Privacy Policy
Effective September 4, 2026
The short version: we collect the minimum needed to run an account-based reading service — your email, your stories, and basic usage and security data. We don't sell your data, we don't run advertising trackers, and your stories are private to your account.
1. What we collect
- Account: your email address, used to sign you in (via emailed codes or links) and to contact you about the service.
- Your stories: the scenarios you play, the choices and text you enter, and the story passages generated for you. If you report a scene, we keep the reported text and your reason so we can review it.
- Purchases: if you subscribe to SecretNovel Premium, your subscription status, renewal date, and a purchase history tied to your account ID. Payment itself is handled by Apple or Google; we never see your card details.
- Usage: counters used to apply fair-use limits (such as generations per day) and basic product usage information.
- Technical & security: IP address and request metadata used for rate limiting, abuse prevention, and bot protection; standard server logs.
2. How we use it
- To operate the service: sign-in, saving and continuing your stories, enforcing limits, and applying your subscription to your account.
- To generate story text: your story content (not your email or identity) is sent to the AI model providers that produce the narration.
- To keep the service safe: abuse prevention, rate limiting, and enforcing our terms.
- To communicate with you: sign-in links and service emails, and occasional product updates (such as new stories or features) — every non-essential email includes an unsubscribe.
3. Who processes your data
- Cloudflare — hosts the service, stores its database, delivers our emails, and provides bot protection (Turnstile).
- AI model providers (via OpenRouter) — receive story text only, to generate narration. They do not receive your email address or account identity.
- RevenueCat — manages in-app subscriptions on our behalf. It receives your account ID and purchase events from Apple or Google, and tells us whether your subscription is active.
- Apple and Google — process payment for subscriptions bought in the iOS or Android app, under their own privacy policies and your store account.
We don't sell personal data, and we don't share it with advertisers.
4. Cookies
We use a session cookie to keep you signed in, and Cloudflare Turnstile may set a cookie as part of bot protection. No advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
5. Retention and deletion
We keep your data while your account exists. Deleting your account — from the account page on the web, or from the Account tab in the app — permanently removes your account, stories, and usage data from our database. Step-by-step instructions are on the delete your account page. Server logs and backups age out on short, fixed schedules. Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription; cancel that with Apple or Google.
6. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, export, or delete your personal data. Deletion is self-serve; for anything else, email us and we'll help: support@secretnovel.com.
7. Age
SecretNovel is for adults 18 and over. We don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 18; if we learn we have, we'll delete it.
8. Changes
If this policy changes materially, we'll flag it on the site or by email. The effective date above always reflects the current version.