Privacy Policy
Effective on first published release · Last updated 2026-06-03
PagePulse is a paid reading-intelligence app. When you sign in with Google, we store the books you add, the analyses we run for you, and your reading patterns. We use this data to run the app. We don't sell it. We don't share it with advertisers. If you delete your account, we delete the data. That's the whole story.
What we collect
Account identifiers (from Google Sign-In)
- Your Google account email
- Your Google account display name
- Your Google profile photo URL (if your Google account has one set)
- A persistent user ID assigned by Firebase Authentication
We do not request any other Google account scopes (no contacts, no calendar, no Gmail).
Library and reading data (you create this)
- Books you add — titles, ISBN identifiers, cover URLs (all from public sources)
- Analyses of those books generated by our servers
- Your reading status (reading, read, unread, abandoned)
- Shelfies you create (the composite emotional portrait of a scanned shelf)
Camera images (Shelfie scans)
When you take a photo of a bookshelf, we transmit that single image to our servers to detect titles using Google's Gemini computer vision. The image is processed in memory only and is not stored. After the spines are read and turned into a list of titles, the image is discarded.
Shared Shelfies (public links)
When you tap Share on a Shelfie, the app creates a short link of the form https://thepagepulse.com/s/<8-character-id>. The encoded Shelfie content (verdict, persona, book titles + authors, fingerprint shape) is stored as a publicly-readable document in our database at that ID, so anyone you give the link to can open the page.
Anyone with the link can view the Shelfie. The URL itself is the key — share it deliberately. We do not advertise share URLs, do not aggregate them, and do not link them to your account in any public-facing way. The document records your Firebase user ID as the creator (visible only to us, for moderation and your own deletion right).
Shared Shelfie documents are automatically deleted 90 days after creation. If you want a share link revoked sooner, write to us and we will delete the document — the receiver's link will then return a not-found page.
In-app diagnostics (local only)
The app keeps a small rolling buffer of the last 10 warnings or errors that occurred in your session, visible in Settings → Diagnostics. This data never leaves your device. It exists so you can copy a diagnostic trail and send it to us when reporting a bug. The buffer resets on every app launch and is not transmitted automatically.
Technical / device data
App version, device model, OS version (collected by Google Play and our crash-monitoring tools). We do not collect IP address, location, advertising ID, or contacts.
Website analytics (thepagepulse.com)
The marketing website at thepagepulse.com uses Google Analytics 4 to measure aggregate page views and traffic sources. IP addresses are anonymised before processing. We do not use cross-site tracking cookies or remarketing audiences. This applies only to the website — the app itself does not include Google Analytics.
How we use it
- Run the app: show your library, generate analyses, surface recommendations, compute reading patterns.
- Cross-device sync: when you sign in on a new device with the same Google account, your library reappears.
- Improve PagePulse: anonymous aggregate patterns may inform product decisions. We never identify you in these patterns.
We do not use your data for advertising, sell it to third parties, profile you outside the app, or train third-party AI models on your personal content.
Who we share it with
| Provider | What they receive | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Google Firebase | Account identifiers + library data | Backend infrastructure (Google Cloud, us-central1) |
| Google Books API | Titles + authors from your scans / additions | Cover, ISBN, metadata lookup |
| Anthropic Claude API / Google Gemini API | Book content (public-domain) or careful inference signals (for in-print books) — never your personal data | Emotional fingerprints, character lists, persona |
How long we keep it
- As long as your account exists — for your library data, analyses, recommendations, and persona.
- Shared Shelfie links auto-expire after 90 days. The receiver's URL stops resolving when the document is deleted by our scheduled cleanup.
- When you delete your account: all your library data, analyses, recommendations, persona, and Firebase Auth record are permanently removed within seven days. Any share links you created are also marked for deletion (or removed immediately on request).
- Anonymised aggregates may be retained indefinitely, but these are not linked to you.
Your rights
You have the right to access your data (write to us for an export), delete your account (use the Delete Account button in Settings, or write to us), correct data you believe is inaccurate, and withdraw consent by deleting your account.
Under GDPR (European users): we are the data controller; Google Cloud is the data processor. Lawful basis is contractual necessity and your explicit consent at sign-in. Under CCPA (California users): we do not sell personal information. Under DPDP (India users): we comply with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act.
Children
PagePulse is rated 12+ and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If we learn we have, we delete it.
Security
- All data is transmitted over TLS 1.2+.
- Firebase Firestore Security Rules enforce that you can only read or write your own data.
- Shared Shelfie documents are write-protected — only our server (the createShelfieShare callable) writes to them; the public read-access is intentional, the URL is the auth.
Changes to this policy
If we materially change what we collect or how we use it, we will notify you in-app and update the date above.
Contact
Affordance Design Studio
hello@affordancedesign.in
Bengaluru, India
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