Privacy Policy — Caelora: Story Tracker

1. Who We Are

Caelora is operated by Cassea Leavitt, an individual (sole trader) based in Maine, USA, trading as “Caelora.”

Contact: info@caelora.app

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your data, contact us using the details above.

2. Information We Collect

Information You Provide

Account credentials — email address and password (or passwordless email link) used to create and access your account.
Date of birth — collected once at sign-up solely to verify you are 18 or older. It is checked on-device and is not stored after verification.
Reading data — books you add to your library, ratings, mood reactions, and memory notes you write about books.
Read activity — the dates and times you mark a book as read.
Wishlist and To-Be-Read lists — books you save for future reading.
Library card information — your library's name, your card number, and shelf call numbers that you enter for library management features. This information is stored only on your device and is never uploaded to our servers.
Library bag (pull list and checked-out books) — the books you plan to borrow or have checked out, along with their due dates, back up to your private account so they can be restored if you reinstall the App or sign in on a new device. These lists are linked to a library using only an anonymous code plus non-identifying card settings (color, loan duration, borrow limit, barcode type); your library's name, your card number, and call numbers are never included.
Profile information — display names and persona selections for reader profiles within the App, and a per-profile recommendation age setting you choose to keep suggestions age-appropriate.
App settings — preferences such as reminder times and parental control configurations. PINs and reminder times are stored only on your device.
Subscription status — whether you have an active Caelora Premium subscription, the plan type, and trial start date. This entitlement state is stored only on your device (in Android DataStore) and is derived from Google Play — we never store your payment card details or purchase receipts.

Information Collected Automatically

Camera data — the App uses your device camera solely to scan barcodes and ISBNs in real time. No photos or images are saved to your device or transmitted to our servers.
Book metadata — when you scan or search for a book, the App sends the ISBN or title to our Firebase backend, which queries Google’s Books API to retrieve metadata (title, author, cover art, page count). No personal information is included in these queries.
Anonymous usage aggregates — the App contributes an anonymous weekly read count per ISBN to a shared catalog. No user ID, profile ID, or any identifying information is included.

We do not collect sensitive information such as health, biometric identifiers, precise location, or financial data. Biometric authentication, if you enable it, is handled entirely by your device — see Section 6.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

Create and secure your account.
Sync your library and reading data across your devices.
Provide age-appropriate book recommendations based on the recommendation age you set.
Send reading reminder notifications, only if you enable them.
Retrieve book metadata so you can find and identify books.
Maintain a shared, non-personal book catalog (anonymous read counts and metadata deduplication).
Handle account deletion and data export requests.

We do not use your information for advertising, sell it to third parties, or share it with analytics providers.

4. Data Storage and Sharing

Firebase / Google

Your account credentials, library data, reading sessions, and profiles are stored in Google Firebase Firestore, a cloud database operated by Google LLC in the United States. This storage is subject to Google’s Privacy Policy and the Firebase Terms of Service. Google acts as our service provider.

Google Books API

Book searches (by title or ISBN) are routed through our own Firebase Cloud Functions backend, which queries the Google Books API on your behalf. Only the search query itself is transmitted — no account information or personal data is included. See Google’s Privacy Policy for details.

Metadata Contributions

When you suggest a correction to a book’s metadata (e.g., genre or series), the App submits your proposed value along with your account user ID to our Firestore database. This information is used solely for deduplication and is not shared with third parties.

External Links

Certain features allow you to open external websites — such as bookseller pages (Bookshop.org, Better World Books) or book search results — in your device’s browser. When you choose to open these links, your device sends the book title or search query directly to that third-party website. We do not control those sites or their privacy practices.

Google Play Billing

If you subscribe to Caelora Premium, payment is processed entirely by Google Play. The App never receives or stores your payment card number or billing address. After a successful purchase, Google Play returns only an acknowledgment token and your subscription’s active/paused/cancelled status, which is stored on-device to determine your access level. This is subject to the Google Play Terms of Service and Google’s Privacy Policy.

No Advertising or Analytics SDKs

The App does not include any advertising networks, crash-reporting services, or analytics SDKs. We do not track your behavior across apps or websites.

5. Children’s Privacy (COPPA)

For younger readers, in plain language 🌟

We keep track of the books you read so your reading galaxy can grow. You don’t have to use your real name — pick a fun explorer name instead. A grown-up sets up the account and chooses books that suit your age. We never show you ads, never follow you around the internet, and a grown-up can download or delete everything any time.

Caelora is designed for families and is intended to be used by children under the supervision of a parent or guardian. We comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and take children’s privacy seriously.

Account holders must be 18 or older. The App verifies this at sign-up; your date of birth is not stored after verification. The adult account holder creates and manages child profiles on behalf of minors and provides consent for those profiles.
No personal information is required for children’s profiles. Child profiles are identified by a display name and persona — not an email address, real name, or other identifier. We encourage non-identifying display names.
Parental controls. Parent-only areas (Library Bag, Settings, account deletion) are protected by a parent gate that is switched on by default.
Age-appropriate recommendations. A parent sets a recommendation age for each child, and mature content is filtered out.
No behavioral advertising and no tracking. We do not serve ads, build advertising profiles, or use third-party analytics or tracking SDKs.
Anonymous aggregates (weekly read counts per ISBN) contain no user or profile identifiers and cannot be linked to any individual child.
Parental rights. A parent or guardian may review and delete a child’s information at any time in the App, or by contacting us. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children beyond what is described here.

6. Biometric Data

The App may request access to your device’s biometric authentication (fingerprint or face recognition) for optional parental control features. Biometric authentication is handled entirely by your device’s operating system — the App never receives, stores, or transmits biometric data.

7. Notifications

If you grant notification permission, the App may send local reminders (e.g., daily reading goals or library due dates). These are generated on-device and do not require sending personal data to external servers. You can turn them off at any time in Settings or in your device settings.

8. Data Retention and Deletion

Your Firestore data (library, reading sessions, profiles, wishlist, and your pull list / checked-out book lists under an anonymous library code) is retained for as long as your account exists.
You can permanently delete your account and all associated cloud data from within the App via caelora.app/delete-request.html. In-app deletion removes your cloud data immediately; any residual copies in backups are purged within 30 days.
If you no longer have the App installed, email your request to info@caelora.app from your account email address; we will verify and complete deletion within 30 days.
Local data (library cards, checkout history, settings) is cleared from your device when you uninstall the App or delete your account.
Date of birth is not retained — it is used only momentarily at sign-up to verify your age.

9. Your Choices and Rights

You can:

Access and review the personal data associated with your account (and your children’s profiles) within the App.
Correct inaccurate data by editing it in the App.
Delete your account and all associated data — available directly in-app at caelora.app/delete-request.html.
Export your reading data as a CSV or JSON file from within the App.
Turn off notifications at any time.

California residents. If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA) may give you rights to know, delete, and correct your personal information, and to opt out of its “sale” or “sharing.” We do not sell or share your personal information. To exercise any applicable right, contact us at info@caelora.app; we will not discriminate against you for doing so.

10. Security

We use industry-standard security measures — including HTTPS for all network communication (cleartext traffic is explicitly disabled in the App) and Firebase’s built-in access controls — to protect your data. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, but we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your information.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. Continued use of the App after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

Email: info@caelora.app