Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

• Account information: your account identifier and, through our authentication provider Clerk, your email address, name, profile picture and sign-in information. Clerk handles passwords and authentication credentials; the podcast application does not store your Google password.
• Information you provide: profile name, biography or personal context, interests, topics, prompts, notes, source links, uploaded PDF, text, audio and video files, extracted text and transcripts, questions, preferences and scheduled briefing settings.
• Your library: generated titles, descriptions, source metadata, transcripts, audio, series, recommendations, favourites and listening progress. Source documents and extracted text may be retained with the episode.
• Technical information: IP addresses, browser/device details, requests, timestamps, errors and security or operational logs collected by the service and its providers. We do not currently operate a product analytics or advertising-tracking integration.
• Support: information you send when contacting us, including what is needed to verify a privacy request.

Optional voice input on supported web browsers uses your browser's speech-recognition service. Microphone permission is requested by the browser; audio may be processed by its provider under that provider's terms. CastMyMind receives the recognised text and does not operate a recording archive for this voice-input feature. Generated podcast recordings are synthetic audio, not recordings of your voice.

2. Google account information

When you choose Google sign-in, Google supplies basic identity information to Clerk, which manages your CastMyMind session. The intended permissions are openid, email and profile. We use these to identify you, authenticate you and associate you with your private library. We do not use Google sign-in to read or send email or to access other Google services on your behalf.

Google account information is not sold, used for advertising, or intentionally supplied as training material for AI models. We do not automatically send your Google profile or sign-in credentials to Gemini. Information you choose to put into a prompt, biography, document or question is different: that user-submitted content may be included in AI requests.

CastMyMind's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements where applicable. Transfers are limited to providing the service through necessary providers, security, legal compliance, or a permitted business transfer subject to applicable notice and consent requirements. We do not permit human access to Google user data except with your agreement, for necessary security or legal purposes, or as otherwise permitted by that policy.

You can revoke Google access from your Google Account connections. Revocation does not itself delete your CastMyMind account or library; use the account deletion control described below or contact us.

3. How we use information and our legal bases

Under the UK GDPR and applicable data protection law, we rely on:

• Performance of a contract: creating and securing your account, researching sources, generating and delivering podcasts, maintaining your library, syncing progress, running your requested schedules and responding to service requests.
• Legitimate interests: operating a reliable service, troubleshooting, preventing fraud or abuse and protecting accounts, balanced against your rights.
• Legal obligations: responding to valid legal requests and meeting applicable record-keeping or regulatory duties.
• Consent where required: optional device permissions and any future optional tracking or processing that requires consent. You may withdraw consent without affecting earlier lawful processing.

We do not make solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects about you. Personalised recommendations and AI outputs are informational, not decisions about eligibility, employment, credit or health.

4. Providers and information sharing

• Clerk — authentication: receives account identity, authentication and session information, and relevant technical/security information to manage sign-in. See Clerk's privacy policy.
• Replit and its infrastructure providers — hosting, database and file storage: process application records, uploaded files, generated audio and operational information needed to host CastMyMind. See Replit's privacy policy.
• Google Gemini and Google Search grounding — AI research, writing and speech: receive relevant topics, personal context you supply, source text, notes, questions and script content to provide these features. Uploaded audio and video, and scanned PDFs requiring text recognition, are sent to Gemini for transcription or extraction; the extracted text may contain errors and can be corrected before recording. Text-based PDFs are normally extracted on our server. Search grounding may process prompts, context and output and retain them for 30 days under Google's terms. See the Gemini API terms and Google privacy policy. Google's handling of AI inputs and outputs depends on the service and billing configuration: paid-service terms restrict use for product improvement, while unpaid-service terms may allow improvement and human review. We do not promise zero provider retention or that every configuration has the same protections. Do not upload confidential or sensitive information.
• Google Fonts — website fonts: website pages that load fonts from Google send the technical information needed to retrieve them, such as an IP address and browser request details.
• Your chosen podcast player: if you add your private RSS feed to another service, that service can retrieve the feed and audio and may process it under its own policy. The RSS link acts like a password: anyone who has it may access the feed. Signed audio links also grant temporary access. Do not share either publicly.

We may disclose information where necessary for security, to comply with law, to protect rights, or in connection with a lawful business transfer subject to applicable protections. There is currently no subscription payment processor and no integrated product analytics or advertising service. Before introducing those features, we will update the disclosures and obtain consent where required.

5. Cookies and device storage

Clerk uses cookies or equivalent storage for sign-in, session management and security. The mobile app stores authentication tokens using platform-provided secure storage where supported. The app may keep temporary library and playback state. These are used to provide functionality, not for advertising.

We do not currently set optional marketing or analytics cookies through an integrated analytics service. Necessary authentication/security technologies and provider operational logging are not the same as product analytics. Blocking necessary cookies may prevent sign-in. If optional tracking is introduced, we will provide appropriate notice and consent controls before enabling it where required.

6. Storage, security, retention and international transfers

Library records are stored in our hosted database; uploads and generated files are held in application storage. Access to private library records is checked against the signed-in account. Audio delivery uses temporary signed links. We use HTTPS and authentication controls, but no service can guarantee absolute security.

We retain account and library information while needed to provide the service or until deletion. You can delete individual episodes through the web studio. To remove the entire account and associated content, use Settings → Your account and data on the website or Account and data in the mobile library. Export first if you want a copy, then type DELETE to confirm. Deletion is permanent: it removes your Clerk sign-in identity, application profile, episodes, series, recommendations (including dismissed ones), listening progress, favourites, notes, transcripts, linked uploads, generated episode audio and tracked host-answer audio. It blocks account access and new work immediately, disables schedules and RSS access, and waits for active work before final file cleanup so that pending jobs cannot recreate your library. A new sign-up, if desired, is a new account without the old library.

If a provider or storage operation fails, the account remains blocked and cleanup retries automatically, including after a server restart. You can retry the deletion request while your session is still available, or contact us if it remains pending. We keep the account identifier only while cleanup is pending; afterwards a one-way hash remains as a minimal security marker to prevent old sessions from recreating the deleted profile.

Older host-answer audio and other unlinked files created before file-ownership tracking cannot reliably be attributed to an account. They are not included in account exports. In the running published service, unlinked legacy files become eligible for cleanup after 24 hours and are checked hourly (normally removed within about 25 hours; service outages can delay this). New uploads and generated files are tracked by owner and removed during account deletion even if no longer attached to an episode. Host questions and answer text are processed for the reply, not archived as conversation history.

Deletion cannot remove files already downloaded to your device or retrieved by another podcast player. Those copies are under your or that provider's control. Provider-held records, security logs, storage recovery versions and backups follow their own retention schedules and may not be erased immediately. Requests already sent to an AI provider cannot be recalled. Contact us for assistance with data outside the active application.

Our providers may process data outside the UK, including in the United States and other countries. Where legally required, transfers must be covered by an appropriate adequacy decision or contractual safeguards, such as approved standard contractual clauses and the UK addendum. Contact us for information about the safeguards applicable to your data. This policy does not promise UK-only storage.

7. Your choices, requests and rights

Signed-in users can download a self-service JSON export in web Settings → Your account and data or mobile Account and data. The export contains your basic sign-in identity details, application profile and settings, all library records, notes and extracted source text, series, recommendations and temporary download links for owned uploads and audio. Save the JSON and download linked files within one hour, before deleting your account. The export includes private RSS access information: keep it secure. On mobile, use the device's share/save control to keep the export; the app removes its temporary export file afterwards.

For help, or to request access, correction, deletion, restriction or to object to processing, email ggillon@gmail.com. Identify the email used for your account and the request, but never send passwords, session tokens or private RSS links. We may need to verify your identity. Contact-based privacy requests remain available even if you cannot sign in.

Where UK GDPR applies, we normally respond within one month, subject to lawful extensions, exemptions and identity verification. You may withdraw consent where consent is the legal basis and object to processing based on legitimate interests. Rights are subject to applicable law and are not absolute.

You can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), or the relevant regulator where you live. Contacting us first is welcome but is not a condition of that right.

8. Adults only and policy changes

CastMyMind is for people aged 18 or older and is not directed at children. If you believe a child has provided personal data, contact us so we can investigate and take appropriate action.

We will update the date above when this policy changes. For material changes affecting how we use personal information, we will provide appropriate notice through the service or another available channel and obtain fresh consent where required. Questions can be sent to ggillon@gmail.com.