Privacy
Talescout is operated by TROSS Contracting Ltd (company no. 16650966), registered office Bollin House, Bollin Walk, Wilmslow SK9 1DP, United Kingdom (“we”, “us”). We are the data controller for the information described here. Questions: privacy@talescout.app.
The Talescout venture is in the process of moving to its own dedicated company. When that completes, the operator named here will change to that company and this page will be updated — nothing else about how your data is treated will change without being reflected here.
Anonymous by design
Talescout has no user accounts. We never ask for your name, email address or phone number. Everything the app remembers about your reading is tied to a random identifier stored on your own device — not to your real-world identity. We are built to collect as little as possible.
What we collect, and why
- An anonymous session identifier. On first visit your browser generates a random id and keeps it in local storage on your device. It is not linked to your name or any account. We use it to remember your reading between visits so the feed can learn your taste. UK and EU law can treat an identifier that singles out a device as personal data even though it doesn’t name you — so we treat it as personal data and give you the rights below, rather than claiming we hold none.
- Reading and interaction signals. To tailor the feed we record how you interact with content — what you view, read, finish, like and skip — and derive the genres, moods and themes you seem to enjoy. If you use the interests picker, the interests you declare are stored the same way. All of it is linked to the anonymous session id, not to you personally.
- Basic technical data. Standard information your browser sends that our hosting and infrastructure providers process to deliver and secure the service — IP address at the network level, device and browser type, security logs.
What we do not do
- No accounts; no name, email or phone number needed to read.
- We do not sell your personal data.
- We do not build cross-site advertising profiles or use your reading data for third-party ad targeting.
- We currently use no third-party analytics.
- Your reading data is never sold or licensed as an identifiable record. We may analyse preference data in aggregated, anonymised form to operate and improve the service.
Lawful bases (UK GDPR)
Running and improving Talescout — serving the feed, remembering reading on your device, understanding which content works — rests on our legitimate interests in operating the app, balanced against your privacy; we rely on the minimal, anonymous-by-design model and the direct controls you have. Keeping the service secure rests on legitimate interests too. Any non-essential analytics, if ever introduced, would be used only with your consent.
Personalisation, profiling and your controls
Talescout tailors what you see by learning your apparent preferences from activity. That is a form of profiling, used only to personalise the reading feed and book recommendations — never for decisions with legal or similarly significant effects, and there is no automated decision-making of that kind. Personalisation runs on our own systems against your anonymous profile.
- You can view and edit the interests you’ve declared, and tell us when a recommendation is off.
- You can reset entirely at any time by clearing the site’s data in your browser — that removes your session id and disconnects your device from past reading signals.
Cookies and local storage
Talescout is light on tracking: local storage holds your anonymous session id and small preference flags the app needs to work, and we use no advertising cookies and no third-party analytics. Retailers you click through to (for example Bookshop.org or Amazon) may set their own cookies on their own sites. Full detail: Cookies & storage.
Who we share data with
A small number of providers run Talescout under our instructions: Vercel (hosting and delivery), Neon (managed PostgreSQL database, hosted in London / eu-west-2), and Anthropic (AI content generation; we may use another established provider, such as OpenAI, as an operational fallback). The service is designed so that personalisation happens in our own database — prompts to AI providers are not built from your personal reading record. Book links take you to retailers governed by their own policies — see the Affiliate disclosure.
International transfers
Where a provider processes personal data outside the UK (Vercel and Anthropic may process data in the United States), we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the UK IDTA or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with the provider’s own measures. Our primary database stays in the UK/EU.
Retention
We keep anonymous reading and preference signals only as long as needed to operate and improve the service, then delete or aggregate them. Security and technical logs are kept for a limited period.
Your rights
UK GDPR gives you rights including access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and data portability. Because Talescout is anonymous by design, we usually cannot connect a rights request to a specific person — and we will not collect extra identifying information just to do so. In practice, the fastest and most complete remedy is in your hands: clearing the site’s data in your browser erases your profile and stops further personalisation immediately, and the in-app controls above let you see and steer what the feed has learned. For anything else, contact privacy@talescout.app — if we cannot identify your data from what you give us, we will say so plainly. You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.
Children
Talescout is not intended for children under 13 and is pitched at a teen-and-up (PG-13) audience. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. Because the app is an open, no-login feed we recognise younger readers may encounter it, and we design accordingly: minimal anonymous profiling, no engagement-maximising nudge patterns aimed at children, and content rules that keep the writing PG-13.
Changes
We may update this policy; the current version always lives here with its effective date.
TROSS Contracting Ltd, Bollin House, Bollin Walk, Wilmslow SK9 1DP · privacy@talescout.app