Your reading is yours
Last updated 10 November 2026
The short version. Covers has no accounts, no ads, no analytics, no tracking and no servers of our own, except a small inbox for Founders feedback you choose to send. Your library, notes, scores and profile stay on your iPhone. What you post to a club is locked on your phone and goes through Apple's iCloud to that club's members, whose phones hold the key; Apple and we see only locked text. If you share your reading, your membership card goes the same way, locked, to the people who have scanned it or to people whose follow request you accepted. Your calendar is read on your phone and never leaves it.
Who we are
Covers is made by Driftwood Labs Pty Ltd (ACN 703 905 293, ABN 27 703 905 293), Victoria, Australia ("we", "us"). This policy covers the Covers iPhone app and this website. We follow the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). Questions: welcome@myspencer.ai.
What stays on your iPhone
- your profile: the first name you choose, the character you build (female or male, hair, skin tone and outfit) and the reading tastes you pick;
- your books: what's in your hand, your pages, your shelves, books you read before Covers, and any cover photos you take or pick;
- your scores, sign-offs, records and Members Log;
- your notes on a book, until your club has met (see below);
- your settings, including people you've blocked.
Covers saves this on your phone, with a second copy in the app's own folder so nothing is lost if one copy fails. Your iPhone may include it in your own backup (to iCloud or a computer), depending on your settings. We cannot see any of it. Cover photos never leave your phone.
What goes to your club
When you start or join a club with its QR code, what you post to that club is locked on your phone with the club's key and sent through Apple's iCloud (CloudKit), in a database that belongs to the Covers app, so other members' phones can unlock and show it:
- that you joined or left, and if a founder removed a member;
- pins, messages, questions and votes;
- suggested days, whether you can make them, and the meeting date, time, host and address;
- nominations to lead the next night;
- your page in the club's book, and your score and sign-off when you post a finished book;
- your notes on the club's book, but only once the night is marked done, or 48 hours after the meeting.
The name you chose travels inside the locked post. Outside the lock, iCloud holds only the time and an iCloud user ID that Apple creates for Covers. That ID is not your Apple ID, email address or phone number. You need to be signed in to iCloud for club news to travel; if you're not, posts wait on your phone.
Who can see club posts. Each club is stored under a long random ID, and its key is carried only in its QR code. Only phones that have scanned that code can unlock the club's posts. Anyone with the code, or a photo of it, can join, so only share it with people you'd invite. We own the app's iCloud database but hold no keys, so we, and Apple, see only locked text. We only use our access to keep Covers working or delete information when asked. A report you send us by email contains the post you reported.
Sharing your reading
Share my reading live is switched on when you start. You can switch it off any time in Settings. While it's on, Covers locks the following with your card's key and sends it through iCloud to the people who have scanned your membership card, or to people whose follow request you accepted:
- your card: name, character, member number, the date you joined, your clubs' names and colours, books read and your reading record;
- what's in your hand, your top 10 and favourite three, and your pages, books started and finished, scores and sign-offs.
Whether sharing is on or off, when you follow someone their card is told your name, and when you put the kettle on for their read, they see it came from you. Your notes are never shared this way. If you block someone who follows you, your card gets a new key that goes, locked, to everyone else who follows you, so the person you blocked sees nothing new. Issue a new membership card in Settings stops your old card updating for everyone who followed it. You can unfollow anyone in Settings.
Being found by name (optional)
Let people find me starts on for a new member. It is shown, switched on, during setup (on the "Your seat is saved" step) so you can turn it off before anything is listed, and you can turn it off or on again any time in Settings. Nothing is listed until you have passed that step. While it's on, Covers lists in the app's iCloud database, under a random ID: your name; a tag (four random digits made once on your phone, such as #4821, which says nothing about you and only tells you apart from others with the same name); your character and your card's colour (plum or gold); the month you were listed; and a public key. That lets other Covers members search for you by name in Find members. Anyone using Covers can search the list, and anyone who finds your name can see everything in your listing.
