Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible

The controller of your personal data is Frédéric Marcie, an individual, who publishes Opinion Scanner. For any question about your data: contact@opinionscanner.app.

2. Data we collect

When you use the App

• Anonymous session. When you open the App, it starts an anonymous session with a random identifier — no name, no email address. It lets you read and subscribe without an account and keeps your settings.
• Account and sign-in. If you create an account: your email address and password (managed by Firebase Authentication; we never see your password in clear text), or the identifier that Apple or Google gives us when you sign in with them. With Apple you may hide your email address; we then receive an Apple relay address. Your first name, if you give it or if Apple or Google provides it. The sign-in method and sign-in dates are kept by Firebase Authentication.
• Profile and settings. Your country, interface language, theme, audio and voice options, jingle, alarm time, and the date your account was created.
• Your reading choices. The media you follow, the articles you save, and the addresses (URLs) of the personal sources you add. An address you add is also stored, with your account identifier, in a shared list that our server uses so that each address is fetched only once.
• Subscriptions and purchases. Your plan, its expiry date and which store sold it; for each payment, the store’s transaction identifiers, the amount, the currency and the dates. We do not receive your card number, your Apple ID or your Google account details. For Apple and Google purchases, an identifier derived from your account or anonymous session identifier is sent with the purchase, so that it reaches the right account. When you restore purchases, the subscription is moved to the account or session currently used.
• Reports and suggestions. What you submit when you report an article or a media, or suggest a media (the target, your comment, the media name, its website address and country), together with your account identifier for reports.
• Usage statistics. Anonymous events — opening the App, reading, sharing or listening to an article, searching — with the media or article concerned and your country. No account identifier is attached.
• Diagnostics. When something fails, the App sends a technical error report with your account identifier, the App version, the platform (iOS or Android) and the details of the error.
• Notifications. If you turn notifications on, your device’s push notification token is used to deliver them.
• Advertising (Free plan). The App shows banner ads served by Google AdMob. Google may process your device’s advertising identifier, your IP address and information about your device and your interactions with ads, to deliver, measure and personalise ads (or to limit personalisation), under its own policies. The paid plans show no ads.

Microphone and voice commands

The microphone is optional. It is used only to recognise five spoken commands (stop, continue, open, next, close), only while the press review or an open article is on screen, and never in the background. Recognition is performed by your device’s speech recognition service (Apple’s on iOS, Google’s on Android). Depending on your device and language, that service may process the audio on your device or send it to Apple’s or Google’s servers, under their own privacy terms. Opinion Scanner does not record, store or receive your audio. You can turn the microphone off in the App or in your device settings at any time.

When you visit the Site

Our host, Vercel, processes technical connection data (IP address, browser, pages requested, date and time) to deliver the Site and keep it secure. The Site sets no cookies and has no analytics or advertising trackers. It loads the Inter font from Google Fonts, so your browser contacts Google’s servers, which receive your IP address, to fetch it. The download link and QR code lead to Apple (TestFlight or the App Store) or to Google Play, whose terms apply.

3. Why we use your data, and on what legal basis

• Providing the App — account, settings, reading choices, press review, audio, voice commands: performance of our contract with you (the Terms of Use).
• Subscriptions and payments — activating your plan, restoring purchases, preventing fraud, keeping purchase records: performance of the contract, and compliance with our accounting and legal obligations.
• Notifications and microphone — your consent, given through your device’s permission, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Advertising on the Free plan — our legitimate interest in funding the free plan and, where the law requires it, your consent.
• Security, diagnostics, fixing errors and preventing abuse — our legitimate interests.
• Anonymous statistics to understand and improve the App — our legitimate interests.
• Handling reports, suggestions and your requests — our legitimate interests and the performance of the contract.
• Delivering and securing the Site — our legitimate interests.

4. Who receives your data

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with providers that help us run the service, and only as needed:

• Google — Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions and Cloud Storage (accounts, database, server functions), Google Sign-In, Google Play Billing (purchases on Android), and AdMob (advertising).
• Apple — Sign in with Apple, in-app purchases, App Store and TestFlight, delivery of push notifications, and speech recognition on iOS.
• Expo — the push notification service, and the delivery of App updates (your device’s IP address, the App version and the platform are visible to it).
• Vercel — hosting of the Site.
• Authorities, where the law requires us to disclose data.
• Media websites. When you open an article, your device connects to the publisher’s website, which handles your data under its own policy.

We require these providers to protect your data with the same or equal level of protection as described in this policy.

5. Transfers outside your country

Our providers operate internationally. Our database and our server functions run on Google Cloud in Singapore; some public files are stored in the United States; other providers are based in the United States. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, and data is transferred to a country that is not recognised as offering an equivalent level of protection, we rely on safeguards such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, where the provider is certified, or standard contractual clauses.

6. How long we keep data

• Account data (sign-in details, name, email address, followed media, saved articles, personal sources, settings): until you delete your account.
• When you delete your account, the deletion is scheduled 30 days ahead; during that time you can restore the account by signing in again. On that day we erase your sign-in details, name and email address, followed media, saved articles and personal sources. A subscription is not cancelled by the deletion: cancel it with Apple or Google first, or the store keeps billing you.
• After deletion we keep purchase records (provider transaction identifiers, amounts, dates) for as long as accounting, tax and legal obligations, or the handling of a payment dispute, require, and a minimal technical record showing that the account existed and was deleted.
• Anonymous sessions are identified only by a random identifier. An anonymous session cannot be deleted from the App; write to us and we will erase its data. Purchase records linked to an anonymous session are kept as described above for accounting and legal obligations.
• Diagnostic reports and shared-source entries are kept for as long as needed for their purpose (fixing errors, fetching sources), and erased or anonymised on request.
• Reports and suggestions are kept for as long as needed to handle them.
• Anonymous statistics carry no account identifier.
• Site connection data is kept by Vercel for a short period, under its own policy.

7. Your rights

Depending on where you live — including under the GDPR in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom — you may have the right to access your data, have it corrected or erased, restrict or object to its processing, receive it in a portable format, and withdraw your consent at any time without affecting what was done before. You may also complain to your data protection authority.

To exercise your rights, write to contact@opinionscanner.app. We may ask you to verify your identity, and we answer within one month. In the App, you can delete your account from the Account screen and change your settings at any time. Apple and Google are independent controllers of the data they process: you can also exercise your rights with them.

8. Security

Data travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Access rules allow each signed-in user to read and write only their own data. Passwords are handled by Firebase Authentication and are not visible to us. Payments are processed by Apple and Google. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

9. Children

The App is not intended for children under 16. We do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has given us data, write to us and we will erase it.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy; the date at the top shows the latest version. We will inform you of material changes in the App or on the Site.

11. Contact

For any privacy question or request: contact@opinionscanner.app.