Privacy Policy

This policy covers two separate things: the ReadApptive iPhone app, and this website. They work differently, so they are described separately.

It is written to be read. Where something might sound better than it is, we have tried to say what actually happens instead.

The ReadApptive iPhone app

No account, and nowhere for your information to go

ReadApptive has no accounts and no sign-in. There is no ReadApptive server, no database, and no profile about you anywhere.

ReadApptive does not send your settings, reading activity, camera information, or other app data to us. ReadApptive does not operate a server or service that receives that information.

No advertising, analytics, or tracking

The app contains no advertising, no analytics, no crash-reporting service, and no third-party tracking. It does not include any third-party software kits at all — everything in it is either written by us or provided by Apple as part of iOS.

Your settings stay on your iPhone

Your preferences — text size, reading settings, which features you have turned on — are stored by the app on your device. They are not sent to us, and ReadApptive does not sync them to iCloud. Removing the app removes them.

One thing worth knowing, because it is easy to assume otherwise: iPhone backups can include app data. If you back your iPhone up to iCloud or to a computer, your ReadApptive settings may be included in that backup, according to your Apple backup settings. That is Apple’s backup of your own device, not something ReadApptive sends or can read.

The app does not collect your email address, your name, or any other contact details.

The camera, and how text follows your reading distance

ReadApptive adjusts text size as your reading distance changes. To do that it uses the iPhone’s front camera together with the face-tracking built into iOS, which runs on the phone itself.

The app never receives a photograph or a video frame from the camera. What it receives from iOS is a small amount of information: whether a face is currently visible, the direction the face is looking, and a single measurement of how far away it is. Nothing else. There is no image for the app to save, and none is saved.

Face-tracking information is treated as sensitive under some privacy laws. Rather than argue about which category it belongs to, here is the practical position: it is produced on your iPhone by iOS, used immediately to decide how large text should be, and never sent anywhere.

iOS asks your permission before the camera can be used at all, and you can withdraw it at any time in Settings. If you do, text stops adjusting to distance. Everything else in the app keeps working.

Screenshots — optional, and off unless you turn it on

ReadApptive can open a screenshot automatically, moments after you take one, so you do not have to find and share it yourself. This is switched off by default. It only does anything if you turn it on.

When you turn it on, iOS asks for permission to your photo library. The permission iOS shows you is broader than what ReadApptive does with it, and we would rather explain that than let it look suspicious. Apple’s photo library permissions offer only two levels: one that allows an app to add photos, and one that allows an app to read and change them. There is no read-only option. Reading is what this feature needs, so the second level is the only one that works — and it carries the ability to change your library as an unavoidable extra.

ReadApptive never adds, edits, or deletes anything in your photo library. It looks for one thing: the most recent screenshot, and only if it was taken in the last few seconds. That image is held in memory while you read it. It is not copied into ReadApptive, not stored, and not sent anywhere. You can withdraw photo access at any time in Settings.

Web pages you open

When you open a web page in ReadApptive, your iPhone requests that page directly from the website hosting it, the same way a browser would. ReadApptive does not keep a record of the pages you open on any server, because there is no server.

Those websites are not ours, and this policy does not cover them. They may set cookies, run analytics, or track visitors exactly as they would in any other browser. What they do is governed by their own privacy policies, not this one.

Diagnostic information

Released versions of ReadApptive do not record or keep logs of your reading activity. Development builds we use ourselves record diagnostic information to help us find problems; that recording is not part of the app you download.

This website

What the site does

This site is a set of static pages. It sets no cookies, asks for no personal information, and includes no advertising or third-party tracking scripts. It is hosted by Vercel, whose servers process standard technical request information — such as IP address and browser type — in order to deliver the pages to you.

The reading demonstration

The slider demonstration on the home page needs no camera and no permission. It runs entirely in your browser and involves no personal information at all.

The optional camera demonstration

Below the slider there is an option to try the same thing with your camera. Nothing happens until you choose it and your browser asks for permission. The page requests video only. It never asks for your microphone.

If you allow it, face detection runs locally inside your browser tab. The face-detection software is served from the ReadApptive website rather than loaded from a separate third-party service.

Camera frames are processed locally in your browser. They are not uploaded, recorded, stored, or sent to ReadApptive, to MediaPipe, or to another face-detection service. Each frame is measured for the position of a face and immediately discarded. What the page works with is how much the size of your face changes relative to where it started — not a picture, and not a distance in any real unit. We checked the network traffic while the demonstration was running and confirmed that no request goes to any other website.

You can stop it at any time with the Stop camera button, and it stops on its own if you switch tabs or leave the page.

Children

ReadApptive is not directed at children, and does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone.

Keeping your information safe

The strongest protection here is structural rather than procedural: information that is never collected cannot be leaked, and information that never leaves your device cannot be intercepted in transit. Your settings are stored by iOS on your iPhone and protected by your device passcode and Apple’s own protections.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the revised version will be published on this page with a new date at the top. Material changes will be described rather than made quietly.

Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to support@readapptive.com. Email sent to us for support is used to answer you, and nothing else — it does not sign you up for anything.