Two extras are each off unless you turn them on, under Let people find me: Member since (the year you joined Covers) and your suburb or town (only what you type, never your street and never your phone's location; Covers' word rule applies to it). Turn an extra off and it is removed from your listing straight away. Search only ever matches names, never a suburb or year. Nothing else is listed: not your reading, clubs, contacts or photos.
Match me by my books works only while Let people find me is on. It starts on for a new member and is shown, switched on, on the same setup step, so you can turn it off before anything is listed; for anyone who joined before 10 November 2026 it is also on, but nothing is added to their listing until they have seen the switch in Settings or used Readers like you. While it's on, your listing also carries a short code for each book on your shelf and in your hand (made on your phone from the title and the author's surname, never the title itself) and the kinds of book you said you love. Readers like you, in Find members, uses these codes to find members who have books in common with you. Anyone shown to you sees only the books you share, named from your own shelf, and the kinds of book you both love; never your whole shelf, your pages, notes or ratings. The codes are not encryption: someone who already knows a book could work out its code, so don't turn this on if you'd rather nobody could tell which books you hold. Turn it off and the codes and kinds of book are removed from your listing straight away.
Club invitations from Readers like you go only to people you are already connected with (you follow them or they follow you), locked to their public key like a follow request. They choose whether to join.
Someone who finds you can ask to follow you. The request is locked to your public key and holds their name, tag, character, card colour and any extras they turned on, so you can tell who is asking. If you accept, your phone sends them your card's key, locked to them, and they can follow your reading. If you decline, nothing is sent. You can report or block anyone from Find members or from a request. Turn the setting off and your listing is deleted.
What the QR codes carry
Covers QR codes work without signal because the details are inside the code:
- A club's code: the club's ID and key, name, colours and crest, current book, meeting date, time and place, host and meeting address, moderator and founder's name.
- Your membership card code: your name, character, member number, the month you joined, books read, the books in your hand with your pages, up to 12 scores, your card ID and key, a public key, your iCloud user ID for Covers and short fingerprints of your clubs (enough to match clubs you share, not to join them). Never your notes.
A QR code can be photographed and passed on. Only show yours to people you know.
Permissions
| Permission | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Camera | Scanning club and card QR codes, scanning a book's barcode, and photographing a book cover. |
| Photos | Picking a book cover from your library. |
| Calendars | Add to calendar puts a meeting in your calendar. If you switch on calendar sync, Covers reads the start and end times of your events (never their names, places or notes) to show your free evenings. The times are used while the app is open and never saved or sent. |
| Microphone and Speech Recognition | Talk it through and Speak turn what you say into notes. The words are worked out on your iPhone by Apple's on-device speech recognition; the sound is never recorded, kept or sent anywhere, by us or by Apple. Covers only listens between Start and Stop. Proofread uses your iPhone's own dictionary, also on the phone. |
| Notifications | Meeting reminders, notes opening, an optional weekly nudge, club news and fellow members' reading. Reminders are scheduled on your phone; news is checked from iCloud in the background. Each type has a switch in Settings. |
You can change any of these in your iPhone's Settings.
Other services Covers uses
- Apple iCloud (CloudKit), for club posts and shared reading. Apple's privacy policy covers how Apple runs iCloud.
- Our Founders feedback inbox at feedback.coversclub.app, run for us on Cloudflare, only when you tap Send feedback (see Founders feedback below).
- Open Library (run by the Internet Archive). When you scan a barcode, Covers sends the book's ISBN to openlibrary.org to fill in the title, author, pages and cover. When you tap Find the real cover, it sends only the title and author you typed, to show you covers to choose from. Open Library also sees your device's internet address.
Covers has no advertising, analytics, crash reporting or third-party tracking, and doesn't track you across other apps or websites. We don't sell or rent information.
