Privacy Policy

The data controller is Bryan Houblon, sole trader (EI), publisher of myShelf — SIREN 885196303, address: Les Pavillons sous bois.

For any question about your data: contact@myshelfapp.app. Given its size, myShelf has not appointed a data protection officer; this address is the single point of contact for all your requests.

Your account

• Your email address and password. Your password is never stored in plain text: we only keep an irreversible cryptographic hash of it.
• If you sign in with Apple or Google: your account identifier with that provider, the email address it sends us (including the relay address created by Apple if you chose to hide yours) and the related authentication tokens. We never receive your Apple or Google password.
• Your username (public identifier, required) and, if you provide them, your display name, profile photo and bio.
• Your preferences: language, favourite genres and daily reading goal entered at sign-up, privacy and notification settings.
• Your optional answer to the question “How did you hear about myShelf?” asked at sign-up.

Your library and reading

• The books you add and their status (to read, reading, read, abandoned), current page, start and finish dates, favourites (bedside table), wishlist, recommendations, shelves and the books you own (collection), with a value estimate based on public list prices.
• Your timed reading sessions (start and end times, duration, pages read, any passage you noted, your time zone offset at the time of the session), your daily activity (pages and minutes read), yearly goals, statistics and badges.
• Your reviews (rating and comment), your “likes” on other members’ reviews and your personal notebook, which is strictly private.
• The authors you follow and those you feature on your profile.
• The files you import (Goodreads, StoryGraph or Babelio exports): they are read in memory and then discarded, never stored. We only keep the file name, the import summary and the list of rows that could not be imported (title, author, ISBN), to report back to you.

Your interactions with other members

• Who you follow and who follows you, pending follow requests, the accounts you block and the notifications you receive.
• Profile visits: when you view another member’s profile while signed in, we record the date of your last visit (see section 4).
• The reports you send (reason and details) and, for a bug report or suggestion, technical context attached automatically: app version, operating system, device name and language.

Premium and purchases

• Your Premium status and expiry date, and the purchase information sent to us by our provider RevenueCat: product purchased, store, dates, country, price and transaction identifiers.
• The promo codes you use and your redemption attempts, to prevent abuse.
• We never have access to your payment card details: payment is handled entirely by Apple or Google.

Technical data

• The IP address and device or browser type (“user agent”) recorded with each sign-in session, and the date of your last activity.
• Your device’s push notification token, its operating system (iOS or Android) and the device name.
• Error reports, when the app or our servers run into a problem: device model, operating system, app version, technical trace of the error, your account identifier and IP address.
• Our servers’ technical logs (requests, errors), kept briefly by our hosting provider.

Analytics, only with your consent

• Actions taken in the app (screens opened, buttons tapped, sign-up steps, books added, reading sessions, searches run — never their text —, reviews posted, share cards exported, Premium offer displayed, errors encountered…), linked to your account identifier, username, language and Premium status.
• Device information: model, operating system, app version, language, time zone, and your IP address, used to infer an approximate location (country, city).
• Your answer to the question about how you heard of myShelf, if you gave one: it is then also sent to our analytics tool.

What we do not collect

No precise location, no contacts, no advertising identifier (IDFA, Android advertising ID), no audio recording. The camera is only used to scan a barcode or take a profile photo: scanner images are neither recorded nor transmitted.

We do not use your data for advertising, and we neither sell nor rent it. We never send you marketing emails.

• Always visible, even if your profile is private: your username, display name, photo, bio, badges, Premium status and your follower and following counts. Your account can still be found through search.
• Your reviews are public: rating and comment remain displayed on book pages with your username, whatever your settings. Anything you want to keep to yourself belongs in your notebook, which nobody else can read.
• Depending on your settings: books read, current reading and progress, wishlist, recommendations, bedside table, statistics, follower and following lists, collection (never its value). Each shelf has its own public or private setting.
• Public profile: anyone can view it, including without an account, and your page myshelfapp.app/user/your-username may be indexed by search engines.
• Private profile: only the followers you have accepted see its content, and your web page is no longer available.
• Your activity: your followers may see the books you finish, your recommendations and your reviews in their feed, depending on your settings. Members whose review you like, or whom you follow, are notified.
• Profile visits: if you view a Premium member’s profile while signed in, they can see your username, name, photo and the date of your visit for 90 days.
• Always private: your email address, your notebook, the details of your sessions, your daily goal, the accounts you block, your imports, your promo codes and your answer about how you heard of myShelf.

Your data is only accessible to the publisher of myShelf, to the extent necessary (support, moderation, maintenance). We use the following providers, who act solely on our instructions (processors within the meaning of Article 28 GDPR):

Apple and Google act as separate controllers, under their own privacy policies: app download, payment and billing of purchases, sign-in with Apple or Google if you choose it, and final delivery of notifications (Apple Push Notification service, Firebase Cloud Messaging).

