Privacy
Draft for legal review. This describes what the website and app do today. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer and is not yet in effect.
In short
- To make pictures, Cinder sends details about the book you choose to AI services. It never sends audio or page photos.
- Your pictures are kept on your iPhone. When you're signed in, a copy is also kept with your account.
- We don't sell your data, show ads, or use tracking or analytics tools on the website or in the app.
- You can delete your account in the app. A few things are kept after that, and they're listed below.
Who we are
Cinder is run by [legal entity name and address]. For anything about this policy or your data, write to cinder@converra.ai.
The website and waiting list
When you join the waiting list we collect:
- Your email address, so we can send your invite.
- Two optional answers, if you give them: where you listen to audiobooks, and a book you'd like to see. They help us decide what to work on first.
The website sets no cookies, stores nothing in your browser, and loads no tracking, analytics or advertising scripts. To stop abuse, our service uses your network (IP) address to limit how often sign-ups can be sent. It keeps those counts in memory, not in the waiting list, and clears them when the service restarts. Our hosting provider may also keep standard request logs, including IP addresses, under its own terms.
If we approve your email, it's added to the invite list and we send one invite email. Joining doesn't send an email.
The app
Your account
You sign in with your email address and a six-digit code we email you. We store your email address and your account settings. We store codes and sign-in sessions only in a scrambled (hashed) form. A code expires after 10 minutes. A session lasts up to 180 days, and signing out ends it. On your iPhone, the session is kept in the iOS Keychain.
With your account we keep:
- whether you allowed picture-making in the cloud, and when
- the books you've made pictures for, and the last chapter
- the styles and character looks you chose
- short captions of scenes already shown, so you don't get the same one twice
- your pictures and their details
- your thumbs-up and thumbs-down ratings, and your reasons
Making pictures
Making pictures sends details about your book to the cloud. You can turn this off at any time in Settings. To make pictures, the app sends our service:
- the book's title and author, the chapter or page, and a short description of the book
- any page text you add, up to 2,000 characters
- the styles and character looks you chose, and captions of earlier pictures
- the reasons you gave for recent thumbs-down ratings, so later pictures avoid the same problems
Our service sends these details to AI providers, which research the book and create the pictures. The service keeps the request in memory for up to two hours, then discards it. It does not log book text, page text or pictures.
Cinder does not record audio. When you photograph a page, the text is read on your iPhone using Apple's built-in text recognition. Only the text is sent, never the photo.
When you search for a book, your iPhone sends your search words directly to Open Library and Google Books to find it.
Pictures shared between listeners
To save time and cost, some pictures are stored in a shared collection for a book and shown to other listeners of the same book. This covers pictures of a whole book's world and characters, and pictures of a chapter when Cinder found published information about that chapter. The shared collection holds the book's details, scenes and pictures, but nothing that identifies you. Pictures made from page text you add are never shared.
Your gallery on your iPhone
Pictures are saved in the app on your iPhone and are not included in iCloud or device backups. Deleting a picture or book in the app deletes it from your iPhone and, when you're signed in, from your account.
Feedback and reports
When you rate or report a picture, the rating or report and your reason are saved on your iPhone, and ratings are also saved with your account. They're also sent to us for review, with the book title, the chapter and a small preview of the picture (at most 320 pixels). These review copies don't include your email or account. They are kept until we delete them; there is no automatic deletion yet. Ask us and we'll remove yours.
What we don't collect
The app uses no advertising identifier, no tracking, and no third-party analytics or crash-reporting tools. It doesn't ask for your location, contacts, microphone or photo library. It asks for the camera only when you choose to photograph a page.
Who else handles your data
We use these services to run Cinder. Each handles only what it needs for its job.
| Service | What for | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | Book research and pictures | Book details, page text and choices from a picture request |
| Google (Gemini) | Book research and pictures | Book details, page text and choices from a picture request |
| Amazon Web Services | Storing pictures | Your account's pictures and shared book pictures |
| Render | Running our service [and database: confirm host] | Everything our service stores, and request logs |
| Resend | Sending sign-in codes and invites | Your email address and the message |
| Open Library, Google Books | Finding books | Your search words, sent from your iPhone |
AI providers may keep request data for a limited time under their own policies. [Confirm each provider's retention terms and the account settings in use.] Our service runs in the United States. [Legal review: international transfer basis.]
How long we keep it
| Data | Kept until |
|---|---|
| Waiting-list entry and answers | You ask us to delete it. [Owner: set a limit.] |
| Account, pictures, choices, ratings | You delete them or your account |
| A picture request in progress | Up to two hours, in memory |
| Shared book pictures | The book is removed from the shared collection |
| Feedback and report review copies | We delete them. No automatic limit yet |
| Cost records | Kept. They hold counts and estimates, not personal details |
| Pictures on your iPhone | You delete them or the app |
Deleting your data
In the app, open Settings and tap Delete account. That permanently deletes your email address, sessions, consent record, reading history, choices, ratings and pictures from our service, and removes your account's pictures from your iPhone.
Deleting your account does not remove:
- shared book pictures that other listeners use
- feedback review copies (ask us and we'll delete them)
- your waiting-list entry and invite (ask us and we'll delete them)
- pictures you made before you signed in, which stay on your iPhone until you delete them or the app
- copies an AI provider or our hosting provider keeps under its own policy
To have anything else deleted, or to get a copy of your data, email cinder@converra.ai from the address you use with Cinder.
Security
Data between the app, the website and our service is encrypted in transit. Codes and sessions are stored hashed. Keys for AI providers stay on our service, never in the app. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that affects you, we'll tell you.
Children
Cinder is not meant for children under [13 / the age set by legal review], and we don't knowingly collect their data. If you think a child has given us their details, email us and we'll delete them.
Your choices and rights
You can turn off cloud picture-making in Settings, delete pictures and books, sign out, or delete your account at any time. Depending on where you live, you may have rights to see, correct, move or delete your data, or to object to how we use it. Email us to use them. [Legal review: GDPR, UK GDPR and US state law wording, lawful bases, and complaint authority.]
Changes
If we change what we collect or how we use it, we'll update this page and change its date. For significant changes, we'll also tell you in the app before they take effect.