Privacy Policy

Overview

Tinct is a reading platform for classic literature, available at tinct.app and as an Android application. It is an independent product operated from Copenhagen, Denmark. In this policy, "Tinct", "we" and "our" refer to the service and its operator; "you" refers to a reader of the service.

Tinct collects the data needed to run the service: to keep your place in a book, to synchronise your reading across devices, to answer your questions about a text, to read books aloud, to process payments, and to understand whether the product is useful. Tinct does not sell your data, does not share it with third parties for advertising, and does not run advertising.

What we collect

Account data

If you create an account, your email address and authentication credentials are stored with Supabase, our database and authentication provider. Passwords are hashed by Supabase and are never stored in plain text. If you sign in with Google, Google provides us with your email address, name and profile photo. When you create an account we also record whether you agreed to receive reading emails, and whether you confirmed your email address (see below), and which link or campaign brought you to Tinct, if any.

Reading data

We save your chosen reading languages (English, Danish, or both) and your preference for modern versions or human originals and translations, so we can offer suitable editions. These preferences are not shown on your public profile.

Your reading position, preferences, highlights, notes, reading history, chat history and other reading-state data are stored so that the service can keep your place and synchronise it across your devices. If you are signed in, this data is associated with your account and stored with Supabase and Cloudflare. This includes how long you read and listen in each book, so we can show you your reading time. For books you added from your own files, the time is recorded without the book's name. If you are not signed in, it is kept in your browser, except where a feature needs our servers: questions you ask the AI companion, chapter recaps and notes, and narration are processed on our servers and by the providers below even when you are not signed in.

Your profile

Every account has a profile: a name, a link (tinct.app/@name) and a picture, which is a library painting, your initial, your Google photo or a photo you upload. You can also upload a background for your profile. Your profile stays private until you choose to share it. During profile setup, Public is preselected and the screen explains what will be visible. Pressing Continue with Public selects Everyone and enables sharing what you read, your reading time and your place on the leaderboard. Choosing Private and pressing Continue selects Only me and turns those three sharing settings off. Skip saves none of the choices on that step. Before you confirm your email, Everyone works as Friends; after confirmation it works as Everyone. You can change each setting at any time in Settings. A Friends or Everyone profile can be found by other signed-in readers in Find readers, by your name or link; the results show only your name and picture. With Friends, what you read, your reading time and your place on the leaderboard are shown only to accepted friends: readers you follow who follow you back. When someone follows you, it is a request: until you follow them back, they see only your name and picture. With Everyone, anyone with your link can see your profile as your settings allow. Only me keeps you unfindable: nobody can find your profile or see your reading, and a reader you follow sees only your name and link. On the leaderboard other readers see only your name, picture and reading time over the last 7 days, and tapping your name opens your profile as they can already see it; switching it off removes you at once. Books you added from your own files always appear as a private book. Your email address, highlights, notes and chats are never shown to other readers.

We store who you follow, who follows you and who you have blocked; only you see your block list. You can remove a follower or block a reader at any time. If you report a profile, we keep the report for up to 12 months so a person at Tinct can review it. If you choose your Google photo, we store a copy with Cloudflare. If you upload a picture or a background, we store it with Cloudflare, with its location and camera details removed. Uploaded photos are not reviewed before other readers see them: they show at once wherever your picture or background is shown, and Tinct can remove a photo that breaks our Terms. Replacing or removing a photo deletes the old one. Your profile is deleted with your account.

