The agreement, in plain language.

Who we are

Held in Memory is the public name of the Australian online memorial service at heldinmemory.com.au. The service’s published contact address is support@heldinmemory.com.au. By using the site you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the service.

Your account

You are responsible for keeping your password safe and for what happens under your account. Account details must be accurate, and you must be able to enter into this agreement (or have a parent or guardian do so for you).

Memorial content

You keep ownership of the stories, photos and other content you add to a memorial. You give Held in Memory a non-exclusive permission to host, back up, reproduce, resize, format and display that content only as needed to provide the service and carry out the visibility and handover choices you make. For a memorial prepared by its subject, that permission continues after the account holder’s death so we can preserve and, after the checks described below, release the version they approved. It ends when the content is permanently deleted, except for records we are required or reasonably need to retain and temporary copies awaiting secure removal from backups.

You are responsible for the content you publish. Only upload photos and stories you have the right to share, and be considerate of surviving family members. We may remove content, or unpublish a memorial, if it is unlawful, abusive, impersonates someone, or clearly disrespects the person being remembered.

Writing assistant

The Premium writing assistant is optional. When you ask it to create a draft, the details and notes shown in the tool are sent to OpenAI for processing as explained in our Privacy Policy. Generated text is a suggestion, may contain mistakes and must be reviewed by the account holder before publication.

Who can see a memorial

Memorial owners choose whether a memorial is public, link-only, or private. Public memorials can be found and viewed by anyone. Link-only memorials can be seen by anyone who has the address. We honour the setting chosen, but we cannot control what visitors do with content they can view, screenshot or share.

Preparing your own memorial

An adult account holder may use the self-memorial feature to prepare their own words and photographs in advance. It is a memorial-content and handover feature only. Held in Memory does not replace a will or an executor, appoint or remove an executor, administer an estate, apply for probate, identify or manage estate assets or debts, pay estate debts or tax, notify beneficiaries, distribute property, carry out funeral instructions, or perform any other executor or estate-administration duty. It is also not a codicil, power of attorney, advance care directive, probate service, funeral direction or legal advice. Do not use a memorial to identify beneficiaries, store passwords or financial information, or give binding legal, medical, funeral, burial or cremation instructions. Keep those matters in appropriately prepared legal documents and tell your executor or solicitor how to locate them.

A trusted contact is a separate, verified Held in Memory account holder who has accepted limited memorial permissions chosen by the creator. This role is not an executor appointment and gives no authority over the creator’s estate. If the same person is separately an executor or estate representative, that legal role and its duties remain entirely separate from Held in Memory. Before release, the contact can see only relationship and handover status information, not the memorial’s private story, photographs, messages or other draft content. The creator can replace or remove a contact while they are alive.

A trusted contact may report a death and ask us to begin the creator’s chosen handover process. No memorial is released because an account has been inactive, an email has gone unanswered or an automated deadline has passed. Every request is held for at least 72 hours and requires manual review. We require the contact’s explicit statement, identity and account checks, and at least two independent signals supporting the reported death before approval. A death report is not, by itself, proof of authority over an estate.

Release is not automatic or guaranteed. We may keep or return a memorial to private status while identity, reported death, contact eligibility, fraud, safety or family concerns are checked. We may reject, dispute, revoke or reverse a release, and may consider an official record, a grant of representation, agreement between affected people or a court direction solely when deciding access to the memorial. We do not validate, confer or exercise estate authority. A power of attorney does not authorise a person to act after the creator’s death. Where a creator’s recorded choice conflicts with a valid legal direction, court order or unresolved claim, we will preserve the material privately while the issue is resolved rather than deciding the underlying estate dispute ourselves.

People shown or described in a memorial may still be living when it is released. Creators must respect their privacy, obtain any permission reasonably needed to share identifiable photographs or sensitive information, and avoid private addresses, financial details, allegations and medical or genetic information about other people. Anyone affected can report a concern to support. We may temporarily hide disputed material and provide a fair review process.

