slowburn

Privacy Policy

Effective Date: August 25, 2026
Last Updated: August 25, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Velocity Apps collects, uses, stores, and protects your information when you use Slowburn — the mobile app, the web version of the app, and the myslowburn.app website. Where this policy says "Slowburn", it means all three.

Who We Are

Slowburn is an interactive fiction app for adults, operated by Velocity Apps. Stories are written and continued with AI. We are not a healthcare provider, a counselling service, or a communication service connecting you to any real person.

Information We Collect

Account Information

You can start using Slowburn without creating an account; we generate an anonymous account for you so your stories are not lost. If you later choose to sign up, we collect and link:

  • Your email address, or an Apple or Google sign-in identifier
  • The date of birth you provide, used to confirm you are at least 17

Your date of birth is used for the age check only and never enters a story.

Profile Preferences

During onboarding we collect:

  • The name you want characters to call you
  • Your gender, used only to tailor which stories we recommend
  • The genres and tropes you select

Story Content

When you read and reply, we collect and store:

  • The messages you write and the story text generated in response
  • Which stories you have opened and how far you have read
  • Stories and characters you create yourself
  • The prose intensity you have set

This content is stored on your device and on our servers so it is not lost if you change or lose your device. It is sent over encrypted connections and held in access-controlled storage tied to your account. We do not sell your story content or share it with third parties for marketing purposes.

Purchase Information

We record your credit balance and the credits spent or granted on your account. Payment details themselves are handled by Apple, Google, or Stripe and never reach our servers.

Device and Diagnostic Data

We collect basic device and usage information for:

  • Crash and error reports, so we can fix problems
  • Analytics on which screens and features are used
  • Advertising attribution and measurement — working out which campaign an install or a purchase came from, which uses device and advertising identifiers where your platform permits it
  • Push notification delivery, if you enable notifications

Advertising and Tracking

We advertise Slowburn, and we measure whether those adverts work. To do that, our analytics and attribution providers — Singular and Firebase Analytics — receive device and advertising identifiers alongside app events such as an install, an onboarding step, or a credit purchase. Those identifiers can be matched against the advertising networks we buy from, so this counts as tracking across apps and websites, and as "sharing" for cross-context behavioural advertising under California law.

Your story content is never part of it. We do not share your sessions, messages, characters, email address, or date of birth for advertising, ever.

You can turn tracking off at any time:

  • On iOS — Slowburn shows Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt. Choosing "Ask App Not to Track" withholds your advertising identifier, and you can change the answer whenever you like in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking
  • On Android — delete or reset your advertising ID in Settings → Privacy → Ads
  • Or email us at [email protected] and we will apply the opt-out to your account

Opting out changes nothing about the app itself. Every story, credit, and setting works exactly the same.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information you provide to:

  • Generate the next passage of the story you are reading
  • Keep your sessions, characters and history available across devices
  • Recommend stories based on the genres and preferences you chose
  • Track and apply your credit balance
  • Send you notifications you have opted into
  • Confirm you meet the minimum age for the app
  • Diagnose crashes and improve the app

How Story Text Is Generated

To write a reply, we send the relevant part of your session — the story so far and the message you just wrote — to a third-party AI provider. Which provider handles a reply depends on the prose intensity you have selected:

  • Ember and Candlelight — Google (Gemini models)
  • Slowburn and Wildfire — Anthropic (Claude models)

These requests carry your story content but not your email address, date of birth, or payment details. Each provider handles that content under its own privacy and data-retention terms. We do not use your session content to train models.

Data Storage

Your data is stored on your device and backed up privately and securely to our servers, which are operated on our behalf by Supabase. Backups are transmitted over encrypted connections and stored in access-controlled systems, so your stories can be restored when you reinstall the app or move to a new device. Your account, your sessions, and the messages inside them are private to you and are never shown to other readers.

