Terms of use

Last updated 13 October 2026

This agreement

These terms are an agreement between you and Stqn Technology SRL, the Belgian company that runs Afterwards (details in the legal notice). By creating an account you accept them, along with our privacy policy. If you don't agree, please don't use Afterwards.

You must be 15 or older to have an account. Afterwards is for personal, non-commercial use.

Your account

You sign in with a code we email you, so your account is as safe as your email. Use your own email and a name your friends will recognise, keep your codes to yourself, and tell us if you think someone else got in. One account per person.

Stories, and who sees what

A short story keeps everyone's photos hidden until the reveal its organiser picks, unless they make it live. An ever after shows photos to everyone in it as soon as they're added. Either way, only the people in a story see it.

A story's invite link works like a key: anyone who has it can join. Share it only with people you'd invite. The organiser can remove people and delete the story.

The people in a story can download its photos, originals included. Once downloaded, a copy is out of our hands, so only add what you're happy for everyone in the story to keep.

Your photos stay yours

You keep every right you have in the photos, videos, notes and voice notes you add. You give us only what we need to run Afterwards: a free, non-exclusive, worldwide permission to store them, make the sizes we need, and show them to the people in the story, for as long as they're there. That permission ends when you remove them or delete your account, apart from backups, which are gone within 30 days.

Only add what you have the right to share: your own photos, or someone else's with their permission.

People in your photos

Stories are private, but they are shared, and a photo can follow someone for years. So:

• Everyone you can recognise in a photo you add must be fine with it being there. Ask first if you're not sure. This holds in a private story too: in Belgium, France and across Europe, a person's image is theirs, and sharing it needs their agreement.
• If someone asks you to remove a photo of them, remove it. In a story, they can ask from the photo itself, and the request comes to you. Outside a story, they can write to us.
• Stay civil. No photos meant to mock, shame or embarrass someone, no photos of people in private moments they didn't choose to share (asleep, in the bathroom, getting changed), and nothing taken without them knowing where they'd expect privacy.

When someone shows us that they're in a photo and didn't agree to it, we remove it.

Photos of children

A child can't agree to a photo the way an adult can, so their parents decide for them, and the rules are stricter. A child here is anyone under 18.

• You need the express agreement of the child's parents. Where both parents have parental authority, both must agree, even in a private story: one parent's agreement isn't enough. If you are a parent, that means the other parent too. If a child has a guardian instead, the guardian decides.
• Listen to the child. As soon as a child is old enough to have a view, ask them as well. If they say no, don't add it.
• Never a child without clothes, or partly dressed. No nudity of any kind: not in the bath, at the beach or the pool, while changing or using the toilet, however innocent the moment. A child in a swimsuit at the beach is fine, with their parents' agreement; a child half undressed is not.
• Nothing that could hurt them later. No photos of a child in distress, being punished, ill or in hospital without both parents' agreement, or anything that tells strangers where they live or go to school.
• Any parent, guardian or the child can have it removed. Ask the photographer, or write to us. We remove a photo of a child when a parent or the child asks, without waiting for the other parent to agree.

We may ask the person who added a photo of a child to confirm that the parents agreed. If they can't, we remove it.

These rules follow Belgian and French law: both parents' joint protection of their child's image (article 372-1 of the French Civil Code, and the Belgian Data Protection Authority's guidance on parental agreement), each person's right to their own image (article XI.174 of the Belgian Code of Economic Law, article 9 of the French Civil Code), and the criminal laws on images of children.

Never on Afterwards

• Nudity or sexual content of anyone, at any age, even between consenting adults, even in a private story.
• Any sexual or sexualised image of a child. It's a serious crime. We delete it, close the account, keep what the law requires us to keep and report it to the police and to Child Focus.
• Intimate or sexual images shared without the consent of the person shown, or images made or altered to look that way (including deepfakes). These are crimes in Belgium and France.
• Photos taken secretly of people where they'd expect privacy.
• Violence, hate, threats, harassment, or anything that glorifies them.
• Anything else illegal, or that infringes someone's copyright or other rights.
• Trying to see photos before the reveal or in stories you're not in, getting into other accounts, overloading or probing our systems, copying Afterwards' content in bulk, or using it to run a business.

Reporting a photo or a person

To report something illegal or against these terms, report it in Afterwards: "Report this photo" in a photo's options, or the "more" button next to a note, a voice note or a person in Who's in. Pick what's wrong with it and, if you like, add a few words. The person you report isn't told who reported them. You can also block someone: you stop seeing anything they add, and they aren't told.

Or write to [email protected] with:

• which story and photo (a link, or a description precise enough to find it);
• why you think it's illegal or breaks these terms;
• your name and email address, unless you're reporting sexual abuse material involving a child, which you can report without them;
• a statement that what you report is accurate and complete, as far as you know.

We confirm we got it, look at it promptly and with care, tell you what we decided and how to challenge it. We don't watch private stories routinely: we look at content when it's reported to us or when the law requires it.

If someone's life or safety is in danger, call 112 first. If we learn of such a danger, we tell the police. You can also report directly: child sexual abuse material to Child Focus (116 000) in Belgium or to PHAROS in France, and any crime to the police.

What we do when the rules are broken

We can remove content, limit what an account can do, suspend it or close it, depending on how serious it is and whether it happened before. Abuse of children or sexual content shared without consent closes the account at once. We also suspend people who keep sending reports that are clearly unfounded.

When we act on your content or account, we tell you what we did and why, which rule or law it was based on, and how to challenge it, unless the law stops us or it would put someone at risk. To challenge a decision, reply to our email: someone at Afterwards, not a machine, looks at it again. You can also go to an out-of-court dispute settlement body certified under the EU Digital Services Act, or to court.

The service

Afterwards is free to use for now. If we add paid features, we'll tell you before anything changes, and what you've already added stays yours. We'll do our best to keep it running and your photos safe, and we back up the database every night, but keep your own copies of what matters to you (you can download any story).

If we ever stop Afterwards, we'll tell you by email at least 60 days before, so you have time to download your stories.

Leaving

You can delete your account at any time: on Home, under Sign out. Everything you added goes with it. A story you organise that others are in stays for them, organised by whoever joined it first; a story only you are in is deleted. We can close an account that breaks these terms, as described above.

Responsibility

You're responsible for what you add and for having the agreement of the people in it. We're responsible for losses we cause by breaking these terms or the law, when they were foreseeable. We're not responsible for what people in a story do with photos they saw or downloaded, or for things we couldn't reasonably prevent. Nothing in these terms limits our responsibility where the law doesn't allow it, including for our own fraud, intent or serious fault, or your rights as a consumer.

Changes to these terms

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we'll email you at least 30 days before. If you don't agree, you can delete your account before then; if you keep using Afterwards, the new terms apply.

Law and disputes

These terms are governed by Belgian law. If you live in another EU country as a consumer, you keep the protection of that country's mandatory laws, and you can bring a claim in its courts as well as in Belgium's.

If something goes wrong, write to us first: most things are quicker to fix that way. If we can't agree, you can ask the Belgian Consumer Mediation Service for help (mediationconsommateur.be), or the mediator in your own country.

Contact

[email protected] is our single point of contact, for you and for authorities, including under the EU Digital Services Act. Write in English or French.