can be traced back. We do not offer a way to turn this off.
Any family member can object, without an account.
Families disagree, and grief is complicated. Anyone can raise an objection to a memorial profile at heirloomvocals.com/object. You do not need an account, and you do not need to be our customer. We can pause a profile while we review.
There are things we will not build.
- A voice of a living person without that person’s own confirmation
- Anything intended for impersonation, fraud, political messaging, or harassment
- Unwatermarked audio
- A business that sells, licenses, or trains outside models on your recordings
Our Acceptable Use Policy spells this out, and violating it ends the account. Misuse can be reported to report@heirloomvocals.com.
Your recordings are yours.
Audio is encrypted in transit and at rest. We do not sell it, license it, or use it to train anyone else’s models. You can export or delete a profile at any time. Deleting a profile removes the audio and the voice model; we retain the consent record alone, because that is the document that proves the profile was authorized in the first place.
If we ever shut down, you get everything back.
A vault is only worth what it is worth in twenty years, so this is written down rather than implied. If Heirloom Vocals ever ceases to operate, we commit to advance notice, a full export of your audio and generated clips, and help moving your archive somewhere it will be safe. We would rather promise this now, while it costs us nothing, than be asked for it later.
Something look wrong?
We answer every email personally, usually within a day. General questions go to hello@heirloomvocals.com. Misuse reports go to report@heirloomvocals.com and are read first.