Privacy Policy
Last updated: 8 November 2026
AloudMe is made by Vertex Vault LLP, a limited liability partnership registered in Singapore. In this policy "we" and "us" mean Vertex Vault LLP, and "the app" means AloudMe on any device.
The short version
- Your books stay on your device. The files you add, their text, your highlights, notes, bookmarks and reading history are stored only on your device, in an encrypted database. We never see them.
- We only receive text when you use a paid AI feature. If you have a paid plan, where the app offers one, and choose to translate a passage or hear it in a premium voice, that passage is sent securely to our server and our AI provider, used once to give you the result, and not stored by us. On the free plan, no text from your library is sent to us or to any AI provider.
- No ads, no tracking, no selling. The app has no advertising, no analytics or tracking tools, and we never sell or share your personal information.
- You are in control. You can export your data or delete your account and everything with it in Settings, at any time.
1. What stays on your device
Everything you put into your library stays on your device: the files you add, their text and pictures, book names, reading positions, highlights, notes, bookmarks, reading time and goals, and your settings. The text and everything you add to it are kept in a database encrypted with a key held in your device's secure keychain; covers and pictures are kept as files in the app's own storage, which your device protects. On iPhone and iPad, like other apps' data, all of it can be included in your device's own backups (iCloud Backup, or a backup on your computer), which you control. On Android, AloudMe keeps all of it out of your device's backups.
If you use the AloudMe folder in iCloud Drive, your files are stored by Apple in your own iCloud account under Apple's privacy policy. AloudMe reads that folder on your device; we have no access to your iCloud.
On iPhone and iPad, the natural voices that run on your device come inside the app. On other devices they are downloaded once from the public site where the voice files are published; that site sees your device's IP address when you download them, as with any download.
When you add an article from a link, your device fetches the page directly from that website, like a web browser. The website sees your IP address. We don't see the link or the article.
2. What we collect
Account
- An account identifier. When you first open the app we create a random identifier for you with our account service, for your account and, where the app offers paid plans, your plan and credits. It does not contain your name or email.
- Your email address, only if you sign in with an email link or with Apple. If you use Sign in with Apple and choose to hide your email, we receive Apple's private relay address instead.
Purchases
When you subscribe or buy credits, where the app offers them, your app store (Apple's App Store or Google Play) takes the payment. We never see your card or bank details. Your app store and our subscription management service tell us which plan you bought, when it started, renews or ends, and whether it was refunded, linked to your account identifier.
Use of AI features
To run your plan's credit allowance and prevent abuse, our server records, for each AI request: your account identifier, the feature (translation or premium voice), the number of characters, which provider served it, the cost in credits and the time. When you subscribe, the credits are counted against a coded identifier of your subscription (made from the store, the plan and its start date, not from your name, email or payment details), so they stay with the subscription. It does not record the text itself, or any book name, file name or link.
Server logs
Like any internet service, our server keeps basic technical logs: the time, the type of request, whether it succeeded, its size and how long it took, your account identifier, your IP address, and the app and system version your device sends with every request. These logs never contain the text you send.
3. Text you send for AI features
Translation and premium voices are optional and are part of the paid plan, where the app offers it. They only run when you ask:
- Translation: the passage you choose to translate is sent to our server and to the AI company that provides our translation model.
- Premium voices: the passage you choose to hear in a premium voice is sent to our server and to the AI company that provides that voice.
Before the first translation or premium voice, the app asks your permission to send text to the third-party AI service, and waits for you to tap Allow. If your plan doesn't include these features, or the app can't check your plan, nothing is sent. The text is used only to return the translation or audio to you. We don't store it, log it or use it to train any model, and it is never linked to a book name or file name, because those are never sent. Our providers process it under their business terms, which prohibit using it to train their models; they may keep it for a limited time where needed to detect abuse, and longer if their safety systems flag it, then delete it. The result is saved only on your device.
Don't send text you aren't allowed to share with a translation or voice service, for example confidential material you have promised to keep private.
4. Why we use your information (and our legal bases)
| Purpose | Information | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Provide the app, your plan and your credits | Account identifier, email if you sign in, purchase records, AI usage records | Performing our contract with you |
| Translate or voice text you choose | The passage you send, processed once | Performing our contract with you |
| Keep the service secure and prevent abuse (rate limits, daily budget, fraud) | AI usage records, server logs | Our legitimate interest in a safe, working service |
| Answer your support emails | Your email and what you write to us | Our legitimate interest in helping you |
| Meet legal obligations (tax, accounting, lawful requests) | Purchase records | Legal obligation |
We don't use your information for advertising, profiling or automated decisions that affect you legally.
5. Who we share it with
We share information only with the service providers that run the app for us, under contracts that require them to protect it and use it only to provide their service to us:
- Our cloud hosting and account service (servers in Singapore and the USA): our server and usage records (Singapore) and accounts (USA).
- An AI translation provider (USA): text you choose to translate, on a paid plan.
- AI voice providers (USA and Singapore): text you choose to hear in a premium voice, on a paid plan.
- Our subscription management service (USA), where the app sells paid plans: your account identifier, and subscription and purchase records.
- Apple (USA): payments, Sign in with Apple and iCloud Drive, if you use them.
- Google Play: payments, if you got AloudMe from Google Play and buy something where the app offers it.
Email us if you would like the names of these companies.
We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect people's safety, or as part of a merger or sale of our business, in which case this policy continues to protect it.
We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.
6. International transfers
Our server, its logs and our database are in Singapore. Accounts are kept by our account service in the United States, and some other providers are based there too. When your information moves between countries we protect it with the safeguards the law requires, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified.
7. How long we keep it
- Your library and reading data: on your device until you delete it or the app.
- Account identifier, email, purchase records and AI usage records: until you delete your account in the app or ask us to delete it, whether or not you signed in. Deleting the app alone does not delete your account. Records we must keep for tax or accounting are kept for the period the law requires, then deleted.
- A subscription's credit count (the coded subscription identifier and a number, nothing else): until the end of that week or month, even if you delete your account, so that deleting an account can't reset the allowance.
- Text sent for translation or premium voices: not stored by us.
- Server logs: up to 30 days.
- Support emails: up to 2 years after the conversation ends.
8. Your choices and rights
In Settings › Your data you can:
- Export my data: download a copy of the information the app holds about you: your library list, reading positions, highlights, notes, bookmarks, reading history and settings.
- Delete account and all data: deletes your account, your usage records on our server and everything on this device, immediately. The app then starts a new account with a new random identifier, so you can keep using it. If you have a subscription, it is managed by your app store: cancel it there, because deleting your account does not cancel it.
To delete your account without the app, see Delete your AloudMe account.
Depending on where you live, you also have the right to access, correct or delete your information, to object to or restrict how we use it, to data portability, and to complain to your data protection authority. California and other US state residents have the right to know, delete and correct, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information (we don't sell or share it). We honour Global Privacy Control signals. We will never treat you differently for using your rights.
To use a right we can't handle in the app, email support@aloudme.com. We reply within 30 days.
9. Security
Your library is encrypted on your device. Everything sent between the app and our server is encrypted in transit (TLS). Our provider keys stay on our server, never in the app. Access to our systems is limited to the people who need it. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your information we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
10. Children
AloudMe is for people aged 13 and older, or the minimum age in your country if it is higher. We don't knowingly collect information from younger children. Any children's voices in the app are voices for reading stories, not a service for children. If you believe a child under 13 has given us information, email us and we will delete it.
11. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect. The date at the top shows the latest version.
12. Contact
Vertex Vault LLP, Singapore. Email: support@aloudme.com