Applies to: version 1.0 (Build 1) ｜ Bundle ID: com.hongli.DaoDeJing
Requires: iOS 17.0 or later, iPhone portrait
In one line: No account is required. We do not collect account, location, photo, or device-identifier data, and the app contains no ads, tracking, or analytics SDKs. Your reading position, preferences, question history, and journal entries stay on your own device. The app only goes online when you choose to download an online font or you enter your own model service address and API key.
The app creates no user account and collects no personally identifiable information.
Stored only on your device
Reading position and progress
Reading preferences: theme (Warm Paper / Ink Night), typeface, weight, text size, recitation and auto-line speed
Journal entries, together with the chapter, source line, and word they refer to
“Ask Laozi” questions and answers, including cited sources
Recitation recordings (temporary files — see Section 3)
We do not collect
Name, email, phone number, account, or login credentials
Precise location, contacts, photos, calendar, or health data
Advertising identifier (IDFA), device identifiers, or clipboard contents
Crash logs, usage statistics, analytics, or event tracking of any kind
System permissions
Microphone: requested only when you tap the record button on the recitation screen, solely to record your own chanting. You may deny it; all other features keep working.
The app does not request location, photo library, contacts, calendar, or notification permissions.
2. How Your Data Is Used
Local data is used only to deliver the features you are using:
Return you to where you stopped reading
Render the text, commentary, and recitation in your chosen appearance
Display and revisit your journal entries
Generate “Ask Laozi” answers and cite the passages they draw on
Play back, review, and export your own recordings
Data is never used for advertising, marketing, profiling, automated decision-making, or disclosure to others.
3. Storage & Security
On-device storage: journal entries and reading positions live in the app’s local database (SwiftData); preferences live in system preference storage (UserDefaults).
Recordings: written to a temporary app directory, kept only for the current session unless you export them. They never enter the local database and are never uploaded.
API key: stored in the iOS Keychain with the “after first unlock, this device only” attribute. It is not synced through iCloud Keychain and does not migrate to other devices through backups.
No iCloud/CloudKit sync. The app has no backend of its own; the developer receives and stores none of your content.
Deleting the app removes all of the above local data and Keychain items (iOS 10.3 and later).
4. Network Access & Third Parties
Except for the two cases below, the app runs entirely offline.
4.1 Online font downloads (optional, user-initiated)
Trigger: you pick a non-bundled typeface in Preferences and confirm the download.
What is transmitted: a request for the font file only — never your reading content, journal entries, question history, or recordings. Downloads use an ephemeral session that keeps no cookies or credentials.
These providers may log standard technical information such as IP address and request time under their own policies.
Downloaded fonts are cached inside the app and can then be used offline.
4.2 Your own model service (“Ask Laozi”, off by default)
Default behavior: no network. Answers are assembled locally from the bundled text of the Dao De Jing, the reviewed Wang Bi commentary, and the modern interpretation, with sources listed.
Network access happens only after you enter a provider name, a service address, and an API key in the “Ask Laozi” settings. The default address is https://api.openai.com/v1; you may point it at any OpenAI-compatible service.
Sent: your question text, the system prompt, and the excerpts retrieved from the bundled chapters to answer that question.
Not sent: journal entries, recordings, reading position, preferences, or device identifiers.
Recipient: the provider behind the address you entered. Whether it retains requests or links them to an account is governed by that provider’s own privacy policy, outside our control.
API key: stored locally in the Keychain, used only to call the address you configured. The developer cannot read it.
You can clear the service address and API key at any time to return to fully local answers.
4.3 Sharing and export
Recording exports use the iOS share sheet, and you choose the recipient. Handling after that is governed by the privacy policy of the app or service you pick.
4.4 What we do not use
No ad networks, no analytics platforms, no crash reporting, no social login, no cross-app tracking. The app’s privacy manifest declares NSPrivacyTracking = false and declares no collected data types.
Data practices at a glance
Item
Leaves the device?
Trigger
Notes
Reading position, preferences
No
Automatic
Local storage only
Journal entries
No
You write them
Local database only
Question history
No
You ask a question
Local, clearable in one tap
Recitation recordings
No
You record
Temporary, current session only; export is your choice
Font file requests
Yes (font file only)
You download a font
Carries no personal content
Question + bundled excerpts
Yes
Only after you configure a model service
Sent solely to your configured address; off by default
5. Your Controls
Revoke microphone access in system settings at any time, or simply don’t record.
Clear the entire “Ask Laozi” question history in one tap.
Clear the service address and API key to return to fully local answers.
Remove all local data by deleting the app (local database, preferences, and Keychain items).
Note: this version does not offer per-entry deletion of journal entries inside the app. To erase everything, delete the app, or email us and we will help you confirm.
6. Children and Age
The app is a reading and recitation tool for a classical text. It contains no age-restricted content, no ads, and collects no user information.
No information is collected from children under 13 (in the spirit of COPPA). The app’s store age category is not “Kids,” and “Made for Kids” is not selected.
Because there are no accounts and no cloud data, parents need take no extra steps to protect a child’s information.
7. Compliance and Your Rights
GDPR (EEA): no personal data is processed on a server. Your rights of access, correction, erasure, and portability are exercised directly through the on-device controls above, or by emailing us.
CCPA/CPRA (California): we do not sell, rent, or share personal information, because the developer holds none.
PIPEDA (Canada): questions about these practices are welcome at the address below.
8. Changes to This Policy
This policy is updated alongside app releases. For material changes we update the “Last Updated” date and note them in the app or on this page. Continued use constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.