Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Shelfies ("we," "our," or "us") is a book tracking app. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with, and what you can do about it. It covers the Shelfies mobile app and website.

We do not sell your personal data or display third-party ads. Optional usage analytics, diagnostics, masked replay and marketing measurement start off. Your bookshelf works with these disabled. Public pages do not ask you to make a choice before browsing or downloading. Change your choices using Manage privacy choices above or in Account.

2. Information We Collect

• Account information: your email address and authentication credentials. If you sign in with Google, Apple, or Microsoft, we receive the account and basic profile details they provide.
• Profile: display name, username, avatar, and bio, if you add them.
• Library and reading data: books you add, shelves, tags, series, reading progress and sessions, ratings, reviews, notes, quotes and highlights, reading goals, and streaks.
• Social activity: follows, activity posts, comments, reactions, book letters, and reports or blocks you submit.
• Purchase information: your subscription and entitlement status. Payments are handled by Google Play or Stripe — we never receive or store your card details.
• App preferences: theme, language, notification and reminder settings, and your time zone (used to calculate streaks in your local time).
• Diagnostic and usage events: optional first-party product events, error categories and speed measurements, enabled only after your choice. These exclude book titles, searches, private notes and letters. A consented visitor identifier can connect activity before registration to your account; it resets on logout.
• Voluntary reader research: answers you share, optional reader preferences, research participation and public reading-profile links you supply. A profile preview fetches only a public title and description; saved information is unverified and private. Interviews are optional.
• Photos: an avatar you upload, and book-cover or bookshelf photos you choose to submit for AI identification. Scan photos are sent to our backend and AI provider; they are not processed solely on your device.
• Measurement information: page views, registration events, IP address, general location inferred by measurement partners, browser and device information, and cookie or similar identifiers received by Meta and Whop tracking scripts. These scripts load only if you explicitly allow marketing measurement. They are separate from usage analytics, diagnostics and masked website replay.

3. What Is Public and What Is Not

Shelfies has social features, so some information is visible to others by design. This is the part worth reading twice:

• Private by default: your library, reading progress, notes, quotes, highlights, goals, and account details.
• Visible to other users when you enable a public profile: your username, display name, avatar, bio, and the reading statistics shown on your profile. A public profile is reachable on the web by anyone with the link, and may be indexed by search engines.
• Visible to people who follow you: activity you post to the feed, such as finishing a book, milestones, and your companion's progress — subject to your notification and sharing settings.
• Visible to everyone in that context: comments and reactions you leave on other people's activity, and your entry in any leaderboard you join.

You can turn the public profile and activity sharing off at any time in Account settings. Turning them off stops future sharing; content others have already seen or copied cannot be recalled.

4. Device Permissions

• Camera: used when you choose barcode scanning, cover identification, or a bookshelf photo scan. Barcode frames are processed on your device. Photos you submit for AI identification are uploaded to our backend and AI provider. You can search for books manually instead.
• Notifications: requested only when you choose to turn on reading reminders. Reminders are scheduled on your device.

You can decline either permission and keep using the app, and you can revoke both at any time in your device settings.

5. How We Use Your Information

• To provide the service and sync your library across your devices.
• To operate the social features you choose to use.
• To process purchases and determine what your subscription unlocks.
• To generate AI recommendations, summaries, and reading plans (Pro).
• To send the reminders and notifications you have enabled.
• To keep the service secure, prevent abuse, and handle reports.
• To fix defects and understand which flows are failing.
• To measure visits and registrations and attribute marketing through Meta and Whop.

If you are in the EEA or UK, we rely on: performance of a contract for running the service and your purchases; consent for notifications, the public profile, and optional AI features; consent for optional usage analytics, diagnostics, replay, marketing measurement, email categories and reader research; and legitimate interests for security and abuse prevention. You may withdraw consent at any time.

6. Service Providers

We use the following service providers and measurement partners. Backend providers process data needed to run the app; marketing partners receive the measurement information described below:

• Supabase: database, authentication, file storage, and backend hosting.
• Google Play Billing and RevenueCat: purchases and subscription status in the Android app. We also send your account email and profile name to RevenueCat to identify your customer record and help with purchase support.
• Stripe: payments and subscription management on the web.
• Lovable AI Gateway: powers AI features. Relevant book titles, authors, library context, prompts, and photos you submit for identification are sent to generate a response. Owner feedback analysis sends only fixed product-topic labels and source identifiers, while original free-text feedback stays in Shelfies. Avoid including personal documents or unrelated people in scan photos. We do not promise that all provider processing or logs are ephemeral.
• Open Library: queried for book metadata and cover images. Your search terms reach them as part of the lookup; your account is not identified to them.
• Vercel Web Analytics and PostHog: optional usage analytics, using a stable account identifier after sign-in. PostHog additionally provides optional masked replay and heatmaps on selected signed-out website flows. Inputs and text are masked; images, private sections, request bodies and headers are excluded. Authenticated reading and native purchase screens are not replayed. The PostHog project uses EU hosting.
• Sentry: optional error investigation using the app version, a stable account identifier and sanitized script locations. Private writing, raw error messages, request details and session replay are excluded. The project uses EU hosting.
• Meta and Whop: receive measurement information through tracking scripts for analytics and marketing attribution. Their processing is governed by their Meta privacy policy and Whop privacy policy. This is distinct from the first-party reading and diagnostic events stored in our database.

We also disclose information where we are legally required to, or to protect the rights and safety of our users.

7. International Transfers

Our providers may process data outside your country, including in the United States. Where personal data is transferred out of the EEA or UK, it is covered by the transfer mechanisms those providers offer, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

8. Data Storage & Security

Your data is stored on managed cloud infrastructure, encrypted in transit and at rest, with per-user access rules enforced at the database level so one account cannot read another's private data. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security — but if a breach affects your personal data, we will notify you and the relevant authority where the law requires it.

9. Retention & Deletion

Optional first-party telemetry is kept for up to 90 days, with daily pruning. In Account privacy choices you can erase optional research answers, participation, supplied profiles, acquisition and first-party telemetry while retaining your library, payment records and privacy-choice audit. External providers have separate retention rules; turning tracking off stops future collection and does not by itself erase past provider data. We keep other operational data while your account is active. You can delete your account from Account settings in the app, or use the Shelfies account deletion page without reinstalling the app. You can also delete individual books and their associated reading data from your library while keeping your account.

When you delete your account, your personal data and library are removed within 30 days, except where we must keep records to meet a legal obligation — for example, purchase and tax records, which payment providers retain under their own statutory periods. Backups are purged on their normal rotation. Content you posted publicly, such as a comment on another reader's activity, may be shown as being from a deleted account rather than removed from their view.

10. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Delete your account and your data.
• Export your library in a portable format (Account → Export data).
• Object to or restrict certain processing.
• Withdraw consent at any time, without affecting what was done beforehand.
• Complain to your local data protection authority.

We respond to requests within 30 days. We do not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

11. Children's Privacy

Shelfies is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. In parts of the EEA where the minimum age for consent to online services is higher than 13, that higher local age applies. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy. We will change the "Last updated" date above, and for changes that materially affect your rights we will tell you in the app before they take effect.

13. Contact Us

For any privacy question or to exercise the rights above, email audaciaun@gmail.com, or use Account → Report a problem in the app.