Privacy Policy
Last updated: 6 September 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Florian Wasmeier, trading as "Go with the Flow" (GWTF) ("Grove", "we", "us") collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you use the Grove mobile application (the "App"). We are the data controller under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and equivalent laws.
Questions? Contact us at support@gowiththeflow.io.
1. Summary
- Grove is a private reading-reflection journal. You speak or type thoughts about books you read, and an AI helps you turn them into a written insight.
- To do this, your reflections are sent to a third-party AI provider (see Section 4) so it can craft an insight. This is the most important thing to understand about Grove.
- We store your account and reflections so you can return to them.
- We do not show ads and we do not build advertising profiles. We use a minimal, privacy-focused crash-reporting service to keep the App stable, and an optional, off-by-default product-analytics service that only runs if you switch it on (Section 2f).
- You can permanently delete your entire account from within the App at any time, and you can request a copy of your data by email.
2. The data we collect
a) Account data — your email address and a securely hashed password (handled by our authentication provider, Supabase; we never see your password in plain text), and a display name derived by default from your email. If you sign in with Google, we receive your email address and basic profile from Google instead of a password. Optionally, a profile photo you choose to upload.
b) Content you create — the books, chapters, and reading progress you add, and your reflections: the text of what you spoke or typed (including your original, unedited wording), the AI-generated insight, the follow-up questions and your answers, a short theme tag, and derived metadata about a reflection — such as its type (a reflection or a reading note), the separate thoughts we gathered from it, the history of your saved edits, and whether it may need extra care. We keep your original wording as part of your reflection record because upcoming features of the App (for example, connecting related reflections over time) are built on your own words, not only on the AI's polished version.
c) Voice input (if you use it) — when you dictate, your device's speech-recognition service (provided by your operating system — Apple or Google) converts speech to text. Depending on your device and language, this may process audio on Apple's or Google's servers under their own privacy terms. Grove itself never receives, transmits, or stores your audio — the App only receives the resulting text.
d) Book lookups — when you search for a book, the title or ISBN is sent to Open Library to find editions, and (when auto-detecting chapters) to Google search to find a table of contents.
e) Purchases — if you subscribe to Grove Plus, the purchase is processed entirely by Google Play or the Apple App Store; we never see your payment details. We use RevenueCat to manage subscription state, which receives a pseudonymous user ID and your purchase history for this App (product, price tier, renewal status) — no payment card data.
f) Diagnostics and optional analytics —
- Crash and performance reporting (Sentry): if the App crashes or misbehaves, a technical report (device model, OS version, app version, error details, a pseudonymous user ID) is sent to Sentry's EU servers. We have configured this to be strictly minimal: no message content, no screenshots, no request bodies. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in providing a stable app.
- Product analytics (PostHog, optional and off by default): only if you explicitly enable "product analytics" in the App do we record a small, fixed set of feature-usage events (for example "reflection created" — never its content) on PostHog's EU servers, tied to a pseudonymous user ID. You can switch this off again at any time; it never runs without your consent.
g) Stored on your device only — your theme, language, and other preferences and your login session stay on your device. If you enable biometric app-lock, your fingerprint/Face ID data never leaves your device — it is handled entirely by your operating system.
What we do NOT collect: no advertising or ad-tracking SDKs, no advertising profiles, no contacts, no location tracking (the optional Dawn & Dusk theme computes sunrise times on your device only).
3. Why we use your data, and our legal basis (GDPR Art. 6)
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Create and operate your account | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Store and display your reflections, books, and insights | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Send your reflection to an AI provider to generate an insight | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Manage your Grove Plus subscription and unlock entitlements | Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Crash and performance reporting to keep the App stable | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Optional product analytics | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — off by default, revocable in the App |
| Keep the service secure and prevent abuse | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Comply with legal obligations | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
4. How your reflections are processed by AI
When you create a reflection, the text of your reflection (and the book/chapter title for context) is sent through our secure server to a third-party AI provider, which returns a crafted insight and follow-up questions. We do this only to provide the feature you requested, and the provider acts as a data processor on our instructions.
We currently use:
- Google (Gemini) — United States. We use a paid Gemini API tier, under which inputs are not used to train Google's models. Privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
- Anthropic (Claude) — United States. Used as a fallback when Gemini is unavailable. Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, your inputs and outputs are not used to train their models and are retained only briefly for safety purposes. Privacy policy: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy
We may add or change AI providers as Grove evolves. When we do, we will update this Policy and our subprocessor list before the change takes effect. AI providers may be located outside the EU/EEA, including the United States (see Section 6). We will never sell your reflections or use them for advertising, and we will never use them to train AI models without asking you first.
5. Who else we share data with (subprocessors)
| Provider | Purpose | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, authentication, backend hosting | European Union (Ireland) |
| Google (Gemini), Anthropic (Claude) | AI insight generation (see Section 4) | United States |
| Apple / Google | Speech-to-text when you dictate (OS service); app distribution and payment processing | Per your device OS |
| RevenueCat | Subscription management (pseudonymous ID, purchase state — no payment data) | United States |
| Sentry | Crash and performance reporting (minimized; EU data ingestion) | European Union / United States |
| PostHog | Optional product analytics (only with your consent; EU hosting) | European Union |
| Resend | Sending account emails (sign-in codes, confirmations) | United States |
| Open Library (Internet Archive) | Book and chapter lookups | United States |
| Expo / EAS | App build and update delivery | United States |
A current list of subprocessors is available on request at support@gowiththeflow.io.
6. International data transfers
Some providers are located outside the EU/EEA (primarily the United States). Where personal data is transferred internationally, we rely on appropriate GDPR safeguards such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and/or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. Request detail at support@gowiththeflow.io.
7. How long we keep your data
We keep your account and content for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account in the App (Settings → Account → Delete account), we permanently erase your profile (including any profile photo), books, chapters, reflections, and insights, and delete your authentication record. This is irreversible and happens promptly; residual copies in encrypted backups expire on their normal rotation. Pseudonymous identifiers held by our processors (crash reporting, analytics, subscription management) expire under those providers' own retention schedules. AI providers may retain reflection text only briefly per their own terms (Section 4).
8. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to access, rectify, erase ("right to be forgotten" — available via in-App account deletion), receive a copy of your data (portability — email us and we will provide your data in a machine-readable format), restrict, and object to processing, to withdraw consent (for example, switching product analytics off in the App), and to lodge a complaint with a data-protection supervisory authority — either in your EU member state or with the authority competent for us in Germany. To exercise any right, contact support@gowiththeflow.io; we respond within the timeframes required by law (generally one month).
9. How we protect your data
All data in transit is encrypted (HTTPS/TLS). Database rows are protected by Row Level Security, so one user can never read another's data. Secret keys (including AI provider keys) are held only on our server and never shipped inside the App. Account deletion is handled server-side and can only be triggered by the signed-in account owner. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable and appropriate measures to protect your information.
10. Children
Grove is not directed to children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under this age. If you believe a child has provided us data, contact us and we will delete it.
11. Changes to this Policy
We may update this Policy as the App evolves. We will revise the "Last updated" date and, for material changes, notify you in the App or by email.
12. Contact
Florian Wasmeier (Go with the Flow) Thannöd 18 84371 Triftern Deutschland Email: support@gowiththeflow.io