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Aleph Privacy Policy

Effective August 17, 2026 · Last updated August 17, 2026

1. Who we are

Aleph is a reading journal, operated by Blake Hunsicker (“Aleph,” “we,” “us”). This policy covers the Aleph app, the readaleph.com website, and related services (the “Service”). Using the Service means you’ve read it. Our Terms of Use are part of your agreement with us.

Aleph is actively developed and its features will change over time — including the addition of profile, sharing, social, discovery, and public features. This policy is written to cover the Service as it grows.

2. What we collect

  • Account information from Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google — your email address (or Apple’s private relay address) and an account identifier. We never see your password.
  • Your library — the books you record, and anything you enter about them: titles, authors, editions, formats, progress, ratings, notes, reading dates, and reading sessions.
  • Technical information that any internet request necessarily includes, such as your IP address, timestamps, and details about your device and software.
  • Your searches, which we send to book metadata providers to return results.
  • Subscription status, from Apple. Apple processes all payments; we never receive your card number or billing details.
  • Anything you send us, such as support email.
  • Information from features you use, which may include your camera or photos, contacts, location, notification tokens, imported files, and any profile, library, or activity you publish, share, or make visible to others.

We may collect additional information as the Service develops, and will update this policy when we do.

3. How we use it

We use the information above to operate, provide, maintain, secure, support, analyze, and improve the Service — including to store and sync your library, sign you in, verify your subscription, look up book information, operate profile, sharing, social, and discovery features, generate recommendations and statistics, develop new features, communicate with you, prevent fraud and abuse, and comply with law.

We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

4. Who we share it with

  • Service providers who help us run Aleph, under contract — currently including Supabase (hosting and authentication), Apple (sign-in, distribution, payments), Google (sign-in and book metadata), and Open Library / Internet Archive (book metadata and cover images). We may add or change providers.
  • Other users and the public, through profile, sharing, social, and discovery features of the Service. Depending on the feature and the settings available at the time, this may include your display name and profile, your library, your reading activity, ratings, and notes. Treat anything visible to others as potentially permanent — it can be copied, forwarded, indexed by search engines, or archived beyond our control, and may remain reachable after you remove it.
  • When required or permitted by law, including in response to legal process or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Aleph, our users, or the public.
  • In a business transfer, such as a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets.
  • In aggregated or de-identified form, which doesn’t identify you.

5. Keeping and deleting

We keep your library for as long as your account exists, and as long afterward as we reasonably need for legal, accounting, security, or dispute purposes.

You can delete your account in the app, from Settings → Account or from the subscription screen. Doing so permanently erases your account and library from our servers and your device. This can’t be undone and we can’t recover it. Copies may remain in routine encrypted backups until those expire.

Deleting your account does not cancel your subscription — cancel that through your Apple Account settings.

Signing out stops syncing but leaves your library on your device.

6. Security

We use reasonable measures to protect your information, including encryption in transit and at rest and database rules restricting access to your own records. No system is perfectly secure and we can’t guarantee absolute security. You’re responsible for the Apple or Google account you sign in with — anyone with access to it can reach your library. We recommend using a device passcode.

7. Where your data is processed

We operate from the United States, and your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed there and in other countries whose laws differ from your own. For transfers out of the EEA, UK, or Switzerland we rely on an appropriate mechanism, such as Standard Contractual Clauses or the transfer being necessary to perform our contract with you.

8. Your rights

In the app, at any time, you can view and correct everything in your library, delete individual entries, and delete your account entirely.

Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information; to object to or restrict certain processing; to withdraw consent; and to opt out of sale, sharing, targeted advertising, or certain profiling. We won’t discriminate against you for exercising them. EEA and UK residents may complain to their supervisory authority.

If we begin processing personal information for targeted advertising or for profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects, we’ll update this policy and provide the opt-out that applicable law requires. We honor Global Privacy Control and similar signals where the law requires.

To exercise a right, email blakehunsicker@gmail.com. We’ll respond within the time the law allows, and may need to verify your identity first.

Legal bases (EEA, UK, Switzerland). We process your information to perform our contract with you; for our legitimate interests in securing, supporting, analyzing, and improving the Service and defending legal claims; with your consent where a feature requires it; and to comply with legal obligations.

9. Children

Aleph isn’t directed to children and we don’t knowingly collect their information. You must be at least 13, or 16 in the EEA, UK, or anywhere setting a higher age. If we learn we’ve collected information from someone below that age, we’ll delete it. Tell us at blakehunsicker@gmail.com.

10. Changes

We may update this policy. We’ll change the “Last updated” date, and give notice before material changes take effect. Continuing to use the Service means you accept the update. Where applicable law requires your consent to a change — for example, before information you’ve already created becomes visible to other people — we’ll ask you first. The current version is always at https://readaleph.com/privacy.

11. Contact

blakehunsicker@gmail.com · readaleph.com