Your shelf is yours

The short version

BookKind keeps a record of the books you own, want and have read, and uses an AI Librarian to talk about them with you. To do that it stores your library and your conversations on a server in Sydney, under an account you sign in to with Apple, Google or an email address. Nothing is sold, nothing is used for advertising, and there is no analytics or tracking code in the app. The AI provider receives what it needs to answer you and is told not to keep it. You can export everything and delete everything.

What BookKind collects

Your account. When you sign in with Apple, Google or an email address, BookKind receives the name and email address that service passes on (Apple lets you hide your real address) and a stable identifier for your account with that service. We use them to recognise you, to show your first name in the app, and to send account emails such as a sign-up confirmation or a password reset. If you set a preferred name for the Librarian to use, that is stored too.

Your library. Every book you add: title, author, series, ISBN, page count, format (hard copy, Kindle, Audible and so on), where it sits on your shelf, its status, the page you are on, your rating, when you started and finished, why you set a book aside, your wishlist and its order, your reading goals and the achievements the app awards. Cover images come from the catalogue or from a photo you choose as the cover.

Your conversations. What you say to the Librarian, including in each book's AI Book Club chat, and the replies. These chats are private to you; BookKind has no group or social chat. The Librarian keeps short notes about your taste when you tell it something it should remember, for example that you loved a book or found one too dark. You can see those notes in Settings, delete any of them, and turn off learning from chats altogether.

Your preferences. Favourite authors, favourite books, genres you like, an avoid list, a note about your taste, your preferred name and your chosen theme.

Cover photos. If you photograph a cover to add a book, the photo is reduced in size and sent once to the AI provider to read the title and author. The photo itself is not kept unless you choose it as the book's cover.

Purchases. If you buy the Shelf or subscribe to the Librarian, Apple or Google handles the payment. BookKind receives the fact of the purchase and its status through a billing service (RevenueCat), so it can unlock what you paid for, and keeps a record of each store event: what was bought or renewed, when, in which store, and the amount and currency. We never see card details.

Technical records. Server logs with the request path, time, IP address and browser or app version, kept for 30 days to keep the service running and to investigate problems. A record of each AI request (the feature, the model, how many tokens it used and what it cost), without the conversation text, kept for 13 months to manage the AI allowance and our costs. A crash report, when something goes wrong, with the error and where it happened but none of your content, kept for 90 days.

What BookKind does not collect

• No advertising, no advertising identifiers, and no data sold or shared for marketing.
• No analytics or tracking software in the app or the web app.
• No location, contacts, calendar, microphone or health data. The camera is used only when you choose to photograph a cover, and the photo library only when you choose a photo.
• No reading of your Kindle or Audible accounts. The Kindle and Audible buttons simply open those apps or their stores on a book's page.

Where it is processed, and by whom

BookKind runs on a small number of services, each used for one job:

• Supabase (Sydney, Australia) stores the database and cover images, and handles email and Google sign-in.
• Vercel (Sydney for the app's server; its build systems are in the United States) runs the API and serves the web app.
• OpenAI (United States) provides the AI model behind the Librarian, its AI Book Club chat and cover reading. Each request carries what the model needs to answer: your message, the recent conversation, and a summary of your library and preferences. We use OpenAI's business API, which does not use your data to train models, and every request asks that nothing be stored.
• Open Library and Google Books answer catalogue searches. They receive only the title, author or ISBN you search for, never who you are.
• Apple and Google handle sign-in and, through their stores, purchases.
• RevenueCat keeps track of purchase status so the app can unlock the Shelf and the Librarian.
• Cloudflare provides the domain's DNS and, like any such provider, may process basic request information to deliver and protect the service.
• Sentry (Germany) receives a crash report when the app or the server hits an error it did not expect: the kind of error, where in the code it happened, the app version and the device or browser type. Never your name, messages, library or sign-in details.

Each of these providers acts on our instructions. We do not give your information to anyone else unless the law requires it. Our own operator tools show account, plan and billing details and, when you ask us for help, your library; your conversations, notes and taste are never readable by anyone but you.

Where you sign in with Google, BookKind's use of the information it receives from your Google account is limited to signing you in, in line with the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

Family

BookKind has a family circle for people who read together. It is off unless you start a circle or join one with an invite, and the app shows what is shared before you do. Everyone in a circle can see each other's wishlists and reading activity (the books you add, start and finish, and the ratings you give), so a gift is easy to pick, and nothing else: conversations, the Librarian's notes, your taste preferences and the rest of your library are never visible to anyone but you. Everyone in the circle can also see its name and who is in it.

The person who starts a circle can invite people with a single-use code that expires after a week, and can remove people or end the circle. Anyone else can leave at any time. If the person who started a circle deletes their account, the circle ends. A child in a circle is treated like everyone else, so the whole circle can see their wishlist and reading activity.

How long we keep it

Your account, library, conversations and preferences stay for as long as you have an account. Server logs are kept for 30 days and AI usage records for 13 months, then deleted. A sign-in session expires after 30 days on the web and 90 days of inactivity in the apps.

Deleting and exporting

You can export your whole account as a file, or your library as a spreadsheet, at any time, and you can delete your account, which removes your library, covers, conversations, notes, preferences, family circle membership and account records (and ends any circle you started), deletes your sign-in with our sign-in provider and revokes the Sign in with Apple token if you used one. All of this is under "Your data" in the app's Settings, on the web and in the apps; if you cannot sign in, email us and we will do it within 30 days. Deleting your BookKind account does not cancel a Librarian subscription, because the subscription is with Apple or Google: cancel it in your App Store or Google Play subscription settings. Records of store purchases are kept as business records after an account is deleted, as Australian tax law requires, but nothing in them links back to you. How to delete your account.

If BookKind is ever discontinued, you will have at least 90 days' notice in the app and by email, export stays available until the end date, and all personal data is deleted after it.

Security

Everything travels over encrypted connections. Sign-in uses Apple, Google or Supabase's own systems, so BookKind never holds your password. Server credentials never ship inside the app, the database accepts connections only from BookKind's server, and access is scoped to your own account on every request.

Children

BookKind is not directed at children under 13, and a BookKind account needs an Apple ID, a Google account or an email address of your own. A parent who wants a child's shelf in the family can hold the account themselves. A young person with their own account who joins a family circle is treated like any other member: the whole circle sees their wishlist and reading activity.

Your rights

You can ask us what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted, and we will answer within 30 days. We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles. If you are not happy with how we respond, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

If this changes

If a later version of BookKind collects something new or sends it somewhere new, we will update this page before that version is released and say plainly what changed. The date below moves whenever the page does.