Your own books and pictures

A PDF or EPUB you open from your own device is kept in your browser (IndexedDB). If you are signed in, a private copy of the file is also stored in your account with Cloudflare (R2) so you can open it on your other devices. If you choose Paste text, the text you type or paste (including supported HTML or Markdown), and any title or author you enter are converted into an EPUB in your browser; you can review the result before adding it and edit its display title and author later. Only when you choose Add to my books is that EPUB saved to your account with Cloudflare (R2); the editable draft is not saved separately or sent to an AI provider for rewriting. The resulting book follows the same private access, account export listing (its title, author, file type, size and date, not the file bytes) and deletion rules as an EPUB you chose as a file. Only you can access it; it is never shared with other readers, searched or indexed. You can remove it from your books at any time, and it is deleted when your account is deleted. A small image of the book's cover is kept privately with that copy, so your other devices show it, and is deleted with the book. When a PDF you added reads as Tinct text, pictures of its formulas, figures and tables are cut from its pages on your device and kept with it in your browser; they are not stored in your account or sent anywhere unless you ask about one. Your place in a PDF or EPUB you added (the chapter and paragraph in its source text, or the page of a PDF when you read its original pages, and how far through you are, never its title or text) is kept privately in your account too, so it opens where you left off on your other devices; it is deleted with the book. Where the feature is available, the highlights and notes you make in a PDF or EPUB you added (the passage, its place in the source text or on a PDF page, its colour and your note) are kept in your browser and, if you are signed in and the book is in your account, privately with it in your account with Cloudflare (R2), so they can show on your other devices; they are deleted with the book. Where the feature is available, the answers kept in the margin of a PDF or EPUB you added (the passage and its place in the source text or on a PDF page, your questions and the companion's answers, and a quiz's questions and how you answered) are kept the same way, in your browser and, if you are signed in and the book is in your account, privately with it in your account with Cloudflare (R2); they are deleted with the book. When you use the AI features on a book you added, the relevant text is sent to the provider that powers the feature, as with any book: the passages you ask about, the text around a selection you ask to explain, the chapter being read aloud, the passage you are on while a Talk conversation is open, and, for Catch me up, the chapters you have read so far, one at a time. The recap and narration are kept privately in your account, only for you, and deleted when you remove the book. Nothing from your own books is used to train AI models. For the actions in the margin of a PDF you added (Explain, Simplify, Define, Fact-check, Counterpoint, Quiz me, Before you start and the questions you ask there), the text of the whole file is sent with each request, or, for a very long file, its contents list and the part you are reading, so the answer can draw on all of it; Anthropic keeps it for a few minutes to answer the next request faster, and Tinct does not store it. For Before you start on a PDF you added, the text of the chapter or section you are reading (or of the whole file if it has no contents list) is sent the same way: if you are signed in, automatically as soon as you open the PDF, so the overview is ready when you tap it, and otherwise when you open Before you start. The overview is kept with the book so it is not made again: in your browser and, if the book is in your account, privately in your account, only for you, until you redo it or remove the book. If you choose Listen, the text being read is sent to xAI to make the audio, which is stored privately in your account and deleted with the book. If you have Premium and ask Tinct to recognise the text of a scanned PDF you added, images of its pages are sent to xAI to recognise the text; the text is stored privately in your account and deleted with the book, and the page images are deleted once their text is recognised. If you are signed in, pictures you attach or snip in the companion chat, a book's figure you ask about with Explain or Chat, and a picture of the passage you select for an action in the margin of a PDF you added, are sent to Anthropic with your message so it can answer; Tinct does not store them beyond the chat. Signing out removes these books from the browser; the copies in your account remain until you remove them. If you believe a file stored in Tinct infringes your rights, write to contact@tinct.app and we will act on it.

Voice

Talk, the spoken conversation feature, uses your microphone only while a conversation is open, and only if you allow it. Your voice is streamed from your device to xAI (see below) to produce the spoken reply; if you are not signed in, it passes through Tinct's server on the way, which neither stores nor reads it, and the conversation is limited to one a day of two minutes. Tinct does not store the audio. A written transcript of the conversation is saved to your chat history like a typed chat. Dictation in the chat sends your recording to xAI to be turned into text, under Zero Data Retention; Tinct does not keep the audio. If you are not signed in, dictation uses your browser's own speech recognition instead, which in some browsers (for example Google Chrome) is processed by the browser maker. The Android app asks for microphone permission for these features only.

