Privacy

Last updated: 31 August 2026 · Booklight is made by Giant VFX Ltd

Booklight is a personal reading journal. Your journal stays yours: no ads, no analytics, no trackers, and no account needed. This page says plainly what data goes where.

Your journal — private by design

Your books, reading dates, notes, quotes, ratings, profile name and photo live on your device. If iCloud is on, the journal syncs to your own private iCloud so it survives device changes — that copy belongs to your Apple account, and we operate no server that receives it. We cannot read your journal.

• Camera is used only to read book barcodes, entirely on your device. Images are never stored or uploaded.
• Your profile photo is stored only on your device.
• Export creates a CSV file on your device that you own and share as you wish.
• “Delete everything” in the profile erases your journal and synced preferences. We hold no copy.

Friends — optional, and only what you choose

The core journal needs no account. If you use the optional Friends features, you sign in with Apple and we store — in Google Firebase — the minimum needed:

• your user ID and display name (sharing your name via Apple is your choice; we never ask for your email),
• invitations you send: a random code, your user ID and name, dates and status — pending invites expire by themselves after 30 days,
• friendships: which two readers are connected,
• and only the things you explicitly switch on to share in the in-app privacy settings.

Your journal is never uploaded. Friends only ever see what you chose to share, and declining an invitation, recommendation or challenge never notifies anyone. Deleting your social account inside the app removes your data from our servers and disconnects Sign in with Apple; your journal is untouched.

Booklight Pro — payments stay with Apple

Pro is an optional purchase handled entirely by Apple's App Store. Booklight never sees your payment details, name or email. Subscription status is resolved by RevenueCat using an anonymous identifier — no name, no email, no journal data.

Third-party services, by name

• Apple — Sign in with Apple, iCloud, App Store payments, on-device barcode scanning.
• Google Firebase — sign-in and the Friends database (EU multi-region). Firebase Analytics is disabled; the analytics SDK is not in the app.
• Google Books — your book searches (title, author or ISBN) are sent as plain queries to fetch details and covers. They carry no account or identity.
• Open Library (Internet Archive) — fallback search and covers, same as above.
• RevenueCat — subscription status only, anonymous.
• Bookstore links — tapping “buy” opens the store's own website in your browser; their privacy policy applies there. We add nothing to the link beyond the book you tapped.

Like every internet service, the servers above see your IP address while answering a request. We don't collect, store or use it.

What Booklight doesn't do

No analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising SDKs, no advertising identifier (IDFA), no push notifications, no data brokers, no tracking of any kind. This isn't a promise buried in settings — the SDKs simply aren't in the app.

Children

Booklight is a general-audience app and collects no data requiring parental consent.

Changes & contact

If this policy changes, the date above changes with it. Questions? Support.