Bibliographic sources. To complete book and author pages, our servers query Google Books, Open Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, ISBNdb, Inventaire and Wikidata, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. These requests contain no data about you: only an ISBN, a title, an author name or search terms. Covers, however, are displayed directly from these providers’ servers: as with any image loaded on the Internet, your device then sends them its IP address.

We also disclose data to authorities when required by law, for example following a court order. Finally, when you share a card or a link to Instagram, TikTok or another app, the content is passed on by your phone’s share system: what those services do with it is governed by their own terms.

Our servers and database are located in the European Union. Several of our providers are however US companies, which may process some data in the United States (Resend, RevenueCat, Expo, Cloudflare) or access it to maintain their services.

These transfers are covered by the European Commission’s adequacy decision of 10 July 2023 (EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework) for providers certified under it and, otherwise, by the standard contractual clauses adopted by the European Commission, included in the data processing agreements we have entered into with them. You can obtain a copy of these safeguards by writing to us.

• Account and content: for as long as your account exists. When you delete it, everything is immediately erased from our database (see section 10).
• Inactive accounts: after 3 years without any sign-in, we delete the account, after notifying you by email one month in advance, then confirm the deletion by email. Signing in during that month is enough to keep the account. Accounts with ongoing Premium access are not affected.
• Sign-in sessions (IP address, device): until you sign out, or until the session expires after 7 days of inactivity. Expired sessions are erased daily.
• Links sent by email: 24 hours for email verification, 1 hour for password reset.
• Profile visits: 90 days after the last visit.
• Notification token: until the device signs out or the account is deleted.
• Purchase information: 5 years from the purchase, as evidence in case of dispute.
• Error reports: 90 days.
• Analytics: 25 months at most. Your choice, consent or refusal, is kept on your device for 13 months; we then ask again.
• Server technical logs: 30 days at most.
• Support conversations: 3 years after the last exchange.
• Backups: deleted data may remain for up to 3 months in database backups, until they are rotated.

These periods apply subject to any legal retention obligations.

• All exchanges between the app, the website and our servers are encrypted (HTTPS).
• Passwords are hashed; your sign-in token is kept in your device’s secure storage (Keychain on iOS, Keystore on Android).
• Access to production data is restricted to the publisher through authenticated access; the admin console is open to a named list only.
• Our providers are chosen for their security guarantees and bound by confidentiality commitments.
• In the event of a data breach posing a risk to you, we notify the CNIL within 72 hours and inform you where the risk is high.

You have the following rights at any time:

• to access your data and obtain a copy;
• to have it corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete;
• to have it erased;
• to restrict its processing;
• to receive the data you provided in a structured, machine-readable format (portability);
• to object to processing based on our legitimate interest;
• to withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting processing carried out before;
• to set instructions regarding your data after your death (Art. 85 of the French Data Protection Act).

In the app, you can edit your profile, your privacy, notification and analytics settings, delete your content and delete your account.

By email, write to contact@myshelfapp.app from the address linked to your account, which lets us verify your identity. We reply within one month, which may be extended by two months for complex requests (we would let you know). For portability, we send you your data (library, reading, reviews, notes…) in JSON or CSV format.

From the app: open your profile, then the settings menu, and tap “Delete account” at the bottom of the menu. Deletion is immediate and permanent.

Without the app: write to contact@myshelfapp.app from your account’s email address, stating your username. We delete the account within 30 days at most and confirm by email.

Deleted: your profile and photo, library, reading and sessions, reviews and likes, notebook, shelves, follows and followers, notifications, notification tokens and sessions. All that remains: the display name shown in notifications already received by other members, purchase information (5 years, see section 7) and backups, rotated within 3 months.

myShelf is only available to people aged 15 or over. We do not knowingly collect data about younger children. If you believe a child under 15 has created an account, write to us and we will delete it.

Every permission is optional and can be revoked at any time in your phone settings.

• Camera: scanning a book’s barcode, taking a profile photo.
• Photos: choosing a profile photo or card background through the system picker (only the images you pick are sent to us) and saving a share card to your gallery (write-only).
• Notifications: receiving push notifications and reading reminders, scheduled on your device.
• Files: choosing a library file to import.

The website only uses strictly necessary trackers, and the app only turns analytics on with your consent. Details are in our cookies and trackers policy.

We may update this policy. In the event of a significant change, we will let you know in the app or by email before it takes effect. The date of the last update is shown at the top of this page.

For any question or request: contact@myshelfapp.app, or by post to Bryan Houblon, Les Pavillons sous bois.

If, after contacting us, you believe your rights have not been respected, you may lodge a complaint with the French data protection authority (CNIL), 3 place de Fontenoy, TSA 80715, 75334 Paris Cedex 07, France — cnil.fr, or with the supervisory authority of your country of residence.