Privacy Policy

Spaced Recall is a spaced repetition app for iPhone and the web. This page says, in plain words, what it stores about you, why, and how to get rid of it. Last updated 28 September 2026.

Who is responsible

Spaced Recall is made by Steven Denchev, an independent developer in the United Kingdom, who is the data controller for the information described here. Questions about your data go to [email protected].

Using the app without an account

On iPhone you can use Spaced Recall without an account. In that case your facts, any pictures you add to them, your settings, review history and streak are stored only on your phone, and nothing about them is sent to us. Reminders are scheduled on the phone itself.

Camera and photos

You can add a picture to a fact. On iPhone the app asks to use the camera when you first take a picture, and asks to see your photos when you first open the picture tray, so it can show your recent ones. It only ever reads a photo you choose; it does not scan, upload or keep anything else from your library, and it never saves anything into it. Refusing either permission leaves the rest of the app working.

The Librarian (the app's AI)

The Librarian is an AI assistant that appears as the first contact in Social. It can help with your library, your review calendar, your settings and category colours, and sending messages and facts to your friends and groups. It only works when you message it. When you do, what you write, and what it looks up in the app to answer you, are sent to an AI model that runs on Cloudflare (Workers AI), which writes its replies. What it looks up can include your facts (their words, categories and review dates), your settings, and the usernames of your friends and the names of your groups; it cannot read your chats or anyone else's library. Cloudflare does not use any of this to train AI models. The Librarian never does anything by itself: anything it suggests, whether adding, editing or deleting facts, changing a setting or a colour, or sending a message or facts to someone, is a card you have to tap to confirm, and a message it writes is sent only when you tap Send, in the same way as one you type yourself. The conversation is kept on your device, not on our servers; we keep only a count of how many messages each account sends in a day, so the service cannot be overused. Clearing the conversation in the app deletes it. The Librarian can be wrong, so check anything important.

On an iPhone with Apple Intelligence, when the Librarian's shared daily allowance is used up or there is no connection, it can carry on using Apple's on-device model instead. What you write and what it looks up then stay on your phone and are not sent to us or anyone else.

What we store when you have an account

An account is needed for the web app, for syncing between devices, and for the social features. With one, we store:

• Account details: your email address and a password (stored only as a secure hash by our authentication provider), or the identifier Google or Apple gives us if you sign in with them. If you turn on two-factor sign-in, the settings for it.
• Your library: the facts you add, their categories, any pictures you add to them (shrunk to a smaller copy before they are stored), when each is due, your review history, your streak and your settings, and your language practice (which words you have met, how well you know each one, and the days you practised), so it matches on every device.
• Your profile: your username, an optional short bio and an optional profile photo, and your privacy choices (whether you appear on the leaderboard, whether people can find you by username, and whether friends see your daily activity).
• Social content: your friends and friend requests, the messages you send and receive, the reactions you add to them and the messages you star, facts you share, stories you post (they expire after a day), groups and projects you are in, the facts added to those projects, people you have blocked, and reports you make.
• Notifications: if you allow them on iPhone, a push token so we can tell you about new messages and friend requests.
• Tips: if you leave a tip, which supporter badge you have. Card details are handled by Stripe on the web and by Apple in the App Store; we never see or store them.
• Technical logs: our hosting and database providers keep short-lived logs, including IP addresses, to run the service and protect it from abuse.

We do not use advertising, we do not sell or share your data for advertising, and there are no analytics or tracking tools in the app.

Why we use it

To provide the service you asked for (the lawful basis is our contract with you): keeping your library in sync, scheduling reviews, sending the reminders and notifications you turned on, running the social features, and showing your supporter badge. To keep the service safe (our legitimate interest): preventing abuse, and reviewing reports about people who break the Terms.

Who else processes it

We use a small number of providers to run Spaced Recall, each only for the part they do:

• Supabase: database, sign-in, and file storage for profile photos and fact pictures.
• Cloudflare: hosting for spacedrecall.app and the web app, and running the AI model behind the Librarian, only for messages you send it.
• Resend: sending sign-in, password reset and two-factor emails.
• Expo and Apple: delivering push notifications to your iPhone.
• Stripe: taking tips and merch payments on the web. Apple: taking tips in the App Store.
• Printify: making and posting merch you order, for which it receives your name, delivery address, email and phone number. You do not need an account to buy merch, and nothing about your orders is linked to one.
• Google or Apple: only if you choose to sign in with them.

Some of these providers process data outside the United Kingdom. Where they do, they are bound by the standard contractual safeguards that UK data protection law requires.

What other people can see

Your email address is never shown to anyone. Your username, photo, bio, streak and supporter badge can be seen by people who find you or who are your friends, subject to the privacy switches in the app. Your friends can also see how many facts you reviewed and added on each day, as a graph on your profile and in their Activity feed; they never see which facts. You can turn this off with the “Share activity with friends” switch in Account, Privacy. Everyone in a project can see the facts added to it and who added them. Messages are only visible to the people in the conversation, and so are reactions to them; what you star is visible only to you. A message you delete for everyone is removed from our servers, and so are the words of it quoted in any reply. Your library is private unless you choose to share facts or a library with someone, and a fact's picture is private in the same way: it is stored where only you can open it, and people can see it only when you share that fact or your library with them.

How long we keep it

For as long as you have an account. Stories disappear after a day. If you delete your account, everything listed above is deleted straight away, apart from records Stripe or Apple must keep about payments, and backups held by our providers, which roll off within their normal retention period.

Deleting your data

You can delete your account yourself at any time: in the iPhone app under Account, Account, Delete my account, or in the web app under Account, Account, Delete my account. This removes your account and everything in it. You can also export your facts first from Your data.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct or delete it, object to how we use it, or ask us to restrict it. Email [email protected] and we will answer within a month. If you are unhappy with the answer you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Children

Accounts are for people aged 13 and over. If you believe a child under 13 has made an account, email us and we will delete it.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will say so in the app before the change takes effect. The date at the top says when it last changed.