The TikTok Refugee Privacy Policy
Last updated: 2 October 2026
The TikTok Refugee is made by Kitchen Labs. It's a website that suggests Chinese names for Red Note (Xiaohongshu) from your English name and a selfie, and it has a short blog. This page says, in plain English, what happens to your information.
The short version
- When you tap Get some names, your name and a small square crop of your selfie are sent to our server and an AI service to write three names, then thrown away.
- Your original photo never leaves your device.
- There are no accounts, no ads, no cookies and no tracking.
What we handle, and why
Your name and selfie (only when you ask for names). When you choose a photo, your browser cuts a square from its middle and shrinks it to 512 × 512 pixels; that small copy is the preview you see. The full photo stays on your device. When you tap Get some names or Regenerate Names, the website sends, over an encrypted connection, to Kitchen Labs' server (hosted by Vercel): the name you typed (up to 60 characters) and that 512-pixel crop. Our server passes both to a third-party AI service, which looks at the mood of the photo and writes three names with their pronunciation and meaning, and sends them back to your browser. Kitchen Labs does not store your name, your photo or the names. Our AI provider does not use them to train its models, and may keep them for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring.
Please only upload a photo of yourself, and don't include anything in it you wouldn't want an AI service to see.
A request limit. To keep the free name generator fair and stop it being drained by scripts, our server counts how many requests each internet (IP) address has made recently and today (for example "3 today"), and pauses an address that goes over the limit. These counts are kept only in the server's memory, are never written to disk or linked to your name or photo, and disappear when the server restarts.
Server logs. Like any website, our host Vercel records standard request logs (such as your IP address, browser type, the page or address requested and the time) and keeps them for a short period to run and protect the service. Our own log lines only note which AI model answered or that a request failed; they don't include your name, your photo or the names.
What stays in your browser
Your name, the selfie preview and your names live only in the open page. Nothing is saved on your device: closing or reloading the page clears them.
What we don't do
No accounts, no advertising, no analytics, no cookies, no tracking across apps or websites, and no selling or sharing of data. The site loads nothing from other companies' servers.
Just for fun
The names are written by AI for fun. They can be imperfect, so check a name with a native Chinese speaker before you rely on it.
Children
The TikTok Refugee is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from them.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, we'll update the date above. Questions? Send them through our contact page.