Before you upload family photos to an AI tool: a privacy checklist

Old photographs are personal. They show people who may no longer be alive, children who are now adults, and places that identify a family. Before you upload one to any online service, it is worth five minutes to find out what happens to it.

Seven questions to ask any service

1. How long do you keep my photo and the result? Look for a specific number of hours or days, not “as long as necessary”.
2. Is my photo used to train AI models? The answer should be a clear no, in writing.
3. Who else receives it? Most services send your photo to an AI provider, a cloud host and sometimes a moderation service. A good policy names them.
4. Can I delete it earlier, and how? Look for an email address or a button.
5. Do I need an account to try it? Previews without sign-up reduce how much you have to hand over.
6. Does the service check uploads for abuse, and what does it keep when it blocks one?
7. Who runs it? A named operator and a working contact address are a basic trust signal.

How we handle uploads

• Retention. Uploads and results are deleted automatically within 24 hours (48 at most). We enforce this with a storage rule that expires objects after one day.
• Training. We do not use your photos to train models.
• Who sees your photo. Cloudflare (hosting, storage, bot protection), fal.ai (the AI models that colorize or restore the image; we ask fal not to store the request and to delete its copy of the result after one hour) and OpenAI (a one-time safety screening before processing). Nobody else receives the image. Sign-in uses Google if you choose it, and payments go through PayPal; neither receives your photo.
• Screening. Each upload is checked for adult sexual content and graphic violence before it is stored or sent to the AI provider. If a photo is declined, we keep no copy: only the time, the category, a score and a hashed network identifier.
• No account for previews. You only sign in to download or buy credits.
• Deleting earlier. Email support@colorizeoldphotos.com with the reference code shown under your photo.
• Who runs it. ColorizeOldPhotos is operated by windflash, founded by Jason Guo. See the about page.

Protect the original, whatever you use

The safest way to use any online tool is to upload a copy and keep the original print in proper storage. The Library of Congress recommends keeping prints in a cool, dry, stable place in photo-safe enclosures, away from attics and basements.

If the photo is sensitive, you can also crop out names, addresses or other identifying details before uploading, and it takes seconds. For more on preparing the scan, see how to scan old photos.