Effective date: November 6, 2026
Published by: Soni Sahil Bhavinkumar (individual developer, India)
Contact: pixelverse453@gmail.com

1. Introduction

BitoFact is an Android app where people read short facts, build reading streaks, make friends, and send facts to friends in a private one-to-one chat. This policy explains what information we collect, why we collect it, who it is shared with, how long we keep it, and what choices and rights you have, wherever you live. By creating an account and using BitoFact, you agree to this policy. Soni Sahil Bhavinkumar is the data controller (the person who decides how your data is used).

2. Information we collect

Account information. When you sign up with Google Sign-In or with email and password, we receive your email address. With Google Sign-In, Google shares your basic account details with us. Passwords are handled by Firebase Authentication, and we never see or store them in readable form.

Profile information. You provide a display name, a handle, your birth year, and your interested topics. You must be at least 13 to use the app. You may also choose a profile picture from your gallery. The picture is optional, and a default image is shown if you skip it.

Activity information. To run the app and personalize your feed, we store your reading and usage activity: the facts you read, saved, or skipped, how long you spend on each fact, your total facts read, quiz answers and accuracy, streaks, knowledge points, and badges.

Social information. We store your friend list, friend requests, the facts you send to friends, and the emoji reactions (one of five) friends add to them. BitoFact has no typed messages, so we do not collect any free-text chat.

Subscription information. Payments are processed entirely by Google Play. We never receive or store your card or payment details. We only know whether you currently have an active Pro subscription.

Device and technical information. We do not ask for your contacts, camera, microphone, or location. The app asks for notification permission and, only if you choose a profile picture, storage or gallery permission. Our service providers, such as Google, Firebase, and AdMob, may automatically receive technical data such as your IP address, device model, Android version, and advertising ID. Firebase Cloud Messaging stores a device token so that we can send you notifications.

3. How we use your information and our legal bases

We use your information to create and secure your account, show your profile and progress, run the friend and chat features, personalize your feed, send notifications, manage your Pro subscription, show ads to free users, respond to support requests and reports, prevent abuse, and meet legal obligations. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, or another region that requires a legal basis, we rely on these:

• Contract: to provide the account, profile, feed, friends, chat, and subscription you signed up for.

• Legitimate interests: to keep the app secure, prevent abuse, fix problems, and personalize your feed in a way that is expected of a reading app.

• Consent: for personalized ads and for push notifications where the law requires it. You can withdraw consent at any time, and withdrawing does not affect earlier use.

• Legal obligation: where we must keep or disclose information by law.

4. Profile visibility

You choose whether your account is public or private.

A public account can be found through search. Anyone who finds it can see your display name, handle, profile picture, streak, knowledge points, accuracy, total facts read, and a Pro mark next to your name if you have an active Pro subscription.

A private account does not appear in search, and its profile details are not visible to other users. A private user can send friend invitations but cannot receive them. Your friends can see your name, and your Pro mark if you have one, wherever your name appears to them, such as in your chat and on your friends’ leaderboard.

Your birth year, email address, reading history, and analytics are never shown to other users.

That last paragraph of section 4 assumes your private-account friends see the name and mark in chat and on the leaderboard. Check that this matches the app, because earlier you said a private profile is hidden from everyone else. If friends of a private user can’t see the name in those places either, tell me and I’ll reword it.

One matching line for the terms, in section 11, after the list of Pro features: “Pro members also get a Pro mark shown next to their name for as long as the subscription is active.”

Since the mark shows other users that someone pays, a setting to hide it is an option some apps give. It isn’t needed for launch, but if you add it, the policy line changes to “shown next to your name unless you choose to hide it.”

5. Advertising

Free users see ads served by Google AdMob. By default, AdMob may use your device's advertising ID to show personalized ads. We do not send your interested topics, birth year, or other profile data to AdMob. For users under 18, we request non-personalized ads only. In the EEA and the UK, we ask for your consent through a consent prompt before personalized ads are shown, and you can change your choice later. You can also reset or delete your advertising ID or opt out of ad personalization in your Android settings. Pro subscribers do not see ads in the feed or on screens. Any user, free or Pro, may choose to watch an optional rewarded ad to continue a broken streak, and that ad is served by AdMob in the same way.