Tributes from visitors

Visitors can leave tributes on memorials that allow them. Tributes are held for family approval before they appear, and the memorial owner or our moderators may decline or remove any tribute. Do not use tributes for advertising, abuse or spam.

Plans and payment

The Free plan requires no payment. Premium is a one-time payment of $49 Australian dollars per memorial, processed through Stripe’s hosted checkout so card details do not pass through our server. Premium is not a subscription and has no monthly or annual recurring charge. Features of each plan are described on the pricing page.

“One-time payment” describes billing. It does not promise perpetual or uninterrupted hosting, and the availability provisions below apply to both Free and Premium memorials.

Refunds and your consumer rights

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law, including guarantees that services are provided with due care and skill. If something has gone wrong with a Premium purchase, email support@heldinmemory.com.au and we will work with you to put it right.

Deleting a memorial

Memorial owners can request deletion from their account page. The memorial is hidden from visitors immediately and the owner can cancel the request from their account. Permanent deletion is currently paused while recoverable storage is being verified, so the memorial’s content, photos and tributes remain retained and available for restoration.

Acceptable use

Do not use Held in Memory to break the law, harass or defame people, upload malicious files, scrape other families’ content, or interfere with the operation or security of the service.

Availability and changes

We make reasonable efforts to keep memorials available, but no website can promise uninterrupted or error-free operation. Maintenance, security incidents, provider outages or events outside our reasonable control may affect access. Keep original photographs, documents and story text somewhere you control rather than relying on Held in Memory as the only copy.

Self-memorial handover may be needed many years after it is prepared. A one-time payment does not promise that a particular feature or the service itself will exist forever. We may improve or change features over time. If we ever needed to wind down the service, we would make reasonable efforts to give account holders notice and time to save their content. Keep an exported copy and make sure a trusted person knows how to contact us.

Liability

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies a right, guarantee or liability where doing so would be unlawful, including rights under the Australian Consumer Law. To the extent the law permits, Held in Memory is not responsible for loss caused by a user’s breach of these terms, content supplied by users, or circumstances outside our reasonable control.

Ending an account

You can stop using the service at any time. We may suspend or close accounts that seriously or repeatedly breach these terms.

Changes to these terms

If we change these terms in a meaningful way, we will update this page and its date. Continuing to use the service after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Funeral-director partner accounts

Approved funeral homes can purchase Premium memorial credits and invite families to claim them. Credits grant an invited family access to one Premium memorial each; they are not cash, are not refundable as cash, and cannot be transferred or resold outside the purchasing organisation. Memorials claimed through a credit are created, owned and controlled by the family. The funeral home receives no ownership, editing, deletion or tribute-moderation access and cannot read drafts, stories, photographs, private tributes or account information. It can see only the invitation details it supplied and whether its invitation has been accepted. Closing or suspending the partner account does not remove or downgrade the family’s existing memorial; the service-availability provisions above still apply.

A memorial made available through a partner may show a small acknowledgement near the bottom using the partner’s approved public business name, logo and website. The family controls that acknowledgement and can hide or restore it at any time; the partner cannot require it to remain visible or change the family’s choice. An acknowledgement explains how Premium access was made available. It does not mean the partner owns, manages, wrote, approved or endorses the family’s memorial content, and it does not give the partner access to memorial or visitor information.

A partner that supplies a business name, logo or website for an acknowledgement confirms that the information is accurate and that it owns, or has permission to use and license, those materials. The partner grants Held in Memory a non-exclusive permission to store, resize and display the approved materials for these acknowledgements. Held in Memory may reject, replace with a text-only acknowledgement, or remove branding that is unsafe, inaccurate, misleading, unlawful or no longer authorised.

Partner organisations must only send invitations to people they have a legitimate, recent business reason to contact, and must not enter sensitive memorial content into invitation forms. Held in Memory may suspend partner accounts used fraudulently or abusively. Refunds on credit packs remain subject to your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of South Australia, Australia.

Contact

Questions about these terms: support@heldinmemory.com.au.