Privacy policy

The short version

Your scans stay on your phone. Three things can leave it, each only when you use it: Assist sends the text of the pages you ask about to a service I run, which keeps nothing; backup sends your documents to a folder in your own Google Drive; and the free version shows one banner advertisement in the library, served by Google AdMob. There are no analytics and no tracking of your own.

What stays on your phone

Every page you scan, the cleaned version of it, the words the on-device text recogniser reads from it, your folders and categories, reminders, and the app's settings are stored in the app's own storage on your device. They are never uploaded by the app. Sharing a document sends it wherever you choose to share it, through the app you pick.

What Assist sends

When you ask Assist for a brief, an answer, a table or a translation, the app sends the text of the pages involved, and your question, to Document Scanner's service, which runs on Google Cloud. The service forwards that text to Google's Gemini API to produce the answer and returns the answer to you. The service does not store the text, the question or the answer; it records only a count of the actions you used this month. Google processes the request under the Gemini API terms for paid use, which do not permit training on it.

If you turn on page reading in Settings, a paid feature, the image of a page the on-device recogniser cannot read is sent the same way, and is not stored either.

Your account

To count Assist usage, the app creates an anonymous account with Firebase Authentication on first use. It carries no name, email, phone number or device identifier. Each call also carries an attestation from Google Play Integrity or Apple App Attest that proves it comes from an unmodified copy of the app; the attestation identifies the app, not you.

If you sign in with Google or Apple, the anonymous account becomes that account, so a subscription and the usage count follow you to a new phone. The service then keeps the account identifier the provider gives it and, for a subscription, the purchase token the store issues. It does not receive your password, contacts, or anything else from the provider; the email address or name the provider shares is shown in the app's Settings and stored only on the phone. Signing out returns the app to an anonymous account.

Purchases

Premium is a subscription and Remove ads a one-time purchase, both sold and billed by Google Play or the App Store under their terms; the app never sees your payment details. To confirm a Premium purchase, the app sends the store's purchase token to my service, which checks it with the store and records which account it belongs to, when it renews, and its state. The stores notify the service when a subscription renews, lapses or is refunded. That is all the service holds about a purchase.

Backup to Google Drive

If you turn on backup, the app copies your documents, pages, categories and reminders to a folder named DocScanner Backups in your own Google Drive, using a permission that lets the app see only the files it created there. Nothing passes through my service. Google stores the files under your account and its own privacy policy; you can delete the folder from Drive at any time, and turning backup off in the app stops further uploads. Restoring on a new phone reads the same folder.

Advertising

The free version shows one banner at the foot of the library, and nowhere else, served by Google AdMob. AdMob receives the advertising identifier of the device and technical details of the request under Google's policy. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland the app asks for your consent before any advertisement loads and shows only non-personalised advertisements without it; the choice can be changed later under Settings, Privacy and ads. Subscribing to Premium or buying Remove ads removes the banner and the advertising SDK is not used again.

Permissions

Camera, to photograph pages. Face ID, Touch ID, fingerprint or your passcode, to open documents you have locked; the app never sees the credential itself. Notifications, for reminders you set; they are scheduled on the phone. Photos are imported through the system picker, which gives the app only the pictures you choose.

Children

The app is not directed at children under 13 and collects no personal information from anyone.

Keeping and deleting

Deleting a document in the app moves it to Recently deleted for thirty days, after which it is gone from the phone and, on the next backup, from Drive. Uninstalling the app removes everything it stored on the phone; a backup in your Drive stays until you delete it there. The account, with its usage count and purchase records, is deleted from the app: Settings, then Delete account. How to delete your account says what that removes and what it does not.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version is published here with a new effective date, and the app links to it. Questions go to ceo@wazeem.com.