Privacy

When you sign in with Google

Read to Me asks Google only for your name, email address and profile picture link, to know it's you and to check you were invited. It has no access to your Gmail, Drive, contacts or anything else in your Google account, and it does not keep Google's access tokens. Each sign-in also records the IP address and browser it came from, kept until that sign-in expires (30 days) or you sign out.

If you sign in with a Google account that isn't invited, nothing is stored unless you tap Ask for an invite. Then your name and email are kept for the person who runs Read to Me to see, until they answer or for 30 days at most.

Read to Me's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Your books

• Photos are kept in private storage that only your account can see. They are deleted within a day of making the audio, and after 30 days at most.
• The text read from them(with pinyin or Jyutping and a rough English translation), the book's title, language and page order are kept until you delete the book, so the audio can be made again.
• Audio tracks are not stored: you download them.
• Usage: what each reading and each track cost, kept to apply the monthly limit.
• The date you agreed to the terms of use.

Nobody else using Read to Me can see your books. Books are never shared between accounts.

Who handles it

• Anthropic (Claude) reads the text from each photo.
• Google Cloud turns the text into speech, and handles signing in.
• Vercel runs the app and stores the photos; Neon hosts the database. Both are in the United States (Oregon). Vercel keeps short-lived server logs, which include IP addresses.

Anthropic's and Google Cloud's business terms rule out training AI models on it or using it for advertising. Vercel and Neon store it only to run the app, and Vercel's option to use it for AI training is turned off.

Cookies

One cookie keeps you signed in. If a sign-in is turned away, a second cookie remembers which Google account was used, for 15 minutes, so you can ask for an invite. There are no advertising or tracking cookies.

Deleting your data

Delete a book from its page to remove its photos and text at once. To delete your whole account, or to ask what is stored about you, ask the person who invited you.