Privacy Policy
BookBarter is a free app for swapping physical books with neighbours. This policy explains what we collect, who sees it, and what happens when you delete your account. Questions: [email protected].
1. What we collect
- Account — your email address, display name and optional profile photo. If you sign in with Google or Apple we receive the name and email they share (Apple may give a private relay address).
- Location — the postal code you enter, and the centre point of that postal code, which we look up with Google. If you allow location access, the app reads your device GPS when you tap the location button (to suggest your postal code) and when you search for a meetup place (sent to Google so nearby places rank first). GPS coordinates are not stored.
- Books — title, author, ISBN, description, condition, category, the photos you upload and, if you choose it, a catalogue cover link.
- Swaps and messages — requests, the messages you send, books you offer, and meetup places and times you propose.
- Ratings and reviews you give and receive after a swap.
- Reports and feedback you send us.
- Push notification token for your device, so we can tell you about new messages and swap requests.
- Diagnostics — crash reports (Firebase Crashlytics) and app usage events (Google Analytics for Firebase), with device model and OS version. We do not show ads: Google Analytics is set not to collect your device's advertising ID.
2. What other members see
Your display name, photo, city, rating, reviews and swap count, and the books you list. Your books show their distance from the viewer, your postal code, and a pin at the centre of that postal code on a map — an area, not your address. Your email is never shown. Messages are visible only to the other person in that swap.
A shared link to a listed book (bookbarter.app/b/…) shows anyone who opens it the title, author, condition, city and cover — never your name or postal code. The link stops working once the book is no longer listed.
3. How we use it
To run BookBarter: show books near you, deliver messages and push notifications, keep members safe (reviewing reports and screening photos), fix crashes, and understand which features are used. We do not sell or rent your personal information.
4. Services that process your data
- Google Firebase — sign-in, database, photo storage, cloud functions, push notifications, Analytics, Crashlytics.
- Google Cloud Vision — every uploaded photo is checked automatically for adult or violent content; a flagged photo may be removed or reviewed by us.
- Google Maps Platform — postal code lookup, maps, place search.
- Google Books and Open Library — receive the ISBN you look up.
- Apple — Sign in with Apple, and delivering notifications on iPhone.
Each handles data under its own privacy policy (see the Google Privacy Policy).
5. Keeping and deleting your data
We keep your data while your account exists. Delete Account (Profile, in the app) immediately removes your profile, books and their photos, favourites, username and push tokens.
Swaps and messages you took part in, and ratings you exchanged, stay with the other person, shown as "Swap Partner", because they are part of their history too. Reports and feedback you sent are kept for safety records. Crash and analytics data follow Google's retention settings. To ask for kept data to be removed, email [email protected].
6. Your rights
You can see and correct your profile in the app, download a copy of your data with Export My Data (Profile), and delete your account at any time. You may also ask us for access, correction or deletion, or object to processing, at [email protected].
7. Children
BookBarter is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, contact us and we will delete it.
8. Security
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by Firebase, and database access rules limit each member to their own private data. No system is perfectly secure.
9. Changes
We will update this page and the date above when this policy changes, and tell you in the app about significant changes.