The short version
- You can import and read books without creating an account. Core reading, search, annotations, contextual definitions, and spoiler boundaries work on your device.
- Reference pictures in Meaning are optional and on by default. Picture lookups send a dictionary term and its language directly to Wikimedia, which also receives network and request information. You can turn them off in Settings without affecting definitions or reading.
- HonPaca Cloud is optional. If you subscribe and accept the cloud disclosure, it can store your library and reading data for cross-device use and use bounded text with OpenAI for cloud search, Story Guide, and answers. Subscribing does not require an account; Sign in with Apple is optional. Cloud processing also covers pictures in a cloud-stored EPUB, which can reach OpenAI for Guide descriptions and picture Ask. If you accepted an earlier cloud disclosure that did not name pictures, pictures stay off until you allow them from Ask about this picture.
- HonPaca does not download on-device AI models. It no longer offers Stable Diffusion downloads or new local image generation; previously saved illustrations remain readable and can be deleted.
- Fixed-layout page images are not sent to Supabase or OpenAI. Optical character recognition (OCR) runs on your device; only bounded usable OCR text may be sent when you ask for a cloud feature.
- We do not sell personal information or use your reader content for our advertising. Embedded web image search can load third-party pages and ads; their data processing is described below.
Information that stays on your device
Unless you enable HonPaca Cloud, imported EPUB files, reading progress, bookmarks, highlights, notes and other annotations, extracted text, search indexes, OCR data, previously saved local illustrations, reading history, and feature history stay on your device. Optional reference-picture lookups send the limited information described in the next section even when you have no account and HonPaca Cloud is off.
Some local data is intentionally never synchronized, even when HonPaca Cloud is enabled. This includes full-text search indexes, OCR caches, page rasters, device logs, and the local authority that prevents future passages from being used before you reach them. With cloud processing enabled, Supabase separately creates searchable text and search representations from the canonical book text you upload. Server searches enforce the scope selected on your device; the app verifies citations against your local EPUB.
Local data remains until you remove it in HonPaca, delete the app, or erase the device.
If you use iCloud Backup or back up your iPhone to a computer, that device backup includes your imported EPUB files and a compact copy of what you created in HonPaca: each book's title, author, original file name, import date and file fingerprint, your reading position and status, bookmarks, highlights, notes, collections, tags and reader display settings. When you restore that backup, or move to a new iPhone, HonPaca rebuilds your library from them. Search indexes, Story Guide data, OCR data, page images, Ask history, diagnostics and HonPaca Cloud account data are not included; HonPaca rebuilds what it can on the restored device. Device backups are created, stored and protected by Apple under your Apple Account settings and Apple's terms. They are not sent to us, and we cannot access them.
The optional Notebook widget is off until you enable it. It shares selected saved excerpts, book titles and authors with HonPaca's widget through local storage on the same device; this does not upload them to a server. The shared snapshot is excluded from device backups and expires after at most seven days unless refreshed. You can choose its source, exclude passages or books, or turn it off. Widget text may be visible to someone who can see your screen.
Optional reference-picture requests
With Settings → Look Up → Show Reference Pictures enabled, HonPaca automatically looks for an attributable reference picture when Meaning finds a supported dictionary sense. This setting is on by default and does not require a HonPaca account or subscription. The dictionary definition is used on-device to check the match. Online requests send the selected dictionary term or recognized name/phrase and its language, then request public Wikidata records, Wikimedia Commons file details, and an image thumbnail. HonPaca does not send the book's title, author, passages, annotations, reading position, dictionary definition, or HonPaca account ID with these requests.
Wikimedia receives the connection's IP address, request time and requested URLs, and a general HonPaca user-agent identifying the app. Its privacy policy describes IP-based location inference and processing network, device, and service-use information for operation, security, and analysis. HonPaca's image transport uses no cookies or account credentials. Opening a picture's source or license link opens that website under its own privacy policy and your browser's settings.
Each time you open a lookup, HonPaca looks for a fresh reference picture. Downloaded picture data and attribution are kept temporarily while displayed; they are not saved to a persistent picture cache, backed up, or synchronized to HonPaca Cloud. Turning off pictures hides them and stops new and in-flight lookups. HonPaca removes any old dedicated reference-picture cache on each startup. This does not remove previously saved generated illustrations, which have their own deletion control, or delete records Wikimedia may retain under its policy.
In-app web image search
HonPaca can show Google Images inside the lookup screen, but only after you tap Search images on the web for an eligible public term. Nothing is sent to Google until you do, including when no suitable Wikimedia picture is found. Turning off pictures also removes this action.
The initial search sends the public term and language directly from your phone to Google. It does not send the book passage, title, notes or reading position. Google and websites loaded by the search page receive normal network/browser information and process it under their own policies. These pages may contain ads, consent screens and links. See Google's privacy policy. HonPaca uses a temporary browser data store and does not save its web search history, cookies or picture cache to persistent app storage. Closing the lookup releases its browser session; it does not delete provider-side records. Web search results are not copied into your book, notes or HonPaca Cloud.
Information processed when you enable HonPaca Cloud
HonPaca Cloud requires an active subscription and your acceptance of the cloud-processing disclosure. You do not need to register: opening the plans creates a HonPaca Cloud account identified only by a random ID. Sign in with Apple is optional and lets you use the same account on your other devices. Depending on the features you use, we process:
- Account information: a Supabase user ID and, if you add Sign in with Apple, Apple's account-linked sign-in identifier. HonPaca currently requests no Apple name or email scope.
- Cloud library content: private EPUB copies, reading position and status, preferences, collections and tags, bookmarks, highlights, notes and other annotations, Ask conversations and cited evidence, Story Guide results and corrections, previously saved generated visual assets, and searchable canonical book text and derived search representations linked to the same private EPUB.
- AI requests: your question or requested task and limited packets of book text within the scope authorized on your device. Supabase searches eligible uploaded passages and summaries for Ask. It sends bounded passages and questions to OpenAI to create search representations, guides, and answers, including generated Who text and gloss translation. HonPaca does not send the EPUB file to OpenAI, but Story Guide may send bounded portions from throughout a book over multiple requests, and those portions can collectively cover much of its text.
- Book-picture requests: with cloud processing allowed, the server reads eligible pictures from the EPUB already stored in your private cloud library and sends them to OpenAI with bounded accompanying text. If you accepted an earlier cloud disclosure that did not name pictures, this happens only after you choose Allow Book Pictures in Ask about this picture. Guide descriptions use the picture, its alternative text and book text before its position. Asking about a picture can send that picture and text within your selected reading scope. This does not send rendered page images or on-device page rasters. Generated descriptions are stored with the cloud book. Stopping cloud processing also stops new picture processing; it does not delete existing descriptions or provider records. Delete the synced book or cloud account to remove its stored cloud descriptions under the deletion rules below.
- Story Guide ready notifications: if you choose Prepare and Notify Me for a book, your device's Apple push notification token, whether it is a development or App Store build, and which cloud book that device is waiting for. The notification says only that a Story Guide is ready; it contains no title, author or book text, and the token is kept only while a notification is still waiting.
- Answer reports: if you tap Report under an Ask answer, the app sends only the reason you choose and a reference to that answer's request, never your question, the answer or book text; we use reports to review answer quality and delete them after 180 days or with your cloud account.
- Purchase information: a pseudonymous Supabase user ID, product and entitlement status, transaction and receipt information, renewal or expiry status, and limited device/service information needed by RevenueCat. Apple handles payment details; HonPaca does not receive your full card number.
- Security and service information: App Attest keys and assertions, app/device integrity signals, IP address and request metadata processed by infrastructure providers, plus content-free operational records such as a pseudonymous account ID, operation type, status, latency, token counts, cost, and provider request ID.
HonPaca's operational logs are designed not to contain book titles or text, OCR text, questions, prompts, answers, reading locators, or local file paths.
How we use information
We use information only to:
- authenticate your account and protect it from abuse;
- synchronize and restore the cloud content you choose to store;
- provide the cloud search and AI features you request;
- provide reference pictures when enabled;
- send a Story Guide ready notification you asked for;
- verify subscription access, purchases, renewals, and restores;
- enforce quotas and fair-use limits;
- operate and measure subscription and enabled reference-picture services, including RevenueCat purchase dashboards and the providers' stated service analysis;
- diagnose content-free service failures and maintain reliability;
- process deletion requests and meet legal, security, and fraud-prevention obligations.
Where applicable law requires a legal basis, we process information to provide the service you requested, with your consent where required, for legitimate security and reliability interests that do not override your rights, or to comply with legal obligations.
Service providers
We use the following providers to operate HonPaca:
- Supabase provides authentication, private database and file storage, synchronization, and server functions. HonPaca's primary production project is intended to store data in the US East region.
- OpenAI processes bounded text for search representations, Story Guide, and cloud answers, and eligible EPUB pictures under the same cloud-processing choice. API inputs and outputs are not used to train OpenAI models by default unless the account owner opts in. Under ordinary API data controls, abuse-monitoring logs may retain prompts and responses for up to 30 days, or longer when legally required.
- RevenueCat processes subscription, receipt, transaction, entitlement, and restore information using a pseudonymous HonPaca account ID.
- Wikimedia Foundation provides Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons for reference-picture lookups and downloads, with the limited request and network information described above.
- Google provides the embedded web image search. Google and websites loaded in that browser process search and network/browser information under their own policies, as described above.
- Apple provides Sign in with Apple, App Attest, App Store purchases, the Apple Push Notification service for notifications you ask for, device services, and any Apple-managed backup you enable.
- Cloudflare serves honpaca.com and may process network and security information needed to deliver and protect the website.
These providers process information for their stated services under their own terms and privacy commitments. We require providers handling HonPaca user data to protect it consistently with this policy and applicable law. We do not permit them to use HonPaca content for our advertising.
Storage, transfers, and security
HonPaca Cloud encrypts data in transit and relies on its providers' encryption at rest. HonPaca Cloud is not end-to-end encrypted. Authorized administrators and service providers can technically access cloud content when required to operate, secure, support, or delete the service.
Cloud data may be processed in the United States and other places where our providers operate. We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards, but no internet service can guarantee absolute security.
Each EPUB may be up to 1 GiB, and an account has a disclosed 25 GiB fair-use safety ceiling. Large book transfers use Wi-Fi by default unless you choose to allow cellular transfers.
Retention and deletion
- Reference pictures: picture data and attribution remain only temporarily for display. Old reference-picture cache files are removed on each startup. This does not delete Wikimedia's own service records.
- Active cloud account: cloud content is kept while needed to provide the service and until you delete it or the retention rules below apply.
- Subscription expiry: new generation and uploads stop immediately. Existing cloud content remains available for viewing or download for 30 days, after which it is scheduled for deletion. Local books and reading data remain on your device.
- Delete a synced book: the book leaves your device at once and is also removed from HonPaca Cloud and your other devices. If you are offline or signed out, the device keeps a request that holds no book content and completes the deletion the next time it reaches HonPaca Cloud signed in to that account. When the deletion reaches the server, it immediately removes the book's synced notes, highlights, bookmarks, Ask history, Story Guide results, reading position, and title and author, and no device can restore them. The book file and any generated pictures are deleted from storage within about 27 hours, once any upload link already issued for them has expired. A content-free deletion record and usage accounting remain, so a Story Guide start already used is not returned. If another of your devices holds notes or highlights for the book that were never synced, that device keeps its copy, marked as not syncing, until you choose to sync it again or delete it. Adding the same book again creates a new cloud copy. If, before a pending request reaches the server, another of your devices adds the same book to HonPaca Cloud, the later addition wins: that cloud copy and what was synced to it stay, and the book appears in your cloud library on the deleting device again, where you can delete it. If a pending request never reaches the server, the cloud copy is removed with your other cloud data under the subscription-expiry or account-deletion rules.
- Delete cloud account: cloud access is disabled immediately, local cloud bindings are cleared, and a monitored job is designed to purge the account's Supabase Storage, database, and authentication data within 27 hours. This window lets an already-issued resumable upload authorization expire before the final storage sweep. Local books and reading data remain on the device. Deleting your HonPaca account does not cancel an Apple subscription; subscriptions must be managed separately through Apple.
- Synchronization deletion records: tombstones are retained until active devices acknowledge them and for at least 90 days. A deleted book's tombstone contains no title, author, notes or reading data. A device inactive for 180 days must perform a complete resynchronization.
- Story Guide ready notifications: a device's push token is deleted when its last waiting notification is sent, cancelled or expires, when Apple reports the token invalid, and with the device, cloud book or cloud account. A notification that has not been sent expires after 7 days, and the content-free record of a finished notification is deleted after 30 days.
- Short-lived service records: pending generation results are retained for up to 24 hours or until acknowledged. Content-free per-minute rate-limit records are removed after 24 hours. Billing-period usage totals and necessary generation receipts are retained longer to operate quotas and resolve disputes.
We may retain limited content-free security, billing, fraud-prevention, legal, or deletion-completion records where reasonably necessary or legally required. If an Apple subscription is still valid when you delete a cloud account, a content-free billing claim may temporarily remain so Restore Purchases can associate that subscription with a recreated account. It cannot access your cloud content and expires under the service's retention rules. Our providers may retain their own required records under their policies.
Your choices and rights
You can:
- use the local reader without an account;
- disable reference pictures in Settings;
- open web image search only when you choose to, and close an open web search;
- choose what the Notebook widget displays or turn it off;
- decline or stop cloud processing, which also stops sending book pictures to OpenAI;
- choose whether large transfers may use cellular data;
- sign out, download cloud books during the available download window, or delete individual synced books;
- delete your HonPaca cloud account from Settings;
- manage or cancel your subscription in Apple's subscription settings;
- request access, correction, deletion, or a portable copy of personal information, and exercise any additional privacy rights available where you live.
Stopping cloud processing prevents new uploads, sync changes, and OpenAI generation. It does not delete local data or automatically delete already stored cloud data. Use the deletion controls or contact us for help.
To make a privacy request, email privacy@honpaca.com. We may need to verify that you control the relevant account before completing a request.
Children
HonPaca Cloud is not directed to children under 13, or the equivalent minimum age where they live. We do not knowingly collect a child's personal information without the authorization required by applicable law. A parent or guardian who believes a child provided personal information can contact us to request its deletion.
Website cookies and analytics
We do not add advertising or analytics trackers to honpaca.com. Cloudflare may process request information and use strictly necessary security technologies to deliver and protect the site.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy when HonPaca's features, providers, or legal obligations change. We will post the updated date here and provide additional notice when required. Material changes do not retroactively expand consent you previously declined.
Contact
HonPaca is provided by Bacus Lee, the developer identified on HonPaca's Apple App Store listing. For privacy questions or requests, contact:
- Email: privacy@honpaca.com
- Website: https://honpaca.com