Privacy policy

The short version: Lantern & Leaf has no accounts, no ads and no analytics. Your library, reading places, notes and settings are stored only on your device. We, Ember & Co, never receive them.

What stays on your device

Your books, your place in each one, bookmarks, highlights, notes, voice notes, reading and listening history, and your settings are stored in the app's private storage on your device. Uninstalling the app removes them.

Microphone

The microphone is used only while you record a voice note. The recording is turned into text on your device and is never uploaded. On Android TV the microphone isn't needed and isn't asked for unless you record a note.

Glow-along and the story so far

To follow an audiobook, the app listens to it on your device to learn where each sentence is spoken. The first time, it downloads a speech model for that language to your device from Alpha Cephei (alphacephei.com), the makers of the open-source Vosk speech engine; only the model is fetched, nothing about you or your books is sent. Recaps and character lists in "The story so far" are built on your device from the pages you've read. The audio, the text and the results stay on your device.

Looking up books

To find book details, covers, series, word definitions and bestseller lists, the app sends the title, author or word you're looking at to public book services such as Open Library, Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, LibriVox, Apple Books search, Google Books, The New York Times and Wiktionary. Those requests contain what you searched for, not who you are, though like any internet request they come from your device's IP address. These services have their own privacy policies.

If you choose to add a book catalog of your own, or link an account you hold with another service, the app connects to that service on your behalf, using the address or key you gave it. Keys are stored only on your device.

Your phone and your TV

If you pair your phone with your TV, they talk to each other directly over your own Wi-Fi network, after you confirm a six-digit code, and the connection is encrypted. Your books and your place are copied between your own devices this way; nothing passes through us.

Android Auto

When you use Android Auto, the app shows your library and the player on the car's screen through Android Auto. Voice searches you make there are handled by your phone's Google Assistant and passed to the app as text.

Purchases

The supporter extras are an optional one-time purchase through Google Play. Google handles the payment under its own privacy policy. The app asks Google Play only whether the purchase has been made on your Google account, so the extras can open; we never see your payment details.

Crash logs

If the app crashes, a log is kept on your device. It contains the app version, your device model and a technical trace, with error messages, file names and thread names removed. It is sent only if you choose to share it from Settings, to the person or app you choose. You can delete it there at any time.

Backups

If Android backup is turned on, Android may include the app's settings and library in your device's backup to your own Google account, as it does for other apps. You control this in your device's settings. Settings in the app also lets you save a backup file wherever you choose.

What we collect

Nothing. We don't run servers that receive your data, we don't use analytics or advertising SDKs, and we don't sell or share personal information. There is no account, so there is nothing to delete on our side; uninstalling the app removes everything it stored.

Children

Lantern & Leaf isn't directed at children under 13 and doesn't knowingly collect information from anyone.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new effective date.