Politique de confidentialité

Welcome to Athena Reader ("Athena", "we", "us", or "the Product"). Protecting your data security and privacy is our top priority. This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect and how we process it when you access and use our services (including the app and web versions, collectively the "Services").

Please read and fully understand this Privacy Policy before using the Product. By choosing to use the Product, you agree to this Privacy Policy in its entirety. If you have any questions, contact us at support@athena-reader.com. If you do not agree with this policy or any of its terms, please stop using the Services.

1. Information We Collect and How We Use It

We follow the principles of lawfulness, legitimacy, necessity and good faith, and collect only the personal information necessary to provide the Services:

1. Account information: To use full functionality you must register an account. We verify your identity by email and send you a verification code. Your email address is used for login, account security and essential service notifications.

2. Device and log information: To keep the Services secure and stable and to prevent abuse, we record necessary session and device information (such as device identifiers, the country/region derived from your IP, and login time). IP is used only for security and regional suggestions at country-level granularity and is not used for precise location.

3. Content you upload: Your books, notes, highlights and reading progress belong to you. This data is used to provide cross-device sync and reading services and is, by default, accessible only to you.

4. AI features: When you use AI chat, inline translation, ask-the-book and summarization, or the AI dictionary, we process the content necessary to perform that function — the text you select or type, the title and author of the book concerned, book excerpts retrieved to answer your question, and, where you choose to let the AI consult them, your notes and highlights. We do not train or host large language models ourselves; these capabilities are provided through the interface of a third-party model provider (named, with the scope of sharing, in the third-party disclosure list in Section 3). We send only the text necessary for that request; we do not send your email address, account identifier or device information. We commit that such content is used solely to generate that result in real time, and is never used for AI model training, advertising, user profiling, or any purpose unrelated to the Services.

5. Processing performed on our own servers with no third party involved: text recognition (OCR), the chunking and vector indexing of book content, and semantic search over your notes all run on our own servers; the files and text involved are not sent to any third party.

6. Text-to-speech: by default we use the speech engine built into your device, entirely on-device and without passing through our servers. If you choose to enter your own API key for a third-party cloud speech service in Settings, the text to be spoken is sent from your device directly to that provider. The key is stored only on your device, is excluded from sync, and is never uploaded to our servers; that service relationship is between you and the provider.

2. How We Store and Protect Your Information

We retain your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected. We use industry-standard security measures (including encryption in transit and of key data, access controls, and row-level data isolation) to protect your information against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or loss. When you delete your account, we will delete or anonymize your personal information, except where retention is required by law.

Account deletion works as follows:

1. Grace period: after you request deletion there is a 30-day grace period during which the account is suspended but can be restored at any time with no data loss. Once the grace period ends, removal begins and cannot be undone.

2. Deleted immediately: your account details, notes, highlights, materials, reading progress, shelves and AI conversations.

3. Retained but unlinked: transaction and payment records are retained under statutory bookkeeping obligations, but their link to your identity is severed (the account identifier is removed and replaced with a random reference that cannot be computed back to you), so they can no longer identify you.

4. Fraud prevention: we keep a one-way cryptographic fingerprint of the deleted email address (it cannot be turned back into the address). It is used solely to avoid granting the new-user gift again if the same address registers later. This processing relies on our legitimate interest in preventing fraud (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f); PIPL Art. 13(6)).

5. Unused paid entitlements: requesting deletion yourself forfeits them; they are not refunded or converted. We stop your subscription's auto-renewal when you submit the request.

3. Sharing, Transfer and Disclosure

We do not sell your personal information to any third party. Apart from the sharing listed below, which is necessary to deliver specific features, we share your information only: with your explicit consent; to comply with laws or lawful requests from judicial or administrative authorities; to protect the vital lawful interests of you or others; or as necessary to maintain the security and stable operation of the Services.

Third-party disclosure list (per Article 23 of the PIPL):

1. Large language model service. Recipient: Beijing SiliconFlow Technology Co., Ltd. (SiliconFlow), unified social credit code 91110108MACUTWH50K. Purpose: generating AI chat, translation, ask-the-book and summary results in real time. Content: the text you submit, the title, author and retrieved excerpts of the book concerned, the notes and highlights you choose to let the AI consult, and your interface language preference; it does not include your email address, account identifier or device information. Place of processing: within the People's Republic of China.

2. Payment services. For purchases made in mainland China, your order and payment information is relayed through an aggregator (Qixiang Pay) to licensed domestic payment institutions (Weixin Pay and Alipay), which collect the payment; the aggregator creates the order for us, relays the payment result and assists with refunds. For purchases made outside mainland China, Dodo Payments Inc. (a Delaware corporation, together with its affiliates operating under the Dodo Payments trade name) acts as Merchant of Record and processes the information outside China. For in-app purchases via the Apple App Store or Google Play, Apple or Google processes the purchase and returns a verification result to us. The content shared is limited to the order and payment information required to complete the transaction.

3. Email delivery. We send login verification codes and essential service notices through an email service provider; the content shared is your email address and the message body.

