Privacy Policy
Snug is a personal home-library app: it tracks the books you own, lend out, and borrow. This page explains what information the app collects, why, and what happens to it. It's written plainly, and it will be updated (with the date above changed) if that changes.
Who runs this
Snug is an independent project by Apoorv Deshmukh, not a company. There's no ad network, no data broker relationship, and no plan to sell your information to anyone. For privacy-law purposes, Apoorv Deshmukh is the person responsible for your data. You can reach him at support@getsnugapp.com.
What we collect
- Account info. The email address you sign up with, used only for authentication (sign-up codes, sign-in links, password resets).
- Profile. Your first name, an optional last name, a username, and an optional profile photo. Other signed-in Snug users can find you by searching for your username, and they will see your name and username.
- Friends and sharing. Friend requests and the friend connections you accept. When you log a lend or borrow with a friend, that loan is shared with them (the book, the dates, and any condition photo or note on it). Comments you write on a book are visible to your friends who also own a copy of it, and notes on a shared loan are visible to the other person on that loan.
- Your library data. Titles, authors, ISBNs, notes, due dates, and lending/borrowing history: everything you enter or scan into the app.
- Reports and blocks. If you report a note or a person, we store the report: which note or person, the reason and any detail you add, a copy of the reported text so it survives being deleted, and your account, so we can review it and act on it. The person you report is not told who reported them. If you block someone, we store that block so it keeps working.
- Photos. Book cover photos, shelf-scan photos, and lending/borrowing condition photos that you take or choose to add. These are stored under your account and used to display your library and, for shelf scans, to identify books automatically (see "AI scanning" below).
- Contacts (optional). If you grant contacts permission, Snug reads your device contacts' names and phone numbers to let you pick a name when logging a lend or borrow. Only the one contact you pick is saved with that loan. Your full contact list is never uploaded to our servers, and permission is only requested when you tap the contacts picker.
- Push notification token. A device-level token, plus a random identifier generated when you install the app, used to send reminders and friend notifications to your device. It identifies your device for notifications only.
- Scan usage counters. How many shelf/barcode scans you've run this month, used only to enforce a fair monthly limit on AI scanning calls. Your reminder settings are stored the same way, to decide which reminders to send you.
AI scanning
When you scan a shelf or a barcode, the photo is sent to Anthropic's Claude API to read titles and authors off spines and covers. Only the photo itself is sent for that purpose. No account info, contacts, or other library data is included in that call. Anthropic processes the image to return the extracted text; it is not used to identify you personally.
Who we share data with
- Supabase: the database, authentication, and file storage that runs the app. Your data is protected by row-level security, meaning it isn't visible to other users' accounts.
- Anthropic (Claude): receives shelf/barcode photos to power AI scanning, as described above.
- OpenAI: receives the photos you add to the app (profile photo, book covers, condition photos, photos in comments) so an automated check can catch unsafe images and confirm that a book photo shows a book. No account details are sent with the photo.
- Expo: delivers push notifications. It receives your push token and the text of each notification.
- Resend: sends the account emails (sign-up codes, sign-in links, password resets). It receives your email address and the content of those emails.
- Google Books: receives ISBNs and titles/authors you scan or enter, to look up cover art and book details. No account or personal data is sent.
- Open Library: receives ISBNs you scan or enter, to look up book details when Google Books has none. The app also loads cover images from Open Library by ISBN. No account or personal data is sent, although, as with any web request, the service can see the IP address the request comes from.
- GitHub: stores a weekly backup copy of the database, kept for up to 90 days so Snug can be recovered after a failure. The backup is encrypted before it is stored, and only the person who runs Snug holds the key.
- Cloudflare Web Analytics (this website only): counts visits to getsnugapp.com (pages viewed, referrer, country, device type). It uses no cookies and does not track you across sites or build a profile of you. The app itself has no analytics.
The app does not use third-party advertising or analytics/tracking SDKs, and we do not sell or share your data with data brokers.
Where your data is stored
Snug's database, accounts, and files are stored with Supabase in the United States (an AWS data center in Oregon). The other services listed above (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Expo, Resend, and Open Library) also process data in the United States and possibly other countries. If you use Snug from outside the United States, your data is therefore sent to and processed in the United States. We send each service only the data described above, and each one handles it under its own privacy policy and safeguards.
Why we use your data
We use your information to provide the app you asked for (your account, library, loans, reminders, and friends), and to keep Snug safe and working (handling reports, blocking abuse, and limiting AI scans so the service stays affordable). When you allow a permission such as the camera, contacts, or notifications, we use it because you chose to; you can withdraw any permission at any time in your phone's settings. Where the law asks for a legal basis, ours are: providing the app to you, our legitimate interest in running a safe and working app, and your consent.
How long we keep it
- Your account, library, loans, photos, and friend connections are kept until you delete your account.
- When you delete your account, it is removed from the app straight away. We keep weekly encrypted backup copies of the database for up to 90 days, so deleted data can remain in a backup for up to that long before it is discarded.
- Reports about a note or a person are kept so we can act on abuse. If the person who was reported deletes their account, the report stays, without a link to an account, along with the copy of the reported text. If you filed a report and delete your account, your report is deleted with it.
- Sign-in and service logs are kept by our providers (such as Supabase) for a short period under their own policies.
Deleting your data
Settings → Delete Account permanently removes your books, loans, photos, and account in one action. There's no waiting period and no way to undo it, by design. This is also how to stop all future use of your data by the app.
Don't have the app installed, or can't sign in? Email support@getsnugapp.com from the address on your account and we'll delete your account and data for you.
Your rights
Depending on where you live (for example the EU, the UK, Thailand, the Philippines, or the UAE), you may have the right to see and get a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, object to or restrict how we use it, and move it to another service. In the app you can edit your profile and library and delete your account yourself. For anything else, including a copy of your data, email support@getsnugapp.com from the address on your account. We aim to reply within 30 days. If you think we have handled your data improperly, you can also complain to the data protection authority in your country.
Security
Data is transmitted over HTTPS and stored in Supabase Postgres with row-level security policies, so one account can't read another account's data.
Children's privacy
Snug is for people 13 and over and is not directed at children under 13; we don't knowingly collect information from them. In some countries the minimum age for using an online service without a parent's permission is higher than 13 (up to 16). If that applies to you, please ask a parent or guardian first. If we learn that we hold data from a child under 13, we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
If what's collected or shared changes, this page will be updated and the effective date above will change. Check back occasionally for updates.
Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: support@getsnugapp.com