Ask before recording
Consent for one story, photograph, or voice sample is not unlimited permission for every future use. Explain the purpose and preserve the choice made.
Keep attribution visible
A family contribution should remain identified as that contributor's memory or perspective rather than being presented as something the profile owner personally said.
Keep the AI boundary clear
Generated text must remain visibly separate from original human material, use only permitted archive sources, and answer “I don’t know” when those sources do not support a response. Synthetic or cloned voice remains a future feature and is not enabled.
Make independent backups
Export material that cannot be replaced and protect devices, accounts, passcodes, and backup destinations. No single app or cloud service should be the only copy of an irreplaceable archive.
Common mistakes to avoid
These shortcuts weaken the Ever Known experience or create expectations the product is not designed to meet.
- Recording or sharing another person without appropriate permission
- Assuming payment creates permission or reveals Only Me and Never Share material
- Treating generated text as the archived person or as an unsupported fact
- Assuming a trustee or relative may see every item
- Using an archive response for medical, legal, financial, mental-health, or emergency decisions
Build the next session from evidence
The archive succeeds when the person's own material remains primary, every shared item follows an understandable permission, contributions and interpretations stay labeled, and the record can be exported and reviewed without inventing certainty.
After each session, choose one thing to preserve and one thing to adjust. That small review keeps Ever Known focused on its real purpose rather than turning the app into another collection of screens.
A practical permission and backup review
Review a small sample before a larger family invitation. Pick one item meant for the invited viewer, one Only Me item and one Never Share item. Use fictional content for the test. Confirm that the viewer can open only the permitted item. Do not send the viewer a screenshot of private records as a shortcut: that creates a separate copy outside the app’s access controls.
Distinguish the archive owner’s words from another person’s contribution. Two relatives can remember the same event differently. Preserve each contribution’s attribution instead of rewriting it as an unquestioned fact from the owner. If the record is uncertain, say so. Review pending contributions and use reporting or blocking controls when necessary rather than accepting unsafe material for completeness.
Treat an export as another private copy. Save it to a destination the owner controls, check that expected original files are present, and protect the destination account. Revoking app access cannot retrieve a file someone already exported or a screenshot they took. Export testing should use non-sensitive sample data before relying on it for irreplaceable originals.
AI text is optional generated interpretation from authorized sources, not the person. Separate permission and subscription checks apply. Do not use it to settle medical, legal, financial or family disputes. Synthetic or cloned voice is not enabled. When a source is missing, an honest unknown is a better result than a confident invention.
- Repeat access checks after changing an item’s audience or revoking an invitation.
- Ask contributors before recording or sharing their words.
- Use support with device/build and reproduction steps, never an unredacted private archive.
