How we handle your data
Lucid News is a personalized news reading app for iPhone. This policy explains what information the app collects, how it is used, who processes it, and the choices you have. We designed Lucid News to collect as little as possible: there are no advertising identifiers, no third-party analytics or tracking SDKs, and we do not sell your data.
Account identifier. When you sign in with Apple, we store the private, stable identifier Apple provides for your account. We do not request or receive your name or email address; sign-in uses this identifier only. It is held in AWS Cognito and AWS DynamoDB to create and authenticate your account, and is kept until you delete your account.
Reading activity. We record which articles are shown to you, which you open, how far you scroll, how long you spend, and the thumbs up or down ratings you give. This is used to rank your feed and build your personalized interest profile. It is stored in AWS DynamoDB on a rolling 14-day window and then automatically deleted.
Interest profile. We keep a short summary of your interests derived from your reading activity, along with any notes you write about yourself. This is used to personalize article relevance and chat responses, is stored in AWS DynamoDB, and is kept until you delete your account.
Chat messages. The questions you ask about an article and the assistant's replies are saved on your device so you can revisit a conversation. To improve speed and cost, the assistant's generated replies are also cached on our servers (AWS DynamoDB) for up to 14 days; that cache holds generated text keyed by content, not your account identifier.
Push notification token. If you opt into breaking-news notifications, we store the device token needed to deliver them, in AWS DynamoDB and AWS SNS. It is kept until you delete your account or turn notifications off.
Anonymous usage analytics. To understand how the app is used and improve it, we record product-analytics events such as app opens, feed refreshes, articles opened, analysis and chat usage, and subscription actions. This data is not linked to your account: each install generates a random identifier used only for analytics, and we do not map it to your Sign in with Apple identifier. Chat questions stored for analytics are automatically scrubbed of personal identifiers (using AWS Comprehend) before storage. Analytics are stored in our own database (AWS Aurora). You can turn this off at any time with the "Share Usage Data" switch in Settings.
Approximate location. We derive an approximate location (city and country) from your device's IP address when the app contacts our servers, to rank local news near you and for the analytics above. We do not use your device's precise GPS location, and the raw IP address is discarded immediately after the city and country are derived; it is not stored.
We share information only with the service providers needed to operate the app. These providers process data on our behalf and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes:
If you read or chat in a language other than English, translation and any speech features run entirely on your device using Apple's built-in frameworks. The translated text and audio are not sent to us or to any third party. Translated articles may be cached locally on your device for offline reuse.
Lucid News is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.
We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the "Last updated" date above.
Questions about this policy or requests regarding your data: support@lucidnews.org