Privacy policy

Who we are

Ingathery (“we”, “us”) is operated from the United Kingdom. For UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, we are the data controller.

Elucidate Studio is the name that operates Ingathery. Elucidate Studio is run by Tim Dolan (currently as a sole trader)

Contact (including privacy matters): use our contact form.

Terms for using the service are in our terms of service.

What we collect

Depending on how you use the site or app, we may process:

• Account details: your email address (your identity key), and optionally a display name and sign-in provider (email code or Google).
• Your notes and files: note titles, bodies, key thoughts, tags, Bible references, threads, settings, and any photos or PDFs you upload or email in. Soft-deleted notes stay in the bin until purged (about 30 days).
• Sign-in and security data: hashed sign-in codes, hashed session tokens, optional authenticator (TOTP) secrets (2 Factor authentication), IP address hashes and user-agent strings used for rate limiting and audit events (for example sign-in failures). We do not store passwords.
• Optional connections: if you connect Google Drive or OneDrive, we store encrypted refresh tokens so attachments can live in your own cloud folder.
• Email-in: if you use your private inbound address, we process the message subject, body, and attachments as a note.
• Billing information: if you subscribe, our payment processor Stripe holds your payment method, billing address (used to calculate tax), and subscription history. We can see that you have a subscription and its status, but never your full card details.
• Contact form: if you message us via /contact, we process your name, email, topic, and message so we can reply. We also process a short-lived session cookie for the form’s security token, your IP address (for rate limiting and abuse prevention), and a Cloudflare Turnstile challenge token.
• Technical data on your device: the app may keep a local cache and offline queue (for example IndexedDB) so recent notes work without a connection. The server remains the source of truth.
• Usage analytics: aggregate counts of actions like "a note was created" or "an export was requested," so we can see how the service is being used and keep it healthy. We never record what a note, search, or attachment contains. No cookies, no third-party analytics service, no tracking pixels. This is our own first-party counter. Raw per-account records are kept for 90 days and then deleted; after that, only anonymous daily totals remain.

We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or analytics tools that read the content of your notes.

Special category data

Bible study notes, prayer journals, and similar content may reveal religious or philosophical beliefs. Under UK GDPR that can be special category data. We process it only because you choose to put it in the service (explicit consent / data you have clearly given us), to provide the private notes product you asked for. We treat it accordingly: minimise what we collect, no sale, no ads, and no reading notes for analytics.

Database backups and attachment files (photos and PDFs you upload) are encrypted at rest.

Why we use your data

• To run the service: create and secure your account, store and sync notes, serve scripture tools, exports, recall/digest features you switch on, and support. Lawful basis: contract (and legitimate interests for basic security and service health counts that do not read note content).
• To email you: sign-in codes and optional weekly digests. Lawful basis: contract.
• To answer contact-form messages: when you write via /contact. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (responding to enquiries) and, for privacy requests, our legal obligations.
• To bill you: processing subscription payments and calculating tax owed on them, via Stripe. Lawful basis: contract.
• Special category note content: as above, with your explicit consent by using the product to store that content.

Cookies and similar tech

We use cookies that are needed for the service to work:

• Session cookie: keeps you signed in.
• Sign-in binding cookie: ties an emailed code to the browser that requested it.
• Short-lived OAuth / cloud-connect cookies: only during Google (or other) sign-in or Drive/OneDrive linking.

The contact form uses a first-party session cookie for CSRF protection and Cloudflare Turnstile (a bot challenge, not advertising tracking) when you submit a message. Stripe's hosted Checkout and billing portal pages (which you're redirected to, not embedded) may set their own cookies while you're on them. We do not run separate analytics or advertising cookies on the marketing site or in the app.

Who we share data with

We do not sell your data. We use service providers only to operate Ingathery:

• Hosting: our web host stores the application, database, and (unless you use bring-your-own cloud) attachment files.
• Resend: sends transactional email (sign-in codes, digests) and contact-form messages. Plain text; we do not use open/click tracking.
• Cloudflare Turnstile: verifies that contact-form submissions are from a real person (bot protection on /contact only).
• Stripe: processes subscription payments and calculates tax. Stripe holds your payment method and billing address; we never see or store full card details ourselves.
• Google: if you sign in with Google, or optionally connect Google Drive (drive.file scope). Google Fonts may load on this marketing site.
• Microsoft: only if OneDrive (or Microsoft sign-in, when enabled) is connected.

Optional OCR (“make this photo searchable”) runs in your browser with Tesseract.js. The image is not uploaded to an OCR vendor for that feature. Searchable text derived from OCR is stored with your account so search works.

If you email notes in, your mail provider and ours process the message in transit to create the note.

How long we keep data

• Account and notes - for as long as your account exists.
• Bin - soft-deleted notes are permanently removed after about 30 days.
• Sign-in codes - short-lived (minutes), then unusable.
• Sessions - until you sign out or revoke them in Settings.
• Contact form messages - kept in email only as long as needed to handle your enquiry.
• Billing and subscription records - kept by Stripe per their own retention policy, and by us for as long as needed for accounting and tax records after your subscription ends.
• Backups - retained for a limited operational window, then overwritten.
• Usage analytics - raw per-account event records for 90 days, then deleted; the anonymous daily totals that remain are kept indefinitely.

You can export your notes at any time from the app (Markdown vault or CSV).

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask to access, correct, delete, or restrict your personal data; object to certain processing; and receive a portable copy. You can also withdraw consent where we rely on it, without affecting earlier lawful processing.

In the app you can already edit your notes and export them. To delete your account, go to Settings → Data → Danger zone. Your data is kept for 30 days after you request deletion, then permanently removed. Sign in within 30 days to cancel. For immediate permanent deletion or any other privacy request, use our contact form. We will respond within one month.

You can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we handle your data.

International transfers

Some providers (for example email, Google, Microsoft, Stripe, Cloudflare) may process data outside the UK. Where that happens, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as an adequacy decision or standard contractual clauses.

Children

Ingathery is for people aged 16 and over. We do not knowingly create accounts for younger users.

Changes

If we update this policy in a material way, we will revise the date above and, where appropriate, notify account holders by email or in-app notice.