Privacy Policy

Last updated: 29 October 2026

The short version

• Your personal journal is stored only on your phone. We cannot see it.
• Your account and your shared journals are stored on servers in the European Union (Frankfurt, Germany).
• There are no ads, no analytics and no tracking, in the app or on this website.
• We do not sell your data, and we never will.
• You can delete your account, and with it your data, from the app at any time.

Who we are

Episome is made by Elif Yaren Çekiç, an independent developer based in İzmir, Türkiye, who is responsible for your data under this policy (the data controller). In this policy, “we” and “us” mean her.

For anything about your data, write to:

privacy@episome.app

What stays on your phone

Your personal journal is kept in a database inside the app on your phone: every episode with its title, genre, scores, cast, notes, line of the day, photos and voice notes, as well as your seasons and your own genres. It is not uploaded anywhere. We have no copy of it and no way to read it.

This also means we cannot restore it for you. If you lose your phone or delete the app, your personal journal goes with it unless you have made a backup. A backup is a file you create from Settings and keep wherever you choose; we never receive it.

Your theme and language choices are stored on the phone as well.

What we store on our servers

To use Episome you create an account. For that we store:

• your name and email address;
• your password, kept only in hashed form, which we cannot read;
• the sign-in sessions that keep you logged in on your phone.

If you use shared journals, we also store what belongs to them: the journal’s name, its members and the name each member shows there, invite codes, and the episodes, notes, lines, photos and voice notes written in it. Everything in a shared journal can be seen by its members, and only by them.

This data is kept with our database and storage provider, Neon, in its European Union region (Frankfurt, Germany). Photos and voice notes are kept in private storage and can only be opened through short-lived links that are given to members of that journal.

When you ask to reset your password, we send a code to your email address.

Permissions on your phone

Episome asks for a permission only when you use the feature that needs it, and you can say no:

• Photos: to choose a poster or scenes for an episode, and to save a share card to your gallery.
• Microphone: to record a voice note.
• Files: to choose a backup file when you restore one.

What we don’t do

• We don’t show ads.
• We don’t use analytics, tracking or advertising tools, in the app or on this website, and this website sets no cookies.
• We don’t sell or rent your data to anyone.
• We don’t read your shared journals. We only look at stored data if you ask us to, or if the law requires it.

Who else handles data

We use a small number of service providers to run Episome. They process data only to provide their service to us:

• Neon: accounts, sign-in, shared journals and their files (European Union, Frankfurt).
• Expo: delivers app updates. When the app checks for an update, Expo receives technical details such as your IP address, platform and app version.
• Vercel: hosts this website and, like any web server, briefly logs technical details of visits such as IP address and browser.
• Apple and Google: when you download Episome from their app stores, they handle that under their own privacy policies.

Some of these companies are based outside Türkiye and the European Union, so some data may be transferred abroad. Where that happens, it is done under the safeguards the law requires, such as standard contractual clauses.

Other people only see what you choose to show them: the members of a shared journal see what you write in it, and a share card contains only what you see in its preview.

Why we use your data

We use your data only to run Episome for you: to create and protect your account, to sign you in, to reset your password when you ask, to keep shared journals working for their members, and to deliver app updates.

Under the GDPR and Türkiye’s Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (KVKK), we rely on the performance of our agreement with you, on our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and working, and on your consent for phone permissions.

How long we keep it

We keep your account for as long as you have it. When you delete your account, your name, email address, password and sessions are deleted, and so is the personal journal on your phone.

What you wrote in a shared journal stays in that journal after you leave it or delete your account, together with the name you used there, because it is part of a story its other members share. It is deleted when the journal itself is deleted. If you want something you wrote there removed, you can delete it yourself before you leave, or write to us.

Your rights

You have the right to know what data we hold about you, to get a copy of it, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to how we use it and to take it with you. Many of these you can do yourself in the app: you can edit or delete anything you wrote, export your personal journal as a backup, and delete your account. For anything else, write to us and we will answer within 30 days.

If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Personal Data Protection Authority in Türkiye (KVKK), or to the data protection authority where you live in the European Union.

Security

Everything between the app and our servers travels over encrypted connections. On the server, every request is checked against who you are, so nobody can read a shared journal they are not a member of, and photos and voice notes sit in private storage. Your personal journal is as safe as your phone, so keep your phone locked.

Children

Episome is not meant for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, write to us and we will delete it.

Premium

Premium is not on sale yet. When it is, payments will be handled by the App Store or Google Play, and we will update this policy before then.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, the new version will be published on this page with a new date. If a change affects how your data is used, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data:

privacy@episome.app