Privacy Policy

Who we are

Volumes is made by Codelia Studios Ltd, a company in Cyprus. We are responsible for the data described here. You can reach us at hello@codelia.studio.

Your library stays in your iCloud

Your books, lists, saved filters, loans, reading progress, quotes, quote photos and notes are stored on your device and synced through your own private iCloud database, run by Apple. Codelia Studios cannot read it. We have no server of our own that holds any of it. Apple’s handling of iCloud data is covered by Apple’s privacy policy.

Notes on your quotes can be hidden behind Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode with Lock Your Notes in Settings. That keeps them off the screen until you unlock them. It doesn’t encrypt them; they are stored and synced like everything else.

What we never collect

• Your name, email address, phone number or any account. Volumes has no sign-in.
• The titles, authors or ISBNs of your books, or anything you have searched for, in our analytics.
• Your quotes, your notes, or the names of people you lend to or borrow from.
• Your advertising identifier. Volumes doesn’t track you across other apps or websites, and shows no ads.
• Your location, your contacts or your photo library. Photos you choose to add stay in your library.

What leaves your device, and why

Looking up books

To fill in a book’s title, author, cover and details, Volumes asks a public book database online. Depending on what you do, it sends:

• the ISBN, when you scan a barcode, type an ISBN, scan a shelf, or add a book from search;
• the words you type into book search, when you search by title;
• an author’s name, when you open that author’s page;
• ISBNs of books already in your library, now and then in the background, to fill in missing details such as publisher, page count or series (for example after an import);
• requests for cover pictures, when a cover isn’t already saved on your device.

These requests carry no identifier for you or your device. Like any internet request, they reveal your device’s IP address to the service that answers.

Sharing a bookshop page

When you share a web page to Volumes, for example a book in an online shop, Volumes reads that page to find the book. If you share from Safari it reads the page you already have open. If you share a link from another app, Volumes loads that page once, straight from the shop’s own website, the same way a browser would. It then looks the book up as above.

Usage and diagnostics

Unless you turn it off, Volumes uses Google’s Firebase to tell us how the app is doing:

• Firebase Analytics: which features get used, as counts and simple settings: for example that a book was added by scanning, which screen was opened, or roughly how big a library is (in bands such as “10 to 49 books”). Never what the book was.
• Firebase Crashlytics: crash reports, with the device model, system version and what the app was doing when it crashed.
• Firebase Performance Monitoring: how long the app takes to start, how smoothly screens draw, and how long network requests and imports take.

These are linked to random identifiers that Firebase creates for the app on your device, not to you. We use them to find bugs and to decide what to work on. We don’t sell this data, use it for advertising, or combine it with anything else about you. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in keeping the app working and improving it.

Remote settings

Volumes also uses Firebase Remote Config, which lets us adjust one setting without an app update: how many books Volumes looks up in the background each time it starts, so we can ease off if the book database is busy. To do this, the app sends its Firebase installation identifier and receives that number. It runs whether or not usage and diagnostics is on, because the app relies on it; it sends nothing about your library.

Lending a book

When you hand a book over, Volumes makes a link that carries the book’s details and the name you chose to show in Settings. That information sits after the # in the link, a part that browsers never send to a server, so neither we nor our web host can see what you lent or to whom. If the link opens in a browser, the book is shown by the page itself, on the reader’s device. The cover picture is loaded from wherever that cover came from, usually the book database.

Done on your device

Some features use your device’s own intelligence and send nothing anywhere:

• turning a search like “unread books in the hallway” into a filter, using Apple’s on-device language model;
• reading the text on a photographed page when you keep a quote;
• scanning barcodes;
• finding a book in your library from Visual Intelligence, which only matches against your own library.

This website

getvolumes.app sets no cookies and shows no ads. It uses Google Analytics, in a mode that stores nothing on your device, to count visits: which page was opened, where the visit came from, and the browser, device type and rough location (country or city, worked out from the IP address). No identifier is kept between pages or visits, Google signals and ad personalisation are off, and this website’s analytics are separate from the app’s. On a hand-over link, Google Analytics only learns that a hand-over page was opened, never the book or who lent it. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in knowing how people find Volumes. Analytics data is kept for up to 14 months.

Like every website, our host (Vercel) also keeps routine request logs, such as IP address, the page asked for and browser type, to run and protect the site.

Turning usage and diagnostics off

Open Volumes, go to Settings, and switch off Share Usage & Diagnostics in the Privacy section. It is on when you first install the app. Turning it off stops Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics and Performance Monitoring at once, and resets the analytics identifier this device was counted under, so what was sent before is no longer connected to it. Turning it back on starts fresh. Remote settings, described above, keep working either way.

How long data is kept

• Your library: for as long as you keep it in iCloud. It’s yours to delete.
• Analytics events: up to 14 months, then deleted automatically.
• Crash reports: 90 days.
• Performance data: 30 days for data that includes an IP address, 60 days for the rest.
• Remote settings: the installation identifier is kept until it is deleted.

Firebase’s own terms are set out in Privacy and Security in Firebase.

Deleting your data

Your library. In Volumes, Settings › Erase Library deletes every book and list, with their quotes and loans, from all your devices. To remove everything Volumes keeps in iCloud, including any stray quotes or saved filters, open Settings on your iPhone or iPad, tap your name, then iCloud and manage your storage; choose Volumes and delete its data. On a Mac, go to System Settings, your name, iCloud, then Manage. Deleting the app removes what is stored on that device.

Usage and diagnostics. Because this data isn’t tied to a name or email, we can’t look it up by who you are. Turning the switch off disconnects your device from what was sent. If you want us to delete what we can, email hello@codelia.studio and we’ll ask Google to delete whatever can be found.

Your rights

Under data protection law, including the GDPR, you can ask to see, correct or delete personal data we hold about you, object to how we use it, or ask us to restrict it. Email hello@codelia.studio. If you’re not happy with our answer, you can complain to your local data protection authority; in Cyprus that is the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection.

Children

Volumes is for general audiences and isn’t aimed at children. We don’t knowingly collect personal data from children, and the app asks no one for personal details.

Changes

When what Volumes collects changes, we’ll update this page and the effective date at the top.

Contact

Codelia Studios Ltd, Cyprus · hello@codelia.studio

Need help with the app instead? See Support.