Your reading stays yours.

Who is responsible

Hearthpage is operated by Alexander Southern (“Hearthpage”, “we”, “us”). Questions and privacy requests can be sent to alexsouthernapps@gmail.com.

Information we collect

• Account information: email address, a securely hashed password, optional display name, plan, sign-in identifiers, and account-security records.
• Your reading data: notes, passages, reflections, tags, source details and URLs, reading-list items and article snapshots, collections, syntheses, progress, goals, focus-session history, ratings, companion choices, and uploaded note images.
• Messages: feedback and support correspondence, and the email address needed to reply.
• Product events: a small first-party event set such as account creation, note creation, completed reading sessions and revisits. These events use coarse properties such as platform and duration band; they do not include note text, titles, authors, URLs, tags, questions, AI prompts or AI output.
• Technical and security data: IP address and request timing in short-lived security counters and hosting logs, plus app, device, operating-system and content-free crash details when crash reporting is enabled.

The apps also keep necessary local data on your device, including an authentication token, theme and reading preferences, offline caches, and pending captures waiting to sync.

In the iPhone app, voice capture requires on-device speech recognition. Microphone audio is transcribed on the device and is not uploaded or stored by Hearthpage; the resulting text is handled like any note you choose to save. If on-device recognition is unavailable, voice capture does not fall back to a cloud transcription service.

How we use information

We use this information to:

• provide, sync and secure your account and reading library;
• extract reader views, find covers, send requested digests and respond to support;
• calculate your own goals, streaks, Journey and companion progress;
• understand aggregate activation and reliability without reading your content;
• prevent abuse, diagnose faults and comply with legal obligations; and
• provide an optional AI result only when you request it and have granted the permission below.

Where UK or EEA data-protection law applies, these uses rely on the contract needed to provide Hearthpage, our legitimate interests in security and content-free service improvement, your consent for optional third-party AI processing, or a legal obligation as applicable.

Optional AI features and Anthropic

AI features are off until you explicitly allow them. When you choose an AI clean-up, tag suggestion, key-idea extraction, explanation or distillation, Hearthpage may send the material needed for that specific request to Anthropic through its commercial API. Depending on the action, that material can include selected passages, notes and reflections, source titles and authors, your question, and existing tag names. Hearthpage does not send your whole library when a smaller selection will do.

The purpose is only to generate the result you requested. Hearthpage does not opt API inputs or outputs into Anthropic model training. Anthropic states that commercial API inputs and outputs are not used for model training unless the API customer opts in, and that standard API inputs and outputs are deleted from its backend within 30 days, unless different retention terms have been agreed. Material flagged for usage-policy enforcement may be retained longer, and legal obligations can also require retention. See the Anthropic Privacy Center.

You can say “Not now” and keep using Hearthpage without these AI actions. You can grant or revoke permission at any time in Settings → AI features. Revocation prevents future sharing. It cannot recall a request already processed, which remains subject to Anthropic's retention terms. If this disclosure changes materially, Hearthpage will require a new permission choice before another AI request.

Service providers and other recipients

We share only what is needed with providers that help operate Hearthpage:

• hosting, database and object-storage providers, including Vercel;
• Resend, when you request an email digest, password email, or feedback delivery;
• Sentry, for privacy-filtered crash diagnostics when configured;
• Google, if you choose Google sign-in;
• Open Library, which receives a book title and sometimes author to find a cover;
• Anthropic, only under the optional AI permission described above.

We do not sell personal information, run third-party advertising, or track you across other companies' apps or websites. We may disclose information where required by law or necessary to protect users and the service. If the service is reorganised or transferred, data may transfer with it under protections consistent with this policy.

Providers that handle personal data are required to use it only for the service they supply to Hearthpage and to protect it consistently with this policy, their contractual commitments and applicable law.

Retention, export and deletion

Account and reading data are kept while your account is active so the service can sync it. Short-lived reset tokens and abuse-prevention counters expire; limited backups, provider logs and legal records may persist for a reasonable period before deletion or where retention is required by law. Provider-held copies follow the provider terms described above.

You can export a human-readable Markdown copy or a structured JSON archive at any time from Settings. You can permanently delete your account inside the iPhone app or web Settings. Account deletion removes the live account and user-scoped reading data; it cannot be undone. You may also contact us if you cannot access your account.

Your choices and rights

Settings lets you change your name, digest, AI permission and other preferences, export your data, and delete your account. Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to access, correct, erase, restrict, port or object to processing, withdraw consent, and complain to your data-protection authority. Email us to exercise a right; we may need to verify that the account is yours.

Security, children and international processing

Hearthpage uses access controls, signed sessions, encrypted transport, password hashing and owner-scoped database queries. No service is perfectly secure, so please use a unique password and contact us if you suspect misuse.

Hearthpage is not directed to children under 13. Service providers may process data in countries other than yours. Where required, we rely on recognised transfer safeguards or provider contractual protections.

Changes and contact

We may update this notice as Hearthpage changes. The date above will change, and a material change affecting consent will be presented before the relevant processing resumes. Contact alexsouthernapps@gmail.com or visit the support page.