Privacy Policy
Version 1.0 · November 15, 2026
This policy explains what data is processed in the Owlshelf iOS app and on its website. Owlshelf is published by Karakaş Digital.
Summary
- You do not need an account to use Owlshelf; we do not ask for your name, email address or phone number.
- There are no ads, and no third-party advertising or tracking software (SDKs, pixels, cookies) is used.
- Your reading progress, bookmarks, favorites and reading settings are stored only on your own device; they are not sent to our server.
- The server keeps only aggregate counters that are not linked to any person (how many times a book was opened and downloaded on a given day).
- If you subscribe to Owlshelf Plus, Apple takes the payment; we never receive your card or identity details. To recognize the subscription we keep only the transaction number issued by Apple and the expiry date.
- If you select a word or a short passage while reading and choose “Ask Owlshelf”, that text and the paragraph it appears in are sent to Anthropic's Claude AI to produce a short explanation. This happens only after you give consent the first time you use it; no personal information about you is sent.
Data we process
1. Data that stays on your device
The app stores the books you download, your reading position, bookmarks, favorites and reading settings (theme, typeface, text size) only on your device, in the app's own storage. This data is not transmitted to us; deleting the app removes all of it. The website stores only your light/dark theme choice in your browser.
2. Anonymous usage counters
When a book is downloaded, that book's daily download total is increased by one. This record contains no IP address, device identifier or any other identifier belonging to a user.
3. Server access logs
Like every web server, our hosting infrastructure keeps request logs for security and debugging (IP address, date and time, requested address, browser information). These logs are not used for profiling. Retention period: 30 days.
4. When you write to us
When you fill in the contact form or the content removal / copyright notice form, we store your name, email address and message in order to answer your request. To prevent abuse, an irreversible hash of your IP address is kept; the IP address itself is not written to the form record.
5. Owlshelf Plus subscription
When you subscribe, the app sends the purchase record signed by Apple to our server. From this record we store only: the original transaction number Apple assigned to the subscription, the subscription type (monthly/yearly), the expiry date, and whether the record belongs to the test environment. This number does not contain your name, email address or Apple Account; it is not linked to which books you read. Your device is given a random access key so that it can download subscription books; only a hash of this key is kept on the server. The record is deleted within one year after the subscription ends.
6. Ask Owlshelf (AI explanations of words and phrases)
When you select a word or a short passage in the reader and choose “Meaning” or “Explain”, the following is sent through our server to the Claude API service of Anthropic PBC: the text you selected in the book, the paragraph it appears in, the title of the book and chapter, and the kind of explanation you asked for. No free text is written; your name, email address, Apple Account or your device's hardware identifier are not sent. This feature works only with your explicit consent on first use; if you do not consent, nothing is sent. To count the monthly explanation allowance, the app generates a random identifier on your device. The server keeps an irreversible hash of this identifier, the month in which the explanation was requested, the book and the amount of processing used; these counter records are deleted after 13 months at the latest. Generated explanations belong to the book text and are stored, without being linked to anyone, so they can be shown again to readers who ask about the same place. Under its commercial terms Anthropic does not use data received through the API to train its models, and deletes it after a limited retention period.
Cookies
The app does not use cookies. The website creates only one strictly necessary session cookie for the security of form submissions (CSRF protection); there are no tracking or advertising cookies.
Sharing of data
Your data is not sold and is not shared for advertising purposes. When you use “Ask Owlshelf”, the information described above is transmitted to Anthropic PBC (USA) solely to produce the answer. If a legal obligation arises, data is shared only with the competent authority and only to the extent required. The service is hosted on a server operated by Karakaş Digital, located outside the United States.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to know whether data about you is processed and to ask for it to be corrected or deleted (for example under US state privacy laws, the GDPR, or Turkish Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data). Because Owlshelf has no accounts, the only personal data we may hold about you is a message you sent us; you can ask for it to be deleted at any time: info@karakas.digital
Children
Owlshelf is intended for a general audience and does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13; since there are no accounts or registration, no identity information is requested from anyone.
Changes
When this policy is updated, the new version is published on this page with its version number and date; earlier versions are kept in the archive.