Spine Seek Privacy Notice

The short version

• Spine Seek works without an account. Signed out, your library, including your ratings, notes, and the books you abandoned, stays on your phone. The app comes with no books of its own; your library starts empty.
• When you scan a shelf, the photo is sent to read the spines. We do not keep it. Your phone keeps your recent scans, with their photos, so you can go back to them, and you can delete them at any time.
• If you sign in, we keep your email address, when you agreed to these terms, and a copy of your library, so it syncs to any phone you sign in on. Each account's library is separate. You can delete all of it from the app at any time.
• No ads, no tracking, and we never sell your information.

1. What this notice covers

Spine Seek is an app for iPhone and iPad that reads the spines on a bookshelf and tells you which books suit you, judged against your own reading. It is made by 13Beacons, LLC, a California limited liability company based in Yucaipa, California. This notice adds to our company Privacy Policy; where they differ, this notice controls for Spine Seek.

2. Your library on your phone

The books you add or import, with their shelves, your ratings, notes, vibes, series, and reading dates, are stored in Spine Seek's own database on your phone. Judging a shelf against your taste happens there too. Signed out, none of this is sent to us.

Each account keeps its own library on the phone, and the phone keeps one more for when no one is signed in. Signing in shows only that account's books; signing out shows only the phone's. When you sign in, books already in the phone's library are added to your account only if you say so.

• Deleting the app erases it.
• Your phone's own backups, such as iCloud Backup, may include it, under your backup settings and Apple's privacy policy.

3. Scanning a shelf

Before a photo leaves your phone, Spine Seek resizes it and removes its embedded details, such as location. It is then sent over an encrypted connection to our recognition service, which runs on Google Cloud in the United States and asks Google's Gemini model, through Google Vertex AI, to read the spines. The list of books comes back to your phone.

• We do not store your photos or the list of books found.
• Your phone keeps your 50 most recent scans in the app's History, each with its photo, the books found, and any verdict you asked for, so you can go back to a shelf later. They stay on your phone, are never synced to your account, are kept separately for each account and for the phone's own library, and can be deleted one at a time or all at once in History. Deleting the app erases them, and your phone's own backups may include them, as in section 2.
• Our service records only counts, timings, and errors, such as how many books a scan found. Google Cloud keeps standard request logs, including your IP address and the time of the request, for a limited period.
• Google processes the photo on our behalf, under Google Cloud's terms, to return the result.

4. The bookseller's verdict (optional)

When you ask for a written verdict on a shelf, Spine Seek sends a summary of your taste so the verdict can be about you. That summary is your average rating, the authors you rate above or below your average with their averages, how qualities like "propulsive" move your ratings, and a limited number of titles you loved, disliked, or abandoned, together with the books found on the shelf. It is processed the same way as a scan, and we do not keep it. Your full library and reading history are not sent.

5. Covers and book details

To show cover art and descriptions, your phone looks books up directly with Open Library, run by the Internet Archive, and Google Books. These services receive the book's title and author and your device's IP address, under their own privacy policies. They do not receive your account or your ratings.

6. Accounts (optional)

You can create an account with Sign in with Apple, Sign in with Google, or an email address and password. Accounts are provided by Google Firebase Authentication on our behalf.

• What the account holds: your email address (Sign in with Apple can give a private relay address instead of your own), an account ID, how you sign in, and when you last signed in. With Google, it may also hold the name and profile picture Google provides, which the app shows on your account screen. We ask Apple only for your email, not your name.
• Passwords are handled by Firebase Authentication. We never see them.
• Emails: email accounts receive an address confirmation email and, if you ask for one, a password reset email, sent by Firebase on our behalf.
• Your agreement: when you create an account, we record when you agreed to the Terms of Use and which versions of the terms and this notice you agreed to.

7. Your library in your account (only when signed in)

When you sign in, Spine Seek keeps your library in Google Cloud Firestore, stored in the United States and linked to your account ID, and syncs it to every phone you sign in on. Signing in is the choice to do this; signed out, nothing syncs. For each book, that copy holds the title, author, series and number, shelf, your rating, whether you own it, page count, publication year, the date you read it, genres, vibes, your notes, where the book came from (for example a Goodreads import), and when it was added and changed. Cover images are not copied.

• Only you can reach your copy through the app. Email accounts must confirm their address before syncing can start.
• We do not look at it except to run the service, fix a problem you report, or meet a legal obligation.
• Signing out stops syncing on that phone. Your library stays with your account and comes back when you sign in again. To remove the cloud copy, delete your account, as in section 10.

8. Who we share information with

We do not sell or share your personal information for advertising, and Spine Seek has no ads, analytics, or tracking. Information goes only to:

• Google, which provides Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Run, and Vertex AI to us as a service provider.
• Apple, if you use Sign in with Apple, under Apple's privacy policy.
• Open Library and Google Books, for the lookups described in section 5.
• Bookshops you choose: the buy button opens a shop's website, such as Bookshop.org or Amazon, with a search for the book. Whatever happens there is governed by that shop's own privacy policy.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect our rights or someone's safety, or to a buyer if the business is sold.

9. How long we keep it

• Account and agreement record: until you delete your account.
• Your account's library: until you delete your account.
• Shelf photos and verdict summaries: not kept by us after the request is answered.
• Request logs: as set by Google Cloud, generally 30 days.

Deleted information is removed from our active systems straight away. It can take a short time longer to clear from Google's systems.

10. Deleting your account

In Spine Seek, open Settings, then Account, then Delete account. This deletes your account, the record of your agreement, and the copy of your library kept with your account, and for Sign in with Apple it also revokes Spine Seek's access to your Apple ID. The books themselves stay on that phone, in its own library, until you delete them or the app. You can also email privacy@13beacons.com and we will delete it for you.

11. Security

Information travels over encrypted connections and is encrypted at rest by Google. Access rules let each account reach only its own library. No system is perfectly secure, but we limit what we collect so there is little to protect.

12. Children

Spine Seek is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly create accounts for them. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

13. Your rights

You can ask what personal information we hold about you, ask for a copy, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Most of this you can do in the app. Otherwise, email privacy@13beacons.com; we will verify the request and answer within 45 days. California residents have these rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the CPRA, and the right not to be discriminated against for using them. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined in the CCPA.

14. Do Not Track

Spine Seek does not track you over time or across other apps and websites, so it treats every request the same whether or not a Do Not Track signal is sent.

15. Where information is processed

Spine Seek's services run in the United States. If you use Spine Seek from elsewhere, your information is processed in the United States.

16. Changes

If we change this notice, we will post the new version on this page and update the effective date. If a change materially affects how we handle your information, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect and, where needed, ask for your agreement again.

17. Contact