LittleFoundry

Ex Libris

Privacy policy

Last updated

Ex Libris doesn't collect anything about you for LittleFoundry. Your library stays on your iPhone, and book details come from Hardcover.

The short version

  • Ex Libris has no LittleFoundry account, and no analytics, ads or tracking of its own.
  • Your library, ratings and notes are stored on your iPhone.
  • To look books up, Ex Libris sends the barcodes you scan and the searches you make to Hardcover, with an API token from your own Hardcover account. The token is kept in the iOS keychain.
  • Book summaries are written on your iPhone by Apple Intelligence.
  • Ex Libris comes from the App Store, so Apple's privacy policy covers installing and updating it.

What Ex Libris stores on your iPhone

  • Your library: the details of each book from Hardcover, such as its title, authors, ISBN, publisher, pages, genres, description and the address of its cover, and what you add yourself: its format, reading status, rating, the dates you got and finished it, where you got it, who you lent it to and your notes.
  • Unmatched scans: when a barcode can't be matched to a book, Ex Libris keeps it with a small, low-resolution photo taken while scanning and any note you add, until you delete it from the Not Found list or enter the book by hand from there. The photos taken of books that were found aren't kept.
  • Summaries that Apple Intelligence writes for your books.
  • Settings, such as your theme and preferred format.
  • Your Hardcover API token, in the iOS keychain. Settings → Remove Token deletes it.

Like other apps' data, this is included in your iPhone's backups if you make them. Deleting Ex Libris from your iPhone deletes your library with it.

Who Ex Libris talks to

  • Hardcover. Ex Libris looks books up in Hardcover's catalogue through its API (api.hardcover.app), sending your token with each request. Hardcover receives the ISBNs of the books you scan or refresh, what you search for, and the Hardcover IDs of books whose genres Ex Libris fills in. Ex Libris only reads from Hardcover: it doesn't add books to your Hardcover account or change anything there. Hardcover's own privacy policy applies to what it receives.
  • Book covers load from the addresses Hardcover gives for them.
  • Websites you open, such as hardcover.app from Settings, open in your browser.

Ex Libris doesn't send any of this to LittleFoundry.

Features that stay on your iPhone

  • Barcode scanning uses your iPhone's camera and the barcode reader built into iOS, only while the scanner is open. Ex Libris doesn't record video. It keeps a photo only for a barcode it can't match, as described above.
  • Summaries are written by Apple Intelligence's on-device model, from the book's description, or from its title, authors and genres when there's no description. Nothing is sent anywhere to write them.
  • Statistics are worked out on your iPhone from your library.

The App Store

Ex Libris is installed and updated through the App Store, under Apple's Privacy Policy. Apple gives app developers reports in App Store Connect, such as how many people downloaded an app, its ratings and reviews, and crash reports and usage figures from people who choose to share them with developers (Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements → Share With App Developers). LittleFoundry uses these reports only to see how Ex Libris is doing and to fix problems.

Changes

If Ex Libris starts handling data differently, this page will be updated first, with a new date at the top.