4. Third-party sign-in. If you sign in with a Google, Microsoft or Apple account, we obtain your email address and account identifier from them to create and identify your account. If you use Sign in with Apple and choose "Hide My Email", we receive the relay address supplied by Apple and cannot learn your real email address from it.

5. Human verification. To prevent bulk registration and verification-code abuse, the sign-in flow may call Cloudflare's human verification service, which processes your IP address and a verification token.

6. Push notifications. If you enable push notifications, your device push token and the notification content are delivered to your device through the relevant platform's push service (such as Google FCM or your browser vendor's push infrastructure).

All recipients are bound by contract to process your personal information only for the purposes and within the scope set out in this list. If the purpose, recipient or content of sharing changes, we will update this list and obtain your consent again.

Cross-border transfers: your account, books, notes and reading data are stored on our servers within the People's Republic of China. If you purchase paid services from outside mainland China, your order and payment information will be processed by an overseas payment provider in order to perform the transaction contract to which you are a party. Apart from the cases listed in this section, we do not provide your personal information to recipients outside the People's Republic of China.

4. Your Rights

You have the right to access, correct and delete your personal information, withdraw consent, and delete your account. You can do so in the relevant in-app settings or by contacting support@athena-reader.com. For users in mainland China we comply with the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) and related laws. If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland you also have rights to data portability, restriction of and objection to processing, and to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority — see Section 7 for the full notice.

5. Minors and Children's Personal Information

1. The Product is intended for users aged 13 and above. In mainland China, the Personal Information Protection Law additionally treats anyone under 14 as a child: we do not knowingly offer the Services to, or collect personal information from, children under 14 there. Elsewhere the children's threshold is 13.

2. If you are above that age but under 18, please read this policy together with your guardian, and use the Product, submit personal information or make any purchase only with your guardian's consent.

3. If you are a guardian and find that a minor in your care has registered or used the Product without your consent, please contact us at support@athena-reader.com. After verification we will help delete the account and its personal information and stop the related processing.

4. If we discover that we have collected a child's personal information without prior guardian consent (under 14 in mainland China; under 13 elsewhere), we will delete it as soon as possible after discovery.

5. Measures against overuse and misplaced reliance: the Product contains no recommendation, ranking or reward mechanism designed to extend usage time, and no loot-box or lottery-style spending incentives. AI-generated content always carries a prominent label noting that it may be inaccurate and should be verified, so that minors do not become over-reliant on generative AI services. We also encourage guardians to use the screen-time controls built into the device's operating system.

6. Cookies and Local Storage

The Product uses no advertising, analytics or cross-site tracking cookies, and embeds no third-party analytics code, which is why you are not shown a cookie consent banner. We store on your browser or device only what is strictly necessary to deliver the features you have actively requested: your login credentials and session identifier (to keep you signed in), a device identifier (to recognise your signed-in devices and protect your account), your interface language and appearance preferences, and the books, notes and reading progress cached in a local database for offline reading. This data lives on your device; clearing your browser data or uninstalling the app removes it, after which you will need to sign in again and the offline cache will be empty.

7. Additional Notice for EEA, UK and Swiss Users

If you use the Product in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, the following applies to you in addition to the rest of this policy.

1. Data controller: Chengdu Wuhou District Liuxiangli Business Information Consulting Service (sole proprietorship), unified social credit code 92510107MAKKUB3JX8. Contact: support@athena-reader.com.

2. Legal bases for processing (GDPR Article 6):

  • Providing your account, sync, reading and AI features — necessary to perform our contract with you (Art. 6(1)(b)).

  • Security logs, abuse and fraud prevention, and the one-way fingerprint of a deleted email address — our legitimate interests in keeping the Services secure and preventing fraud (Art. 6(1)(f)).

  • Retention of transaction and payment records — compliance with a legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)).

  • Optional features you switch on yourself in Settings — your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), which you may withdraw at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.

3. Retention: account data is kept until the grace period following your deletion request ends; security and sign-in logs are kept for no longer than 12 months; transaction records are kept under statutory bookkeeping obligations but unlinked from your identity as described in Section 2(3).

4. Your rights: you have the right to access, rectify and erase your personal data, to restrict or object to processing, to receive a portable copy, and to withdraw consent. Contact support@athena-reader.com and we will respond within one month. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority of your habitual residence, place of work or place of the alleged infringement (GDPR Art. 77).

5. International transfers: as stated in Section 3, your account, books and notes are stored on our servers within the People's Republic of China. China is not covered by a European Commission adequacy decision; this transfer relies on GDPR Art. 49(1)(b) — it is necessary to perform the contract you requested (namely, providing you with the Product's sync and reading services). If you are not comfortable with your data being stored in China, please do not register for or use the Product.

6. Automated decision-making: we carry out no automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects. AI features generate text in response to your immediate request only; they make no assessment or decision about you.

7. The Product is operated by a sole proprietor established in China, primarily serves users in mainland China, and has no establishment in the European Economic Area.

8. Updates to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Updates will be published within the Product, and material changes will be prominently notified. Continued use constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

9. Contact Us

For any questions, comments or suggestions regarding this policy, please email: support@athena-reader.com