Privacy Policy

Effective September 30, 2026

Who we are

Briefly is an app and website operated by Tom Gruner, an individual based in the United States ("Briefly", "we", "us"). Briefly is offered to users in the United States. This policy covers the Briefly mobile app for iOS and Android and the website brieflyaudio.com. Questions go to info@brieflyaudio.com.

Information we collect

Account information. When you sign in with Apple, Google or your email address, we receive your email address and a unique account identifier. If you sign in with Apple, you can choose to hide your email, in which case we only receive Apple's private relay address. Sign in with Google may also provide your name and profile picture.

Listening activity. To keep your place and improve recommendations, we record how you use Briefly: which stories are shown to you, which ones you start, pause, skip or finish, how far you listened, what you save to your library and add to your queue, and your listening sessions (when a listening session started and ended and what it included).

Preferences. The topics you choose or follow, your preferred session length and playback speed, and similar settings.

Playback diagnostics. Technical information about how audio was delivered to your device, such as whether it was downloaded or cached and how much storage the audio cache uses. This helps us keep playback reliable and affordable to run.

Crash reports. If the app crashes or a critical operation fails, we receive an error report with technical details such as the error, the app version, device model and operating system, and identifiers of the story and listening session involved. Before a report is sent, the app removes sign-in tokens and the access codes in audio download links. We do not attach your email address or account identifier to these reports, and IP addresses are not stored with them. We do not capture screen recordings or session replays.

Information you send us. If you email us, we keep the message and your address so we can reply.

Information stored on your device

The app keeps some data locally on your phone: your sign-in session (stored encrypted, with the key kept in your device's secure storage), your playback position, your narrator setting and cached audio so stories start quickly.

When a recorded narration is not available, the app can read a story aloud using your device's speech service. That service is part of your phone's operating system, not Briefly. Depending on the speech engine and voice selected on your device, it may process the text on the device or send it to the engine's provider over the internet, under that provider's terms.

How we use information

• To provide the app: sign you in, play stories, remember your place and keep your library and queue.
• To personalize: recommend stories based on your chosen topics and listening activity. This happens within Briefly's own systems.
• To keep Briefly working: diagnose crashes and playback problems, prevent abuse and manage running costs.
• To communicate: send sign-in codes and reply to your messages. We do not send marketing email.

We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for targeted advertising. The app shows no advertising and contains no advertising or analytics software from other companies. The only outside diagnostics service is Sentry, used for the crash reports described above.

Service providers

We use a small number of providers to run Briefly. They process information on our behalf and only as needed to provide their service:

• Supabase hosts our database, sign-in system, audio files and story images.
• Resend delivers sign-in emails.
• Sentry receives crash and error reports.
• Expo delivers updates to the app. When the app checks for an update, Expo receives your device's IP address, its platform, the app version and a random identifier for this installation of the app. It receives no account details or listening activity.
• Cloudflare hosts this website and forwards email sent to our address to a mailbox hosted by Google (Gmail).
• Google's Gemini AI and Cloud Text-to-Speech services assess whether articles suit Briefly, write Shorts and narrate Shorts and full articles. These requests contain article text and our instructions only. We do not send your account details, listening history or preferences to these services.

If you choose Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google, Apple or Google handles that sign-in under its own privacy policy and shares with us the account information described above.

We may disclose information if required by law, to protect the rights and safety of our users or others, or as part of a transfer of the Briefly service to a new operator, in which case this policy continues to apply to your information.

How long we keep information

• Account, listening activity, library, queue, preferences and playback diagnostics: kept while you have an account, and deleted when you delete it.
• Crash reports: kept by Sentry for 30 days, then deleted automatically. They do not include your email address or account identifier, so deleting your account does not remove them early.
• App update checks: Expo keeps technical logs of update requests for a limited period under its own retention settings.
• Sign-in and email delivery records: our sign-in and email providers keep technical logs, such as when a sign-in code was sent, for a limited period under their own retention settings.
• Backups: our database host may keep backup copies for a limited period before they are overwritten.
• Emails you send us: kept as long as needed to handle your request and keep a record of it. You can ask us to delete them.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time from the You tab in the app. Deleting your account deletes it and all the data linked to it in our database: your profile, listening activity, library, queue, preferences and playback diagnostics. The app also clears the data it stored on your phone. Some records described under "How long we keep information" can remain for their stated periods.

If you can't use the app, you can ask us to delete your account from any email address; see Delete your account. We will ask you to confirm that the account is yours before deleting it. An email that only claims to be from the account holder is not enough.

Your choices and rights

You can review and change your topics and settings in the app, and delete your account as described above. You may also contact us to request a copy of your information or to correct it. Depending on the state you live in, you may have additional rights under applicable law; we will honor requests as that law requires.

Children

Briefly is intended for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account, and Briefly is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it and the account.

Security

We use encrypted connections, access controls that limit each account to its own data, and encrypted storage for sign-in sessions on your device. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and limit what we collect.

This website

brieflyaudio.com itself does not set cookies or run analytics or tracking scripts. Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, may process standard technical data such as IP addresses to deliver the site and protect it from abuse.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the effective date above. For significant changes, we will also take reasonable steps to let you know, for example in the app or by email.

Contact

Tom Gruner, operator of Briefly
info@brieflyaudio.com