6. Who we share information with

We do not sell your data, and we share it only with the service providers that help us run BitoFact:

• Google Firebase (Authentication, Firestore database, Cloud Messaging, Storage) stores account and user data and sends notifications.

• Supabase stores fact and quiz content.

• Cloudflare R2 stores fact images.

• Google Play processes subscription payments.

• Google AdMob serves ads.

These providers process data only to perform their services, under their own privacy terms. We may also disclose information if a court, law enforcement agency, or government authority legally requires it, or when needed to protect the rights and safety of users or the public. If the app is ever sold or transferred, your information may move to the new owner, and we will tell you.

7. Where your data is stored and international transfers

BitoFact is operated from India. Our Firebase and Supabase data is stored in the Google Cloud Mumbai region (asia-south1) in India. Some services, including Firebase Authentication, notifications, and AdMob, run on Google’s global infrastructure, and Cloudflare operates a global network, so your data may be processed in other countries too. If you use BitoFact from outside India, your information is transferred to and processed in India and possibly other countries, which may have different data protection laws than yours. Where required, we rely on the safeguards our providers offer, such as standard contractual clauses, and we require our providers to protect your data.

8. How long we keep your data

We keep your personal data for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account in the app, we delete your profile, profile picture, friend list, chats, reading history, streaks, saved facts, and all other personal data. Chats you shared with friends are removed as well, and you are removed from your friends’ friend lists. We do not keep Firebase backups. Our weekly backup of Supabase contains only fact content and no personal user data. Information we are legally required to keep, such as a record of a reported abuse case, may be retained for as long as the law requires.

9. Your rights

You can edit your profile and switch between public and private at any time, turn off notifications in your Android settings, and delete your account from within the app.

Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to access your data, get a copy of it, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to its use, move it to another service, and withdraw consent. To use any of these rights, email pixelverse453@gmail.com. We aim to reply within 15 days, and in any case within the time your local law requires. We may need to confirm your identity before acting on a request. Using your rights will never lead to worse service or a different price.

EEA, UK, and Switzerland. You have the rights above under the GDPR or the UK GDPR, and you may complain to your local data protection authority.

California and other US states. You have the right to know what personal information we collect and use, to request deletion and correction, to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information, and not to be treated unfairly for using these rights. We do not sell personal information. Because AdMob may use your advertising ID for personalized ads, that may count as “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising under some US state laws. You can opt out by turning off ad personalization in your Android settings or by contacting us. We do not share the personal information of users under 16 for this purpose. Over the past 12 months we collected the categories of information listed in section 2 (identifiers, profile and activity data, device data, and purchase status) for the purposes in section 3.

India. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you may access, correct, update, and erase your data, nominate someone to exercise your rights if you die or cannot do so, and complain to us and then to the Data Protection Board of India.

Brazil, Canada, Australia, and other countries. You have the rights your local privacy law gives you, and we will honor them. Contact us to use them.

10. Children

BitoFact is intended for people aged 13 and older. We use the birth year you enter at signup to check this, and we do not allow people under 13 to create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If we learn that a child under 13 has an account, we will delete it and its data. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child under 13 is using BitoFact, contact us at pixelverse453@gmail.com and we will remove the account promptly.

Some countries require parental consent for users above 13 but below a local age limit. For users under 18, we request only non-personalized ads, and we do not sell any user’s data. If you are under 18, please use BitoFact with the knowledge of a parent or guardian.

11. Reporting and moderation

Users can report other users and facts through the app. We review reports and may remove content, restrict features, or delete accounts that break our rules. We may keep a report and its related details to handle the case and prevent repeat abuse.

12. Security

We protect your data using the security features of Firebase, Supabase, and Cloudflare, including encryption in transit. Access to personal data through our admin panel is limited to the developer, and the panel shows only email, display name, and handle. No system is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a breach affects your data and the law requires it, we will notify you and the relevant authorities.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we make important changes, we will notify you in the app or by email and update the effective date above.

14. Contact and grievance officer

For privacy questions, requests, or complaints, contact:

Soni Sahil Bhavinkumar
Email: pixelverse453@gmail.com

We aim to reply within 15 days. This policy is governed by the laws of India, including the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, but it does not take away any rights you have under the mandatory laws of your own country.