Stories and characters you create are private to you unless you publish them. If you publish one, the story itself — its title, tagline, description, cover art, tags, and opening scene — becomes visible to other readers in the app's community shelves, including shelves ordered by how many readers have started it. Publishing does not attach your name, your email address, or any part of your profile to the story, and it never exposes your own sessions or messages. Nothing you write is published unless you choose to publish it.

Data Sharing

We do not sell your personal information or your story content, and we never share your sessions, messages, characters, email address, or date of birth with anyone for marketing or advertising.

We share session content with our AI providers solely to generate story replies, as described above.

We share device and advertising identifiers and app events with our analytics and attribution providers in order to measure advertising. California law treats that as "sharing" for cross-context behavioural advertising; see Advertising and Tracking above for exactly what it covers and how to stop it.

Payment and subscription information is processed by:

  • Apple (iOS in-app purchases)
  • Google (Android in-app purchases)
  • Stripe (web purchases)
  • RevenueCat (purchase and entitlement management)

These companies process payments according to their own privacy policies.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

  • Access the data stored about you
  • Correct your profile details from the app's Settings menu
  • Delete individual sessions, or your entire account and all its data
  • Withdraw notification permission at any time from your device settings

To exercise these rights, use the options in the app's Settings menu or contact us at [email protected].

California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act:

  • Right to know what personal information we collect and how we use it
  • Right to delete your personal information
  • Right to correct personal information we hold that is inaccurate
  • Right to opt out of the sale of personal information — we do not sell it
  • Right to opt out of the sharing of personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. We do share device and advertising identifiers for advertising measurement, and you can stop it at any time by the means listed under Advertising and Tracking above
  • Right to limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal information
  • Right to non-discrimination for exercising your privacy rights

Exercising any of these is free and changes nothing about how the app works for you. To make a request, email [email protected].

European Residents (GDPR)

If you are located in the European Union, you have rights under the General Data Protection Regulation:

  • Right to access your personal data
  • Right to rectification of inaccurate data
  • Right to erasure of your data
  • Right to restrict processing
  • Right to data portability
  • Right to object to processing
  • Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority

Children's Privacy

Slowburn is written for adults and is restricted to users aged 17 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 17. If we learn that we have, we will delete the account and its data. If you believe a minor is using the app, contact us at [email protected].

Data Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your data:

  • Data on your device is protected by your device's built-in encryption
  • All network requests, including data synced to our servers, use HTTPS/TLS encryption
  • Data stored on our servers is held in access-controlled systems and encrypted at rest
  • Row-level access rules restrict every record to the account that owns it

However, no method of electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as you maintain your account. You can delete your account and the data we hold for it at any time from the app's Settings menu; deletion is immediate and irreversible, and removes your sessions, characters, credit history and sign-in record. Note that deleting the app on its own removes the copy on your device but does not delete your account data from our servers. Records our payment processors are required to keep for tax and accounting purposes are retained under their own policies.

Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services:

Anthropic (story generation)

Google (story generation)

  • What they receive: Session transcripts and the message you write
  • Purpose: Generate story replies at the Ember and Candlelight intensities
  • Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

Supabase (backend and account storage)

  • What they receive: Your account record, sessions, characters and credits
  • Purpose: Authentication, database and server functions
  • Privacy Policy: https://supabase.com/privacy

RevenueCat (purchase management)

Stripe (web payments)

  • What they receive: Payment details and billing information
  • Purpose: Process credit purchases made outside the app stores
  • Privacy Policy: https://stripe.com/privacy

Sentry, Firebase Analytics and Singular (diagnostics and attribution)

Apple and Google (sign-in and in-app payments)

International Data Transfers

Story generation, backend storage and payment requests may be processed on servers located outside your country of residence. By using Slowburn, you consent to the transfer of information to countries outside of your country of residence, which may have different data protection rules.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by:

  • Posting the new Privacy Policy in the app
  • Updating the "Last Updated" date at the top of this policy
  • Sending a push notification for significant changes

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, contact us at: