Privacy Policy

About this policy

BookLovers is a community for discovering books, keeping a reading library, and meeting other readers. This policy explains how the BookLovers app and website use information. Contact [email protected] for privacy questions, access requests, or help deleting information.

Account and profile information

We collect the name, email address, phone number, date of birth, and account identifiers you provide when creating or using an account. Your profile may include photos, a biography, gender, the people you are interested in meeting, work, education, languages, location, and social links. Some of these preferences may reveal sensitive information. We use this information to provide your account, confirm age eligibility, display your profile, and personalize reader discovery.

Your library and community activity

We store the books you add, reading lists, ratings, reviews, quotes, comments, reading goals and progress, and interactions with other readers. We also process your messages, bookmarks, connections, reports, blocks, and support requests. Public profile information and content you share publicly can be seen by other people. Messages are delivered to their intended recipients. Please avoid posting information you do not want others to see.

Location, photos, and notifications

When you permit location access, we collect device coordinates and may derive a city, region, or formatted address to find nearby readers and personalize results. Coordinates can be precise. You can change location access in your device settings. Camera access supports barcode scanning and taking photos; scanning an ISBN sends the ISBN for book lookup, rather than uploading the camera feed. Photos you choose to upload are stored to display your profile and gallery. Push notification tokens let us deliver notifications, which you can turn off in device settings.

Purchases

Apple handles payment for iOS subscriptions. We receive and verify purchase receipts, product and transaction identifiers, subscription status, and expiration dates to provide BookLovers Plus and restore purchases. We do not receive your payment card details from Apple. Deleting your BookLovers account does not cancel an Apple subscription; manage or cancel it in your Apple account subscription settings.

Usage, search, and diagnostics

We collect app interactions, searches, onboarding progress, reading activity, device and app information, and technical logs to operate and improve the service. PostHog provides app analytics, and Sentry helps diagnose errors and performance problems. Some usage and diagnostic information can be associated with your account, device, or information supplied in a request. Session recording is disabled in the mobile app. Older app versions may include an email address in registration analytics.

Starting with the October 2026 reader experience update, BookLovers also records daily feature visits and successful actions against your account to understand use and return visits. Optional feedback records your latest useful/needs-work rating and chosen reason for each feature. Daily feature records are retained for up to 180 days, and aggregated server performance counts for up to 90 days. Account deletion removes your feature records and feedback. Current Sentry integrations send error stack locations, release/device information, and sampled timings, while filtering request contents, messages, private reading notes, searches, and credentials. Screenshots and session replay are disabled in these integrations. Older versions may behave as described above.

The website also counts feature actions, validation failures, navigation, and whether an edited form was submitted or left unfinished. These hourly counts contain fixed feature and action categories, not your account identifier, form contents, book identifiers, search terms, messages, or private notes. They are retained for up to 90 days. Browser counts may be incomplete when a browser blocks diagnostics or closes before sending them. Session recording is disabled in the updated reader workspace.

Service providers and external links

Hosting, content delivery, authentication, messaging, analytics, diagnostics, book search, and purchase providers process information needed to supply their services. Book lookups may send a search term or ISBN to book data providers. Recommendations use reading preferences, book lists, and ratings within BookLovers. External AI personalization is currently disabled; we will ask for explicit permission and identify the providers and data before enabling it. External book shops and other linked websites have their own privacy policies. Some book purchase links are affiliate links. We do not use the mobile app to track you across other companies' apps and websites for targeted advertising.

Safety and moderation

We check submitted text and profile photos for objectionable content before publication. Photo classification runs on our server. Reports and relevant content may be reviewed by moderators to investigate abuse. You can report or block another reader from their profile or conversation. Automated checks have limitations; please report harmful content that gets through.

Storage and your choices

We use local app storage and website cookies for sign-in, preferences, and service operation. You can edit your profile and remove your own content using the available account controls. To delete your account, use Profile → Delete Account in the app. This removes your active account, profile, uploaded photos, reading library, and posts. Limited transaction and safety records may be retained for purchase restoration, fraud prevention, dispute handling, or legal requirements. Published ebooks are unlisted when their author closes an account. Editions already added by other readers remain available to those readers, including the edition’s author credit, under the distribution permission confirmed at submission. Private manuscripts and unused upload files are removed. File deletion is retried if a temporary storage problem occurs. Copies in backups and service-provider systems may remain for their applicable retention periods.

For access, correction, deletion, or other privacy requests that are not covered by the in-app controls, email [email protected]. We may ask for information needed to confirm that the account is yours. You can also adjust camera, photo, location, and notification permissions in your device settings.

Adults only and policy updates

BookLovers is intended for people aged 18 and older. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us. We will update this page when our practices change and show the revision date above.