Privacy Policy
Last updated: 15 October 2026
This policy explains what Chapta does with your information. It covers the Chapta iOS app, the Chapta Android app and the Chapta website.
The Chapta Telegram Mini App has its own privacy notice. If you use both, they share one account — and deleting your account deletes your information everywhere, including anything the Mini App holds.
Chapta is operated by Chapta, Inc., a Delaware corporation, 800 N King Street, Suite 304-2783, Wilmington, DE 19801, United States. If you have a question about privacy, write to support@chapta.space.
1. What we collect
When you sign in
Chapta does not have its own password. You sign in with Telegram, Google or Apple, and we receive what that service gives us: a unique identifier for you there, your name, and your email address where the service provides one.
If you sign in with Apple and choose to hide your email, we only ever see the relay address Apple gives us.
What you tell us
Your display name, your profile photo, the city you choose as your home city, your reading tags and habits, your favourite books and genres, the books you list, the condition and notes you write about them, and the photos you take of their covers.
Your messages
When a swap is agreed, you can message the other reader. Messages are encrypted in transit and at rest, and we do not read them routinely. We can access a specific conversation when it is reported to us, when we need to investigate abuse, or where the law requires it.
Your ratings
After a swap, the rating you give and the rating you receive.
Your location
These apps never ask for your device location. There is no location permission prompt. We do not read your position in the background and we do not track your movements.
To suggest a home city we use the network your device is connected to. That is approximate — it identifies a city, not a place inside one. You can search for your city instead, and you can change your home city at any time.
If you have also used Chapta's Telegram Mini App and allowed it to use your position there, we hold a reduced copy of that position. Reduced means rounded to three decimal places — roughly a hundred metres, a little more across and a little less along, depending where in the world you are. We never keep the exact position a device reported. Positions saved from 1 September 2026 onward are reduced this way, and the positions we already held were reduced at the same time. The Mini App is a separate service with its own privacy document; these apps never add to that position and never send one of their own.
No other reader ever receives your position. Where we hold a position for both you and another reader, the distance between you is worked out on our servers and shown as a range, never as a point, and you can hide it with a setting. Where we hold no position for you — which is the case for everyone who uses only these apps — no distance between you and another reader is shown at all, and the distance filter is not offered.
How you use the app
We record which screens you open, which books you look at, and which actions you take, so we can see what works and what does not.
This is tied to an internal account number and nothing else. It does not include your name or your email address.
Technical information
A device token so we can send you notifications, an installation identifier, and error logs when something goes wrong.
When the iPhone or Android app crashes or hits an error, it sends a report: what failed, the screen that was open, the last few steps before it (the screens you opened, the kind of button you tapped — never its text or anything you typed — and the app's requests to our servers), the app and system versions, your device model, and your internal account number. The app also measures how long its screens take to load. These reports go to Sentry (see section 4), which works out an approximate location — the country and city — from the network the report came from.
Advertising measurement
We advertise Chapta on Instagram and Facebook. To learn which of those ads bring people to Chapta, the iPhone app includes software from Meta, the company behind Instagram and Facebook. It sends Meta:
- that the app was installed, each time it is opened, and when you add your first book
- technical information about your device and the app, such as the device model, the iOS and app versions, and your IP address
- only if you allow tracking, your device's advertising identifier
After you add your first book, the iPhone app asks whether Chapta may track you. If you do not allow it, the app still reports the events above, marked as not allowed for tracking and without the advertising identifier. Apple's own ad attribution also tells Meta when one of its ads led to an install, with a delay and without saying who installed.
The Android app includes the same Meta software and sends Meta the same events and technical information (with the Android version instead of the iOS version). Whether it also sends your device's advertising identifier depends on where you are, which the app reads from your phone's region setting:
- In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, it sends the advertising identifier only if you agree. After you add your first book, the app asks. Until you agree, and if you decline, the events go without it.
- Everywhere else, it sends the advertising identifier from the start, without asking.
On any Android phone you can reset or delete the advertising identifier in your phone's settings; the app never sends one your phone does not provide.
On our website
If you join the waitlist on chapta.space, we keep your email address to tell you when Chapta opens and send you a welcome email.
The website also records how it is used: the pages you open, how far you scroll, which sections you view, and whether you joined the waitlist. It does this with Google Analytics and Meta's pixel, which receive your IP address and browser details and set their own cookies (see section 4).
2. What we use it for
- To run Chapta — showing you books, matching you with readers, delivering your messages, sending notifications about your swaps.
- To understand how Chapta is used, so we can improve it.
- To keep people safe — investigating reports, enforcing our Community Guidelines, and blocking abuse.
- To send you marketing messages, but only if you ask us to. Marketing notifications are off when you join. They are only sent if you turn them on in Settings, and you can turn them off again at any time.
- To measure our advertising — to learn which of our ads on Instagram and Facebook bring people to the iPhone and Android apps and to our website (see “Advertising measurement” and “On our website” in section 1).
We do not show ads in Chapta, and we do not sell your data. The iPhone app tracks you only if you allow it when it asks; the Android app's use of the advertising identifier is described in section 1. Tracking, in Apple's words, means linking data from our app with data from other companies' apps and websites for advertising or for measuring advertising. Our website uses Meta's pixel and Google Analytics, described in section 1.
