Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains what information the TTS Reader mobile application (the “App”) handles, why, and what choices you have. It is issued by the developer of the App (the “Developer”, “we”, “us”), who is identified in section 12. We comply with the privacy and data protection laws that apply to us and to you, including, where they apply, the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), and other national, state, and local privacy laws. Where a local law gives you rights beyond those described here, we honor them.
1. Your account
The App asks you to sign in with Google or with Apple. Sign-in is managed by Firebase Authentication, a Google service that processes this data on our behalf. When you sign in, Google or Apple shares the following with Firebase, which stores it as your account:
- A user identifier for your account.
- Your email address. With Sign in with Apple you can choose to share a private relay address instead of your real one.
- Your name, if the provider shares it.
- Which provider you signed in with, and when you created your account and last signed in.
When you sign in, and each time you open the App while signed in, the App also sends our server your account’s user identifier (as a sign-in token), together with the App version and your device’s language and region setting (for example “en_US”). Our server keeps a record of your account with your user identifier, email address, name, sign-in provider, App version, language and region setting, and when the account was created and last opened the App. This record is stored in a database hosted by Neon, on servers in the United States, and our server runs on Vercel; both process it on our behalf.
We use your account to identify you to our server, to tie your subscription to your account so it can be restored on another device (section 3), to help you when you contact us, to understand how the App is used (section 4), and to provide features that need an account, such as ones that use our servers. We may use your email address to contact you about your account or subscription, or about material changes to the App or these terms; we will not send you marketing email without your consent where the law requires it. Firebase’s handling of this information is described in its privacy information (firebase.google.com/support/privacy). Our legal bases, where one is required, are performance of our contract with you and our legitimate interest in operating, supporting, and improving the App.
2. Information stored on your device
The App keeps the following in its private storage on your device. None of it is sent to us, with one exception: the sentences sent for narration, described below.
- Books and documents you import (for example EPUB and PDF files), including their text, metadata, and cover images.
- Your reading progress and settings such as voice, speed, and appearance.
- Voice data the App downloads so it can read aloud, and the audio it generates from your books.
- A cached copy of your subscription status.
Deleting the App removes all of it from your device. If you use iCloud Backup or another device backup, a copy may remain in that backup, which is governed by Apple’s privacy policy. Your sign-in is kept in your device’s keychain so you stay signed in.
Narration
To read a book aloud, the App turns its text into speech one sentence at a time. It can do this on your device, using the voice data it has downloaded, in which case nothing is sent anywhere. When you are online, it may instead use a narration service that we run on Cloudflare, which processes data on our behalf. In that case the App sends the service the sentences it is about to read, a few at a time and slightly ahead of where you are listening. If the service cannot be reached, the App generates the audio on your device.
With each sentence, the App sends the narration service:
- The text of the sentence and the voice you chose.
- A short-lived pass issued by our server, which contains your account’s user identifier and shows that your subscription is active.
Your IP address and standard request information are also visible to Cloudflare, as they are to any internet service.
The narration service uses the text only to generate the audio. It does not store the text and does not write it to its logs. It does store the audio it generates, for up to 90 days, so that a sentence narrated before, by you or by anyone else, does not have to be generated again. Stored audio is filed under a one-way code computed from the sentence and the voice. It is not linked to your account, your device, or the book it came from, and it can only be retrieved by a request that contains exactly the same sentence and voice. Because of that, we cannot find or delete the audio generated from your books on request; it is deleted automatically when the 90 days are up.
Our legal basis for this processing, where one is required, is performance of our contract with you: it is how the App reads your books aloud.
3. Subscriptions and purchases
Purchases are made through Apple’s App Store. Apple handles your payment details, name, and Apple Account; we never receive them. Apple’s handling of that information is governed by Apple’s privacy policy.
To check whether your subscription is active, the App uses RevenueCat, a subscription management service that processes data on our behalf. The App sends RevenueCat:
- Your account’s user identifier and email address (section 1), so your subscription belongs to your account and we can find it when you contact us. RevenueCat does not receive your name.
- Your App Store purchase receipt and transaction identifiers, the product purchased, price, currency, and subscription status.
- Device model, operating system version, App version, and locale.
- Your IP address, from which an approximate country may be derived.
RevenueCat also sends our server a notice each time your subscription changes (for example a purchase, renewal, cancellation, or refund), containing your account’s user identifier and the details listed above except your IP address. Our server keeps these notices and a summary of your subscription’s current state with your account record.
