Your family photos are not a data source. They should not be stored like one.
Bigby gives families private, encrypted cloud storage for the photos, videos, and documents that matter most. Everything stays in the UK, and none of it is ever used to train AI.
The photos you take of your children deserve better than a free cloud account
Most families store their photos on Google Photos, iCloud, or similar services because they are convenient and free. That is a completely reasonable choice. But free has a cost, and for photos of your children, it is worth knowing what that cost is.
The platforms that offer free storage are businesses. The data they hold, including the photos you upload, feeds into systems that train AI, target advertising, and build profiles. For most content that is arguably a fair trade. For images of your children growing up, many parents feel differently once they understand what is actually happening.
What most families do not realise
None of this is hidden. It is in the terms of service that almost nobody reads. Here is a plain summary of what storing family photos on a free platform typically means.
AI training on your photos
Several major cloud providers have updated their terms to permit stored images to be used in AI development. That includes facial recognition training, image generation models, and other AI systems. Photos of your children can fall within that scope. Once images are used for training, that use cannot be undone.
Scanning and facial recognition
Free photo storage services routinely scan uploaded images, identify faces, and build profiles linking faces to people. This is how features like automatic tagging work. For most adults that is a minor convenience. For children whose faces are being catalogued without meaningful consent, it raises questions that the convenience rarely justifies.
Data stored outside the UK
US cloud providers store data on US infrastructure under US law. UK GDPR gives your family meaningful data rights, but those rights are harder to enforce when the data sits on a server in another jurisdiction. Bigby stores everything in the UK, where UK law applies without ambiguity.
Shared family accounts and access
Free family cloud accounts often bundle storage across multiple users under a single platform account. That creates situations where one account holder’s privacy choices, or a single compromised password, can expose the whole family’s photo library. Bigby gives each user their own encrypted storage with their own account credentials.
How Bigby works
Unlike the major cloud platforms, Bigby does not scan, analyse, or profit from the files you store. Here is how that works.
01. Encrypted in transit and at rest
Your files are encrypted on the way to us and while they sit on our UK servers, so they are protected in transit and never stored as readable plain text. We hold the encryption keys, which is what allows features like editing documents in your browser to work.
02. No access to file contents
Bigby does not open, scan, or read the contents of what you store. We have no business reason to and our data processing terms prohibit it.
03. No AI training or secondary use
Your stored content is not used for AI training, advertising targeting, or any analysis of any kind. The subscription fee covers the cost of running the service. That is the entire arrangement.
04. Everything stays in the UK
All data is stored on UK-based infrastructure. UK GDPR applies. Your family’s photos, videos, and documents do not leave the UK and are not subject to foreign data laws.
Frequently asked questions
Your family’s memories deserve storage that keeps them private
Private, encrypted, UK-based cloud storage from £3.99 per month. No scanning, no AI training, no data deals.
See all plansAnnual or monthly billing · All prices in GBP · UK data residency · GDPR compliant