Privacy Policy

1. Data Controller

The party responsible for processing personal data arising from the Arwy app is the app developer. For contact: info@arwy.life

2. Data We Collect

2.1 Account Information

• First name, last name and username
• Email address
• Profile photo (optional)
• Google account information (if you sign in with Google)

2.2 Usage Data

• Books read and reading progress
• Works you create and publish
• Library lists and preferences
• Notification interactions
• Users you follow and your followers

2.3 Content Data

• Book covers and images you upload
• Works, chapters and drafts you write
• Message content

2.4 Automatically Collected Data

• Device type and operating system
• App version
• Anonymous usage statistics collected via Firebase Analytics
• Crash reports

2.5 Invite Contest Data

If you take part in the Invite Contest, we additionally store, solely to detect fraud, an irreversible hashed form of the IP address our server observes when an invite code is used. We do not store the raw IP address, and the hash cannot be reversed to recover it or to locate you.

It is used only to check whether many accounts were created from the same network, and it is deleted within 90 days of the contest results being finalised. See the contest rules for details.

2.6 Payout Details (optional)

To send a contest prize we need your full name, phone number, address and IBAN. You enter these yourself in the app (Invite Contest → My payout details).

Providing them is entirely optional and is not a precondition for any feature — you can use the app and take part in the contest without them. If you win and we have no payout details, you are given 14 days to provide them; after that the prize passes to the next participant.

These details are used only to pay the prize and ship the book, and are never used for advertising or profiling. They are shared only with the bank executing the transfer and the courier delivering the book. Users under 18 are not asked for an IBAN, because cash prizes are for participants aged 18 or over. The details are kept on your account so you don't have to enter them again for each contest. You can update them in the app at any time, ask us to delete them by writing to info@arwy.life, and they are deleted together with your account if you delete it.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use the data we collect only for the following purposes:

• Account creation and authentication
• Saving your reading progress
• Personalized content recommendations
• Sending notifications
• Improving app performance
• User safety and verification
• Meeting legal obligations
• Publishing your public profile and published books as web pages on arwy.life (see section 4.1)

4. Sharing of Data

4.1 The open web (arwy.life) and search engines

Arwy publishes public profiles and published books as web pages on arwy.life so that writers and their books can be found. These pages are visible to everyone, including people without an Arwy account, and may be indexed by search engines.

Published on the web: username, name, profile photo, biography, your social links; and a book's title, cover, description, genre, rating, chapter titles and a short excerpt.

Never published on the web: full chapter text, paid or locked chapter content, drafts, email, phone number, date of birth, location, messages, reading progress.

Your control: write to info@arwy.life to have your author page removed; unpublish or delete a book to remove its page; delete your account to remove everything. Removal from arwy.life is immediate, but removal from search engine indexes and caches typically takes several days to a few weeks and is outside our control.

We do not sell or rent your personal data to third parties. Your data may be shared only in these cases:

• Google Firebase: for authentication, database and storage infrastructure (Firebase Auth, Firestore, Firebase Storage, Firebase Cloud Functions)
• Legal obligation: upon the lawful request of authorized institutions and authorities
• With your consent: public profile information and published works are visible to other users

5. Data Security

We apply the following security measures to protect your data:

• Data transmission encrypted with SSL/TLS
• Access control via Firebase security rules
• Encrypted authentication (Firebase Auth)
• Regular security reviews

6. Data Retention

Your data is retained as long as your account is active. If you delete your account:

• Your personal profile data is deleted within 30 days
• Your published works may remain on the platform unless you delete them
• Data covered by legal obligations may be retained as required by law
• Invite Contest fraud-detection hashes are deleted within 90 days of the contest results being finalised

7. Your Rights

You have the following rights over your personal data:

• Right of access: request the data held about you
• Right to rectification: ask for incorrect or incomplete data to be updated
• Right to erasure: request that your data be deleted
• Right to portability: receive your data in a structured format
• Right to object: object to the processing of your data

To exercise these rights, write to info@arwy.life.

8. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Arwy is a mobile app and does not use traditional cookies. However, the following tracking mechanisms may be used via Firebase SDKs:

• Firebase Analytics (anonymous usage statistics)
• Firebase Crashlytics (crash reporting)

Google's Privacy Policy applies to these services: policies.google.com/privacy

9. Children's Privacy

We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. Users must be at least 13 years old to use the App. Access to certain adult content is subject to an 18+ limit. For more information, see our Child Safety Policy.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When there are significant changes, you will be informed via an in-app notification or by email. The current policy is always published on this page.

11. Contact

For questions about our privacy policy:

• Email: info@arwy.life
• Reach us via our Contact page.