Privacy Policy
In short: Histora needs an account, so it stores your e-mail address and your reading progress on a server. It also measures how the app is used. We sell nothing to anyone, and the stories themselves are read from the app, not from us.
Who we are
Histora is a reading app about historical figures and events, published for Android on Google Play. This policy explains what the app stores, where it goes, and what you can do about it. It replaces an earlier version which described Histora as an app that collected nothing; that stopped being true when accounts and synchronisation were added.
Data we collect
Your account
Histora requires an account, so that your reading progress follows you to a second device. When you sign up we store:
- your e-mail address, used to sign in and to reach you about your account;
- a username you choose, shown only to you;
- your password, which is stored only as a cryptographic hash by our authentication provider. Nobody, including us, can read it back.
Your reading
So that your place in a story is the same on every device, the following is stored against your account on our server:
- which chapters you have completed and which stories you have opened;
- which characters you have unlocked, and when;
- your reading streak and the date you last read something;
- your notification preferences — whether the daily reminder is on and the time you picked for it, your time zone, and whether you allow the two kinds of notification we send from our servers.
Your answers
Some chapters end with a quiz, a poll or a choice point. Quiz answers are not stored anywhere — a quiz is a self-test while you read, not a grade. Poll votes and choices are stored, one row per question, so the app can show how other readers answered. Other readers only ever see totals; nobody can look up how you voted.
Feedback you send
If you send us a bug report or an idea from inside the app, we store the message you typed together with the app version and the platform. Feedback goes nowhere else.
Usage statistics
This version of Histora sends no usage statistics. It contains no analytics SDK and no advertising SDK, and it measures nothing about how you use the app. The only data that leaves your phone is the data described above — your account, your progress, your poll and choice answers, and any feedback you choose to send.
Histora asks for no location permission, reads no GPS, and holds no advertising identifier.
Data stored only on your device
The following never leaves your phone, and disappears when you clear the app’s data or uninstall the app:
- your theme (light, dark or system) and your language preference;
- your profile picture. If you choose a photo from your gallery, the app remembers where that file sits on your device — the picture itself is never uploaded;
- your e-mail preferences. Histora sends no e-mail yet. The monthly letter, new stories and reading tips are on unless you switch them off in Settings → Email; offers are off until you switch them on. Once we do start sending, every message carries an unsubscribe link at the bottom, and that link is the way to stop them for good;
- how many stories you have opened today, for the free daily limit;
- your invite code and who joined with it. The code is derived from your account identifier; alongside it we store the account identifiers of friends who signed up with it and how many rewards that earned you. Nothing about your contacts is read or uploaded — an invitation is a message you send yourself, from your own messaging app;
- a copy of your reading progress, so the app also works without a connection.
Who else sees it
We do not sell data and we do not share it for advertising. One company processes data on our behalf, because the app could not work without it:
- Supabase (Supabase, Inc.) — the database and sign-in service holding your account, your reading progress, your poll and choice answers, your invite code and your feedback.
Everything travels over an encrypted connection (HTTPS).
Your rights
If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom you have the right to access, correct, export or erase your personal data, and to object to processing. In practice:
- Object to processing — write to the address below and we answer within 30 days. This version measures no usage statistics, so there is nothing of that kind to object to; deleting your account removes everything else.
- Delete your account — Settings → Delete account, after one confirmation. This is immediate and permanent: your account, your reading progress, your unlocked characters, your poll and choice answers, your invite code and any feedback you sent are removed from our database in a single step, and the same data is cleared from the device you are holding. There is no backup to restore from and no way to undo it. You do not need to write to us and we do not keep a copy.
- Ask for a copy of your data — Settings → Request my data, which opens an e-mail to us with the request already written. We answer within 30 days, normally much sooner. There is no automatic export button; the data is sent to the address you write from.
- Anything else about this policy, at the address below.
How long we keep it: your account data stays for as long as the account exists. Delete the account and it is gone at that moment — we do not keep an archived copy and cannot recover it afterwards.
You can also complain to your national data protection authority. In the Netherlands that is the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.
Notifications
Android will not let us send any notification until you have granted permission, and that permission is asked for only after you finish your first chapter. Say no and you receive nothing. Notifications come in two kinds, and the difference matters both for your privacy and for how you switch them off.
Created by your device
The daily reading reminder, at a time you choose; the warning that your reading streak is about to end; and a note when you reach a milestone, such as your tenth finished chapter. All three are worked out and scheduled entirely by your own phone, from reading progress it already holds. No push service is involved, no message is sent to or from a server, and we have no way of knowing whether they appeared or whether you opened them.
The daily reminder has a switch under Settings → Notifications, along with the time it arrives. The streak warning and the milestone note do not: they are part of reading with Histora, and there is no row for them. Android keeps its own control either way, and it is the one that decides: each kind has its own notification channel, so you can press and hold a notification, or open Android Settings → Apps → Histora → Notifications, and silence one kind without losing the others — or all of them at once. Nothing we do can override that.
Sent by us
This version sends no notifications from our servers. The push service is not active in this release, so no registration token for your installation is created, stored or used, and the two server-sent categories do not appear in Settings.
Permissions
None of the permissions Histora requests give access to your files, your contacts or your location:
VIBRATE— the short haptic feedback when you tap a chapter or unlock a character. A normal permission; it asks for no confirmation.POST_NOTIFICATIONS— needed to show the daily reminder described above. Android asks you for this one, and only after you have finished your first chapter. If you say no, the rest of the app is unaffected.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETEDandWAKE_LOCK— let a reminder you enabled survive a restart of your phone and arrive on time. Without them the reminder would silently stop after every reboot.INTERNETandACCESS_NETWORK_STATE— used to sign you in, synchronise your progress and load the polls and choice points.
The app declares no permission for advertising or for identifying you across other apps, and no permission relating to push messaging: the reminder is scheduled by your own device’s alarm clock, and no push token is ever requested.
Offline use
All story text and all images are bundled inside the app, so you can read without a connection. The quizzes, polls and choice points come from our server and are simply absent when you are offline — the chapter reads exactly as it otherwise would. Progress you make offline stays on your device and is sent up the next time you have a connection.
Children
Histora is suitable for all ages, has no chat, and shows no content written by other readers. It is not directed at children under 13, and creating an account requires an e-mail address. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13; if you believe a child has created an account, write to us and we will remove it.
Advertising and payment
This version of Histora shows no advertising and contains no working purchase. A subscription screen exists and describes a paid tier, but nothing can be bought yet, and the screen says so itself. If real advertising or a real purchase is added in a future version, this policy is updated before that version is published.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version is published on this page with a new date at the top. The version that applies to you is the one published here.
Contact
Questions about this policy, a request for a copy of your data, or an objection to the usage statistics? E-mail businessdemore@gmail.com. Deleting your account does not need an e-mail — the app does it for you under Settings → Delete account.
Managing e-mail. There are two ways, and either is enough: the switches under Settings → Email in the app, or the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any message we send you. The monthly letter, new stories and reading tips start on; offers start off. We send no e-mail at all in this version.