Privacy Policy

1. Summary

Here is the short version of how we treat your data.

• We do not sell your personal data.
• We do not use your data for advertising.
• We do not share your data with advertisers or data brokers.
• We do not grant third parties access to your content for marketing or ad analytics.
• Optional Community and cloud features use Google Firebase only as infrastructure for authentication and the database.

2. Information we collect

What we process depends on how you use BRAINY.

On your device (offline vault)

• Ideas, notes, tags, categories, and settings you create are stored locally on your device by default.
• Local export and import files you create are controlled by you.

If you create a Community account

• Email address and authentication credentials (handled by Firebase Authentication).
• Email verification status.
• Account identifiers needed to operate Community features.

If you enable private cloud vault backup

• Copies of entries and categories you choose to upload, stored under your account.
• Backup preference and sync metadata, such as last save time.

If you use Community

• Published posts (title, body, tags, category labels).
• Likes, comments, and related timestamps.
• In-app notifications about likes or comments on your posts.
• A block list you create to hide other users from your feed.

If you use Contact

• Email address, subject, message, topic (support or report), optional post references, and account ID when signed in.

Technical data required to run the service

• Basic operational data Firebase needs to authenticate you and store documents, such as account IDs and timestamps.
• We do not intentionally collect precise location, contacts, or advertising identifiers for BRAINY.

3. How we use information

We use information only to:

• Provide and maintain the vault and Community features you choose to use.
• Authenticate your account and verify email when required.
• Sync optional private backups you enable.
• Show Community feeds, likes, comments, notifications, and blocks.
• Receive and respond to Contact form messages (support and abuse reports).
• Protect the service against abuse and enforce our Terms.

We do not use your content to train public AI models, serve ads, or build advertising profiles.

4. Legal bases (where applicable)

If you are in a region that requires a legal basis (such as the EEA or UK), we process data to perform the contract for the features you request, and where needed for legitimate interests in securing the service and handling abuse, balanced against your rights.

5. Service providers

To operate Community auth and cloud storage we use Google Firebase (Authentication and Cloud Firestore). Firebase processes data on our behalf as a service provider so the app can function. That is not a sale of data and not advertising access.

We do not integrate advertising SDKs, data broker SDKs, or unrelated analytics products that sell or share your personal information for ads.

6. Sharing

We do not sell personal information.

We do not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

We may disclose information only if required by law, to protect rights and safety, or with your direction (for example when you publish a post publicly in Community).

Content you publish to Community is visible to other signed-in Community users.

7. Retention

• Local device data remains until you delete entries or uninstall the app.
• Cloud vault data remains until you delete it, turn off backup and remove it, or delete your account.
• Community posts, likes, comments, notifications, and blocks remain until you remove them or delete your account, subject to technical limits described in the app.
• We may retain limited records as required for security, abuse prevention, or legal obligations.

8. Your choices and rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or export personal data, and to object to or restrict certain processing.

In BRAINY you can:

• Edit or delete local entries.
• Export a JSON backup from Settings.
• Unpublish Community posts you own.
• Block users to limit what you see.
• Delete your Community account and associated cloud/Community data from Settings (Account section), or use the Delete your account form at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.

To make a privacy request, open Settings → Contact in the app.

9. Children

BRAINY is not directed to children under 13. You must be at least 13 years old to create a Community account. If you believe a child has provided personal information, use Settings → Contact and we will take appropriate steps.

10. Security

We use industry-standard provider controls (Firebase Authentication and Firestore security rules) and design private vault data to stay on device unless you opt in to backup or publish. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure.

11. International processing

If you use Community or cloud backup, data may be processed in the regions used by Firebase / Google Cloud for your project.

12. Changes

We may update this policy. We will revise the “Last updated” date above. Continued use after changes means you acknowledge the updated policy.

13. Contact

Privacy and data requests: use Settings → Contact in the app.

14. Delete your account

You can permanently delete your BRAINY Community account and associated cloud data at any time.

In the app: open Settings → Account → Delete account.

On the web: use the form at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. Sign in with your Community email and password, confirm, then delete. Notes stored only on your device are not removed by web deletion.

Delete your Community account

This permanently deletes your BRAINY Community account, published posts, cloud vault backup, notifications, and block list. Notes stored only on your phone or computer are not removed here.