Privacy policy

The short version

• You speak about what you read or watched, and we turn it into notes for you. To do that, your voice and your words are sent to an AI service called Groq.
• Your voice recording is deleted as soon as it has been turned into text, normally within seconds. If something goes wrong, a daily clean-up removes any recording left behind, so none should stay longer than about 26 hours. This is true of short voice answers too.
• Groq says it does not train its AI on what you send it. We have switched on Groq’s “Zero Data Retention” setting, so Groq says it does not keep the audio, text or answers of our requests, not even to look into faults or misuse. Our own database, backups and error reports are separate and are described below.
• We do not sell your data, show ads, or use advertising or behavioural analytics.
• When the app or our server crashes or hits an error, a short error report is sent to Sentry, a crash-reporting service, so that we can fix the fault. A report holds the type of error, the app version, your device model and Android version, the name of the screen or server route where it happened, and the time. It never holds your journals, transcripts, voice, email address or account details.
• You can delete your account, and everything in it, at any time: how to delete your account.

Who we are

Brainshelves (the website is currently still labelled “Marginalia”) is a small independent app for keeping and reflecting on what you read and watch. “We” means the person who runs it. You can reach us at brainshelves.net@gmail.com.

What we collect and store

• Your account. Your email address and how you sign in. If you use a password, it is stored in scrambled (hashed) form by our sign-in provider; we never see it. If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your email address and basic profile details.
• Your books and sources. Titles, authors, page counts, cover images and reading status that you add.
• Your captures.The ideas, quotes and actions the app keeps from your rambles, the full text transcript of each ramble and how long it lasted, plus a numeric “fingerprint ” of each idea so we can find related ones.
• Your journal. The concepts you write about, your reflections, and your experiment pages, including the questions the AI suggests.
• Reports. If you report AI-generated content, we keep the report, the text you reported and any note you add.
• Technical records. A sign-in cookie or token to keep you signed in, and standard server logs (such as IP address, time and the page requested) kept by our hosting providers.

We do not collect your location, contacts, photos, or advertising identifiers.

Voice recordings and AI

This is the part that matters most, so here is exactly what happens.

• Recording. When you record a ramble, the audio is uploaded to private storage that only our server can read.
• Speech to text. Our server sends the audio to Groq, which converts it to text. The audio file is then deleted, normally within seconds. If an upload is abandoned, the transcription fails or a deletion fails, an automatic daily clean-up removes the file. It runs once a day and removes files more than an hour old, so in the worst case a recording can stay for about 26 hours.
• Short voice answers (for example in the journal) are handled the same way as a longer ramble: the app uploads the clip to the same private storage, our server sends it to Groq for transcription and then deletes it, with the same daily clean-up as a backstop. They are stored for a short time, not kept.
• Finding your notes. The text of your transcript is sent to Groq again so its language model can pick out the ideas worth keeping. When you ask for an experiment prompt in the journal, the concept, your reflections and your earlier experiment pages are sent to Groq to write it.
• What Groq does with it.Groq says it does not use what you send it to train its models. We have switched on Groq’s “Zero Data Retention” setting for our account. With it on, Groq says it does not keep the audio, text or answers of our requests, not even for troubleshooting or abuse checks. Groq still has to receive and process your audio and text to answer us, it always keeps usage counts (such as how many requests were made) that hold none of your content, and its terms still allow it to access or keep data where the law requires. If that setting is ever switched off, we will update this page.
• We use no other AI service, and we do not use your content to train any AI model.
• AI can be wrong. Summaries and notes are suggestions you review before keeping. If something is inaccurate, offensive or unsafe, use the Report option in the app.

Who else handles your data

These companies process data on our behalf, only to run the service:

• Supabase: our database, sign-in, and temporary audio storage.
• Vercel: hosts the website and the server that the app talks to.
• Groq: speech to text and the AI that finds your notes, as described above.
• Sentry: receives the short crash and error reports described above, only to find and fix faults.
• Google: if you choose “Continue with Google” to sign in. Also, when you search for a book, what you type, or the ISBN you scan, is sent to Google Books to find it, and book details and covers come back from there.
• Open Library: a free online book catalogue. When Google Books fails or finds nothing, the app searches Open Library with the same title, author or ISBN and the search options you chose (such as language), and it can load book covers from Open Library. Like the Google Books search, these requests go from your phone straight to Open Library, not through our server, and we do not store them. Open Library sees your phone’s internet address.

These providers may run servers outside your country. We do not sell or rent your data to anyone.

How long we keep things

• Your account and notes: until you delete them or your account.
• Voice recordings: deleted right after transcription, normally within seconds; leftovers are removed by a daily clean-up (about 26 hours at most).
• Groq: with Zero Data Retention on, Groq says it keeps none of the audio, text or answers of our requests. It keeps only usage counts that hold none of your content.
• Crash and error reports at Sentry: 30 days on the plan we use.
• Our own backups: from time to time we save a copy of the database to the computer of the person who runs Brainshelves, and keep the newest 14 copies. A copy holds the text of your books, notes, transcripts and journal and your email address, as they were at that time. It never holds passwords or voice recordings. Deleting your account does not remove you from copies already made; each copy disappears when newer copies push it out, so how soon depends on how often a copy is made.
• Server logs and any backups held by our providers: for the time their own policies set. We do not control these.

Your choices and rights

• See and take your data. You can export your books and captures from Settings.
• Change or remove items. You can edit or delete any book, capture or journal page yourself. Deleting a book also deletes the captures and journal pages attached to it.
• Delete everything. Use Delete account. It removes your account, books, captures, transcripts, journal, reports and any stored recordings. It cannot be undone. It does not reach the copies listed under “How long we keep things”: our earlier backups, error reports at Sentry and logs held by our providers.
• Ask us. Depending on where you live, you may have legal rights to access, correct, or erase your data, or to object to how it is used. Write to brainshelves.net@gmail.com and we will help.

Security

Everything travels over encrypted connections. Each account can only read its own rows in our database. We do not read your notes unless it is needed to fix a problem you tell us about or to look into a report. No system is perfectly secure, so please choose a strong, unique password.

Children

Brainshelves is not meant for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has made an account, write to brainshelves.net@gmail.com and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your data we will update this page and its date, and, for significant changes, tell you in the app or by email.

Contact

Questions, requests or concerns: brainshelves.net@gmail.com.