We use this information to deliver the subscription you bought, to restore purchases on a new device, to help you with your subscription when you contact us, to prevent fraud, and to understand revenue, including which accounts it comes from. RevenueCat’s handling of it is described in its privacy policy (revenuecat.com/privacy). Our legal bases, where one is required, are performance of our contract with you and our legitimate interest in preventing fraud and operating the App.
4. Product analytics
The App uses Amplitude, a product analytics service that processes data on our behalf, to understand how the App is used so we can improve it. The App sends Amplitude:
- Events describing what you do in the App, such as which screens and menus you open, the steps of signing in and subscribing, and when your sessions start and end. Events never include the text of your books.
- Your account’s user identifier once you are signed in, and an identifier Amplitude generates for your installation of the App.
- Device model, operating system version, App version, language, and your IP address, from which an approximate location (country, region, and city) may be derived.
Amplitude’s handling of this information is described in its privacy notice (amplitude.com/privacy). Our legal basis, where one is required, is our legitimate interest in improving the App.
5. Other network connections
- Voice downloads. When you first enable a voice, the App downloads the required voice data from a public file host (currently GitHub). Your IP address and standard request information are visible to that host under its own privacy policy. We do not receive them.
- Apple. If you have turned on “Share With App Developers” in your device settings, Apple may share aggregated, de-identified crash and usage statistics with us. You control this in Settings.
- This website and our server. Our hosting provider receives your IP address and standard request information when you view this page or when the App contacts our server, in order to deliver it, and keeps them in short-lived operational logs. We do not use them to identify you.
6. What we do not do
- We do not sell personal information.
- We do not share personal information for targeted advertising, and the App contains no advertising.
- We do not track you across other companies’ apps or websites.
- We do not make automated decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.
7. Data retention
Information stored on your device stays there until you delete it or delete the App. Your account is kept until you delete it (section 10). Deleting your account deletes it from Firebase, deletes the account record and subscription notices our server keeps, and removes your email address from RevenueCat. Subscription records held by RevenueCat and Apple are retained for as long as needed to manage your subscription and to meet accounting, tax, fraud-prevention, and other legal obligations, after which they are deleted or anonymized. Analytics events are kept for as long as they are useful for understanding how the App is used, and no longer than the retention period set in our Amplitude account; you can ask us to delete yours (section 10). Audio generated by the narration service is deleted 90 days after it was generated (section 2).
8. Security
Information sent between the App and our server or our service providers travels over encrypted connections, and we take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect the information described in this policy. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
9. Children
The App is intended for adults. It is not directed to children under 13, or under the higher age required by your local law, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
10. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information; to restrict or object to how it is processed; to withdraw consent; to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information (we do neither); not to be discriminated against for exercising your rights; and to complain to a data protection authority. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at qaz111id@gmail.com from the email address on your account, so we can find it. We respond within the time required by applicable law.
You can delete your account yourself at any time in the App: open Settings and choose Delete account. Deleting your account does not cancel your subscription; you can manage or cancel it in your Apple Account settings. You can delete all information stored on your device at any time by deleting the App.
European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland
We process the information in sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 on the legal bases described there. Our service providers Google (Firebase), Neon, Vercel, Cloudflare, RevenueCat, Amplitude, and Apple may process data in the United States and other countries; those transfers are covered by the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, standard contractual clauses, or other safeguards recognized under applicable law. You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.
California
We collect the following categories of personal information: identifiers (your account’s user identifier, email address, name, an installation identifier, and IP address), commercial information (subscription purchase records), internet or other electronic network activity information (how you use the App, section 4), approximate geolocation derived from your IP address, and device information. The sentences the App sends for narration (section 2) are content you provide; they are personal information only to the extent your books contain any. We collect all of this from you, your device, Google or Apple when you sign in, and Apple when you subscribe, for the purposes in sections 1, 2, 3, and 4, and disclose it only to service providers. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined in the CCPA, and we have no actual knowledge that we collect personal information of consumers under 16.
Other jurisdictions
Where your local law grants you additional rights or requires additional disclosures, we will honor those rights and provide those disclosures on request.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the new version on this page and update the date at the top. If a change is material, we will also notify you in the App, by email, or by other reasonable means where the law requires it. The version posted here is the one in effect.
12. Who we are and how to reach us
The App is published by an individual developer based in New Jersey, United States of America. For the purposes of data protection law, the Developer is the controller of the information described in this policy.
Questions about this policy or your information: qaz111id@gmail.com. See also our Terms of Use.