Issue reports

When you report an error in a text, we store the selected passage, your comment, where it appears in the book and, if you are signed in, your user ID. The report is reviewed automatically by Anthropic's Claude to suggest a correction, and a notice of it is emailed to us. If you are signed in, we may email you when your report has been reviewed.

Shared highlights

When you share a highlight, we store the passage (book, edition and position in the text) and how the image was drawn, so the link and its image work for anyone who has the link. The link, its page and its image do not show who shared it. We keep which account created the link, privately, to count how shares are used; that link to your account is removed when you delete your account.

Payment data

We record the start and expiry of any free Premium period on your account so we can show your plan and apply its allowance.

Payments are processed by Stripe. Tinct does not store card numbers. We give Stripe your email address, your account identifier and, if known, the link or campaign that brought you to Tinct, and Stripe provides us with a customer identifier and transaction records for your subscription and any one-time purchases. To charge the right VAT or sales tax, Stripe asks for your billing address at checkout; Tinct does not store it.

Product analytics

Tinct records first-party usage events to understand whether the product is useful and where readers get stuck. These events include the page viewed, book and chapter identifiers, time spent reading, your browser's user agent (browser, operating system and device type), the referring page, the link or campaign that brought you (including campaign and ad-click parameters, if present in the link), feature use such as chat, audio and checkout, and timestamps. Events carry a random identifier for your device. It stays the same until you sign out, which gives a fresh one; if you create an account, events from that device before sign-up become linked to your account.

When you are signed in, events are associated with your user ID and account email, so that we can see how individual readers use Tinct and help them during the beta period. We also record, per reader, how much each AI and audio feature is used and what it costs us (for example tokens, seconds of audio, model and provider), without the content of your messages; for readers who are not signed in, this is recorded under a code derived from your IP address rather than the address itself.

What we do not collect

Tinct does not collect your precise location, contacts, photos, or camera, apart from a profile picture or background you choose to upload. We use your microphone only during an open Talk conversation or while you dictate in the chat.

How we use it

• To run the service: account data, reading data and browser storage are used to sign you in, keep your place, and synchronise your reading across devices.
• To answer questions about a text: when you use the AI reading features, the relevant passage, your messages and, where it helps the answer, your recent reading history are sent to the AI provider that powers that feature (see below).
• To read books aloud: book text is sent to our speech provider to produce narration. No personal data is included.
• To bill subscriptions and purchases: payment data is used to manage your Premium subscription, to process one-time purchases such as a Modern English edition, and to issue receipts.
• To help readers and improve the product: analytics and issue reports are used to fix errors, to understand how features are used, and to see how individual signed-in readers are getting on so that we can help them. Account-level analytics and the database are accessible only to the site administrator.
• Legal basis: we process account and reading data to provide the service you asked for; analytics and issue reports on our legitimate interest in running and improving Tinct; and reading emails, profile visibility and the leaderboard on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• To show your profile to the readers you choose. It stays Only me until you change it.
• To email you, if you agreed: when you create an account you can choose, unticked by default, to receive emails about your reading: where you left off and suggestions of what to read next from Tinct's library, at most a few times a month. We email only readers who agreed and confirmed their address. You can stop them in Settings, with the link in every email, or by writing to contact@tinct.app. Account and service emails, such as the welcome email, notices about your free month, password resets and issue-report replies, are sent regardless.

Tinct does not use your content, messages or reading data to train AI models.

Cookies and local storage

Tinct uses first-party browser storage to make the service work. This includes Supabase authentication storage, reading progress, preferences, offline and cache data (including a small copy of your own profile picture, so the library can show it at once), the device identifier described above, small flags recording that an in-app notice has been shown or dismissed, and which follow requests this browser has already shown you. After sign-in, Tinct sets a first-party tinct_auth cookie, kept for up to a year, so that the homepage can route signed-in readers directly into the application.

Tinct stores attribution information, such as campaign parameters and the referring site, in browser storage to understand which links bring readers to the service. Signing out removes your reading data and the device identifier from the browser.

Tinct does not use tracking cookies or third-party advertising cookies, and loads no third-party advertising or analytics scripts.

Third-party services

Tinct relies on the following providers to operate the service. Each processes data only as needed to provide its function.

• Supabase: authentication and database (PostgreSQL), hosted in the European Union (Ireland). Supabase also sends password-reset emails. Row-level security limits each reader to their own data.
• Cloudflare: application hosting (Workers), storage of synchronised chat history and reading positions, and file storage (R2) for audio, for the PDF and EPUB files signed-in readers add and the text recognised from scanned ones and for a copy of your Google photo if you choose it and the photos you upload for your profile, on a global network.
• Anthropic: the AI companion, recaps, chapter notes and the review of issue reports are powered by Anthropic's Claude. Your messages, the relevant text and any pictures you attach or snip in the companion chat, a figure you ask about, or a picture of a passage you ask about in the margin, are sent to Anthropic's API. Anthropic does not use API data to train its models. See Anthropic's privacy policy.
• xAI: Talk (spoken conversation) is powered by xAI's Grok. While a conversation is open, your voice, the relevant text and your recent conversation are sent to xAI. When you dictate in the chat while signed in, your recording and a list of names from the book you are reading are sent to xAI to be turned into text. xAI also produces the narration voices, writes Modern English editions of public-domain books from book text only, and recognises the text of scanned PDFs Premium readers add, from images of their pages. Tinct uses xAI with Zero Data Retention: xAI does not store what Tinct sends or receives and does not train on it. See xAI's privacy policy.
• OpenAI: when you ask the companion to check sources, your recent questions are sent to OpenAI to run a web search. OpenAI is asked not to store them. See OpenAI's privacy policy.
• Stripe: payment processing for Premium subscriptions and one-time purchases.
• Brevo: sending Tinct's own email: account emails, issue-report notices and replies, and the emails you agreed to.
• Google: optional sign-in. If you sign in with Google, Google provides your email address, name and profile photo.

Some of these providers process data outside the European Union, including in the United States. All connections to Tinct and to these providers are encrypted in transit (HTTPS).

Data retention and deletion

Account and reading data are kept for as long as your account exists. Analytics events, usage records and the record of the emails we have sent you are kept for 24 months, and the history of changes to your reading data for one month; then they are deleted automatically. Data stored in your browser remains on your device until you sign out or clear your browser storage.

You can delete your account and all associated data yourself in Settings → Account → Delete account. Deletion happens immediately and covers your account, your profile, its pictures, follows and blocks, reading data, highlights and notes, chat history, the PDF and EPUB files you added and any audio, recaps and recognised text made from them, the Before you start overviews made of them, analytics and usage records, issue reports and your Stripe customer record; an active subscription is cancelled at once. Links to highlights you shared keep working but are no longer linked to your account, and a report you filed about a profile is kept for review as described above, no longer linked to your account. Deleting also signs you out on that device, which clears Tinct's data from that browser. You can also ask for deletion by writing to contact@tinct.app; it is completed within 30 days of the request. Copies that providers keep for their own legal or security purposes are governed by their policies.

Your rights

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right to:

• Access: request a copy of all data Tinct holds about you.
• Deletion: delete your account and all associated data in Settings → Account, or ask us to.
• Portability: request your data in a portable format.
• Correction: request that inaccurate data be corrected.
• Withdrawal of consent: for optional processing such as email, withdraw your consent at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, write to contact@tinct.app. You may also complain to the Danish Data Protection Agency (Datatilsynet).

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes significantly, Tinct will notify you at the email address on your account. Minor wording changes are not notified; the date at the top of this page records the most recent revision.

Contact