Diagnostics
Covers has a Help & diagnostics screen (the last row in Settings) for when something has gone wrong. Nothing leaves your phone unless you tap Send and confirm. A report contains the app version and build, your iPhone model and iOS version, language, time zone and free storage, the results of the app's health checks (saving on the phone, the app's backup copy, iCloud, live sharing, notifications, background refresh), the app's recent technical log (screens opened, errors, timings), counts of your books, clubs and fellow members, and your notification switches. It never contains your books, notes, chat or pins, member names, your contacts, your exact location or passwords. You see exactly what will be sent first. It goes by email from your own Mail app to welcome@myspencer.ai, so we also receive your email address, as with any email. We use it only to find and fix the problem, and delete it within 90 days.
Reports and emails
When you report something with ⋯, Covers hides it on your phone and opens an email to us with the post, who posted it, the club and your Covers name. If you send it, we receive your email address too. Settings › Feedback opens the Founders feedback form, which goes to our feedback inbox and never by email (see Founders feedback below). We use emails only to answer you, act on reports, improve Covers and keep it safe.
Founders feedback
Settings › Founders feedback asks up to seven optional questions: what you like, which part you use most, what's missing or broken, what nearly made you stop, how likely you are to recommend Covers, what you would pay, and anything else. Nothing is sent unless you tap Send feedback. Your answers then go to our feedback inbox at feedback.coversclub.app (run for us on Cloudflare) with your Covers version and build and nothing else: no name, no email address, no device identifier, and nothing from your clubs, books or shelves. The inbox adds the country the request came from and a one-way code made from your internet address that changes every day, used only to limit sends to ten a day; your address itself isn't stored. Your answers aren't linked to you, aren't used for tracking or advertising, and are read only to improve Covers. In the app, if your phone is offline or the inbox can't be reached, your answers wait on your phone and send themselves the next time you open Covers or come back online, and are deleted from the phone once they arrive; nothing from the app form goes by email. The form on our Founders page asks the same questions and goes to the same inbox, sending "web" in place of the app version.
How long we keep it
- On your phone: until you delete the app.
- In iCloud: locked club and shared-reading posts and follow requests are kept until they are deleted. There is no automatic expiry. We delete yours when you ask. Your Find members listing (and any book codes on it) is deleted when you turn Let people find me off.
- Founders feedback: kept while we're shaping Covers and deleted when we no longer need it to improve the app. Because it isn't linked to you, we can't find yours by name.
- Emails: until the question or report is dealt with, unless the law requires us to keep them longer.
Deleting your information
- On your phone: delete the Covers app. Everything it stored on your phone goes with it. Copies may remain in your own backups until they're replaced.
- From your clubs: leave a club with Remove my posts when I leave switched on, and other members' phones remove your pins, messages, questions and notes.
- Your shared reading: switch off Share my reading live, or issue a new membership card.
- From iCloud: email welcome@myspencer.ai and we'll delete your posts from the app's iCloud database. Because they're locked, we can't find them by your name, so we'll ask for your club's QR code or your card's code to locate them. Copies already shown on other members' phones stay on those phones.
Overseas
Information on your phone stays there. iCloud data is stored by Apple, which may be outside Australia, including in the United States. Open Library is based in the United States.
Children
Covers is for people aged 16 and over. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you think a child is using Covers, email us and we'll delete what we can.
This website
This website has no cookies, analytics or tracking. It loads typefaces from Google Fonts, so Google sees your internet address. Our web host, Cloudflare, keeps standard logs (such as internet addresses and pages requested) for security and to keep the site running.
Your rights and complaints
You can ask what information we hold about you, and ask us to correct or delete it, by emailing welcome@myspencer.ai. We usually hold nothing more than locked club posts we can't read, your Find members listing while Let people find me is on, Founders feedback answers that aren't linked to you, and emails you send. We'll reply within 30 days. If you're not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au, or to the privacy regulator where you live.
Changes
If Covers starts handling information differently, we'll update this policy and its date before the change, and tell you in the app if the change is significant.
Contact
Driftwood Labs Pty Ltd (ACN 703 905 293, ABN 27 703 905 293), Victoria, Australia. welcome@myspencer.ai