3. Notifications
We send two kinds, and they have separate switches.
Notifications about your swaps — a new match, a new message, a swap request, a reminder. These are part of the service.
Marketing notifications — news about Chapta, features, offers. These are off unless you turn them on.
You can turn either off in Settings, or all of them off in your phone's settings. Chapta works without them, and we will never require you to turn on notifications to use a feature or to earn a referral reward.
4. Who else handles your data
We use a small number of service providers. They are contractually restricted to processing your data for the purposes described in this policy, and are required to protect it to the same standard we do.
| Who | What they do |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Stores and delivers the photos you upload |
| Neon | Hosts our database |
| Upstash | Provides the queue and cache that schedule notifications |
| Expo | Delivers push notifications to your device |
| Apple and Google | Deliver push notifications |
| Grafana Loki | Receives our error logs |
| Sentry | Receives the apps' crash reports, error reports and screen-speed measurements (in the United States) |
| Telegram, Google and Apple | Handle sign-in when you choose them |
| Supabase | Stores the email addresses on the website's waitlist |
| Resend | Sends the waitlist's emails |
The apps' analytics runs on our own server, not on a third-party analytics company's infrastructure.
Meta receives the information described under “Advertising measurement” in section 1 from the iPhone and Android apps, and, through its pixel on our website, the pages you open there and whether you joined the waitlist. Google receives, through Google Analytics on our website, how you use it. Neither is one of the service providers above: each handles that information under its own terms and privacy policy (Meta's, Google's).
We also disclose information where the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety.
5. How long we keep it
Your account information, your books and your messages stay for as long as your account exists.
Some things are cleared automatically:
| What | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Records of who received a broadcast message | 90 days |
| Click records | 180 days |
| Notification delivery receipts | 30 days |
| Temporary caches | Days or minutes |
| Analytics events | While your account exists — after deletion they remain, no longer connected to you |
| Error logs | 30 days |
| Crash and error reports, screen-speed measurements | 30 days |
6. Deleting your account
You can delete your account from inside the app: Profile → Settings → Delete Account.
It asks you to confirm twice, and then it happens immediately. There is no waiting period and no deactivated state.
If you can't use the app, for example because you have already uninstalled it, go to chapta.space/delete-account or write to support@chapta.space from the email address of your account, or tell us your Telegram username or the name on your profile. We confirm it is your account, delete it within 30 days, and write back when it is done. The same things are removed and survive as when you delete it in the app.
What deletion removes: your account, your books, your swaps, your messages, your ratings, the photos' database records, your notification tokens, your reports and blocks, and your invitations. Your side of a conversation is not kept for the other person — the whole conversation is removed.
Deleting your account deletes your information across all of Chapta, including anything held on the Telegram Mini App if you have used it.
What survives:
- if you contributed to an editorial post, the post remains but is no longer connected to you
- a limited record that your account was removed, where we removed it, so that it is not recreated
- copies held in encrypted backups, which are overwritten within 24 hours
- analytics events, which remain but are no longer connected to you
7. Your choices
We give every Chapta reader the same set of controls, wherever they live. Some of these mirror rights that people in certain countries have by law; we offer them to everyone as a matter of policy.
- See what we hold about you — ask us and we will tell you.
- Correct it — most of it you can edit yourself in the app.
- Get a copy — ask us and we will export your listings, messages and profile.
- Readers you have blocked — see and undo them in Profile → Settings → Blocked readers.
- Delete everything — see section 6.
- Marketing messages — off unless you turn them on, in Settings.
- All notifications — you can turn these off in Settings or in your phone's settings.
- Tracking on iPhone — the iPhone app asks once, after you add your first book. You can change your answer at any time in your iPhone's Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. Chapta works the same whatever you choose.
- Advertising identifier on Android — in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the app asks after your first book, and you can change your answer in Profile → Settings → Privacy. Everywhere else, you can reset or delete the identifier in your phone's settings.
- Your distance from others — you can hide it.
- Your home city — you can change it at any time.
- Your device location — these apps never ask for it, so there is nothing to refuse. If you allowed Chapta's Telegram Mini App to use your position, you can change that in Telegram.
- Disconnect a sign-in — Profile → Settings → Sign-in methods.
- The website's waitlist — ask us and we will remove your email address.
- Website cookies — you can block or delete the cookies of Google Analytics and Meta's pixel in your browser's settings.
- Complain — write to support@chapta.space and a person will answer.
8. Children
Chapta is for people aged 13 and over.
If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we close it and delete the information we hold about them. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, write to support@chapta.space and we will act.
If you are under 18, you may only use Chapta with the involvement of a parent or guardian, and you should not arrange to meet another reader without one.
9. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy materially, we will tell you in the app — and, where we have an email address for you, by email — at least 30 days before the change takes effect, so you have a chance to read it.
The date at the top always tells you which version is current.
10. Contact
Chapta, Inc. 800 N King Street, Suite 304-2783, Wilmington, DE 19801, United States