Paper Boat Privacy Policy

Paper Boat ("the app") is a small app for sending one short message a day and receiving one from a stranger. It is built and published by Pearkoder (Pvt) Ltd (pearkoder.com). This policy explains what we collect, why, who sees it, and how you can delete it.

Paper Boat is made by Pearkoder. In this policy "we" and "us" mean Pearkoder. You can reach us at the address in "Contact us" below.

Account information (from Google sign-in)

- Your name and email address, as shared by your Google account. We use the email only to recognise your account; it is never shown to other people.

- We do not receive your Google password.

Your profile

- A photo of yourself that you take or choose in the app (we do not use your Google picture)

- The name you choose to show

- Your country, picked from a list. We never ask for your location.

- When you agreed to our Terms and Conditions and this Privacy Policy, that you are 18 or older, and that you agreed to show your photo, name and country to other people

What you send

- Your boats: short messages of up to 280 characters, with the language we detect and an English translation

- Gifts: the pictures you make for gifts, and the names you give them

- Reports and blocks you make, so that we can act on them and stop boats between you and the person you blocked

Technical information

- The time zone of your phone, so that "today" starts and ends at your local midnight

- Your daily reminder time and whether it is on. This is kept on your phone only.

We do not use advertising or analytics tools, and we do not track you across other apps or websites.

- When you send a boat, the one person who receives it sees your message (and its translation), your photo, your name and your country, and any gift you attached.

- Everyone who later holds a gift can see its journey: the name, country and date of each person who held it, starting with its maker.

- We never show your email address.

- To run the app: sign you in, deliver one boat a day, show your box and your gifts

- To check messages, photos and gift pictures against our community rules, and to detect the language and translate messages. This is done automatically.

- To handle reports and keep the community kind and safe, including pausing sending for people who repeatedly break the rules

- To remind you daily, if you ask us to

We do not sell your personal information.

We do not share your information with anyone for their own purposes. A few service providers process it for us, only to run the app:

- Google — sign-in, and the Gemini API, which receives messages, photos and gift pictures so that they can be checked and translated. We use the paid API, under Google's terms for paid use, which say that Google does not use that content to improve its products.

- Cloudflare — hosts the app's servers, database and stored pictures

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect people from harm.

Messages, profile photos and gift pictures are checked by an automated system before other people see them. If something is not accepted, it is not delivered, you are told in the app, and a gift attached to it comes back to you. Repeated rejections pause your sending for a few days. Nobody at Pearkoder reads your boats as part of normal use; we may look at reported content to decide on a report.

- Your account, profile and boats are kept while your account exists.

- Messages and pictures that were not accepted are deleted after 7 days.

- When you change your profile photo, the old one is deleted.

- Boats that were already delivered stay with the people who received them, even after you delete your account.

- Reports are kept so that repeated abuse can be handled.

You can change your name, photo and country at any time in Settings → Edit profile. You can also ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or delete your account (below). To ask, contact us using the details below.

You can delete your account at any time in Settings → Delete my account. This cannot be undone. When you delete your account:

- Your name, email address and profile photo are removed, and you are signed out of every device

- Boats you wrote that were not yet delivered, your blocks and your sign-in are deleted

- Your daily reminder stops

Boats that were already delivered stay with their readers, and gifts you made or held stay in the app with their journey. They show you as "Former sailor", with no photo or email. The country and date in a gift's journey remain, so that the journey stays complete.

We use secure connections, keep your session token in your phone's secure storage and store pictures privately, so that only signed-in people can see them. No system is completely free of risk, but we take reasonable steps to protect your data.

Paper Boat is for people aged 18 and over, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you think someone under 18 is using the app, contact us and we will remove the account.

We may update this policy as the app grows, for example if we add ads or paid plans. We will tell you in the app about significant changes, and the date at the top will change. Continuing to use the app after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Questions about this policy or your data can be directed to hello@pearkoder.com.