Version 1.0.0 · Updated 11 October 2026
Effective date: October 11, 2026
Elseleaf is operated by Publishr Pty Ltd (“Elseleaf”, “we”, “us” or “our”). You can contact us about privacy at leigh@elseleaf.com. The policy address is www.elseleaf.com/privacy.
This policy explains how information is handled when you use the Elseleaf reading and listening app for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android, and when you contact us about the app. It covers the current app and its optional publisher listening reports. Publisher websites and services have their own privacy policies, including where you open an article or advertisement in a browser. Publisher administration accounts and general use of the Elseleaf website are outside this app policy.
Privacy at a glance
- You can read and listen without creating an Elseleaf account.
- Your subscriptions, saved passages, reading positions and preferences are stored on your device. Elseleaf does not provide account-based cloud synchronisation of that library.
- Elseleaf generates Pocket narration on your device. It does not upload your reading text or generated narration to a cloud speech service.
- Sharing listening statistics is optional and starts off. If you enable it, participating publishers receive information about listening to their content, including a separate random identifier for your installation at each publisher.
- Reports can be linked to your installation even though they do not contain your name or email address. They are not anonymous.
- Elseleaf does not combine these reports with information from other companies’ apps or websites to target or measure advertising, or share them with data brokers.
- Fetching content, media and voice models involves network requests. The organisations serving those files can receive your IP address and ordinary request information even when listening statistics are off.
Information stored on your device
Elseleaf stores information needed to provide the app, including:
- Publications, feed addresses and programmes you follow.
- Downloaded or cached articles, episodes, images, recordings, advertisements and voice resources.
- Saved passages and their retained full stories, bookmarks, reading positions and records of completed listening.
- Reading and playback preferences, such as appearance, voice, volume, automatic playback and your listening-statistics choice.
- Temporary playback information, download status and, if sharing is enabled, pending listening reports and publisher-specific identifiers.
This information supports offline access, saved passages, resuming playback and your chosen settings. The app does not send your complete local library or list of saved passages to an Elseleaf account service. Opening or refreshing particular content still makes the requests described below, and optional listening reports identify the content played.
On supported Apple devices, Elseleaf shares a limited local copy of titles, saved excerpts and resume information with its widgets. Story titles and playback information can also appear in system media controls or notifications. Their visibility depends on your device and lock-screen settings.
Content requests and third parties
Elseleaf connects to the publications and feeds you use to discover and refresh content, retrieve article text and download media. It can also request content from Elseleaf’s own feeds, including the Playground, and preconfigured publications. Some requests happen automatically when the app refreshes or prepares content.
The receiving publisher, hosting provider or content delivery service can receive your IP address, the requested URL, request time and technical information such as an app or network-client identifier. A requested URL may identify an article, programme, image, recording or advertisement. An IP address can also indicate an approximate location, although Elseleaf does not request your device’s location permission.
These requests deliver the content and may be logged by the receiving service for operation and security. The publisher’s reporting service also uses short-lived, salted representations of IP addresses to limit excessive registration requests. These technical protections are separate from listening and ad measurements. Turning statistics off does not prevent the network requests needed for online features.
Where listening reporting requires verification of a publisher, the app requests that publisher’s public record from the Elseleaf Directory service. The current reporting feature does not upload your listening events or publisher-specific listener identifier to the Directory.
Elseleaf’s native article reader extracts content without running the website’s page scripts. Opening a source page, article link or advertisement in your browser is different: that website and your browser may use cookies, analytics and other technologies under their own policies and settings.
Speech and voice resources
Pocket text-to-speech runs locally. Your article text and generated speech are not sent to a remote AI service for narration. The current app does not record your microphone or ask you to supply a voice recording.
Apple builds may download the Pocket model from Hugging Face and its file-delivery providers when preparing the voice. These are file downloads, so the provider receives the network request information described above, not the text you are having narrated. See the Hugging Face Privacy Policy. The current Android build includes its speech model in the app package and installs it locally.
Some content may use downloaded publisher recordings or voice profiles. Where an Apple system voice is selected, Elseleaf passes the text to the operating system’s speech service. Apple services and device-level settings are governed by Apple’s privacy terms. Audio may also be routed to speakers, headphones or other playback devices you select.
Optional listening statistics
Your choice
On iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android, Elseleaf offers Share statistics and Not now when a choice has not already been saved. Sharing remains off until you choose to enable it. Reading and listening work with either choice. Choices for the expanded reporting scope are remembered, and earlier listening is not retrospectively added when you opt in. Users who previously opted into editorial-only statistics must choose again before the expanded reporting starts; previous opt-outs remain off.
You can change your choice in Settings → Statistics (optional) → Share listening statistics with publishers. Reporting also requires the publisher to support and enable the feature.
What is sent
For supported content and advertising playback, reports contain:
- Product interaction information: which publisher’s articles, programmes or episodes were played, when playback occurred and its measured duration. Reports identify the relevant content and version, and whether an article was played on its own or within a programme.
- An installation identifier: a random identifier that persists across sessions and is separate for each participating publication. It identifies an installation of Elseleaf; it is not your device’s serial number or Apple’s advertising identifier.
- Advertising information: which ad and creative version played, its placement and campaign, playback time, and information used to determine whether playback reached the end or met the requirements for a confirmed completion.
- Report details: event, session and playback-attempt identifiers, sequence information to prevent duplicate counting, platform, app version and whether a report belongs to a test environment.
The report does not contain your name, email address, account details, article text, audio, saved excerpts or device location coordinates. The receiving server still sees ordinary network information, including your IP address.
These records are pseudonymous, which means they use an identifier in place of your name. A publisher can recognise repeat listening from the same installation, and content identifiers can reveal the topics you listen to. For our app privacy disclosures, we treat these records as linked to your installation rather than anonymous. Elseleaf does not supply one shared listener identifier for linking your activity across different publishers.
Who receives the reports and why
Reports go directly to the participating publisher’s reporting service. Publishers use them for audience and content analytics, and to measure and manage advertising in their publications. This includes measured listening installations, editorial and ad playback time, ad starts and completions, campaign delivery limits, rotation and spend estimates. If Elseleaf operates the publication you listen to and reporting is enabled for it, we receive its reports in that publisher capacity.
The current Publisher dashboard shows aggregate counts and listening time. Its underlying database nevertheless contains publisher-specific identifiers and content-level monthly records; the information is not anonymous merely because the dashboard displays totals. Each publisher is responsible for its own server, access controls and privacy practices.
Publishers can separately enable private publication summaries to the connected Elseleaf Directory. These contain monthly programme, standalone article and ad audio time, measured editorial listening installations, ad starts and completions, and reporting status. We use these summaries to understand activity across participating publications. The summaries contain no listener, content, programme, episode, ad, campaign or playback identifiers. Directory reports are administrator-only; they are not automatically published on the website. Publication audience counts are not combined into a unique network audience.
We may use combined monthly editorial and ad playback totals shared with Elseleaf Directory to promote Elseleaf to prospective publishers, including in presentations and marketing materials. Marketing uses these combined totals and does not include individual listening records or listener identifiers. The totals cover reported activity from participating publications and readers who have enabled statistics sharing; they do not represent all listening on the platform.
Advertisement starts count durable playback attempts; completion requires reaching the end with sufficient observed coverage of known media. Generated narration without a stable duration remains unconfirmed. The reports do not measure attention or prove that someone heard the audio. Article and episode completion statistics remain unreported; local completion marks are separate.
Offline reports and withdrawing your choice
Once a participating publisher has been verified online, the app can save eligible listening reports while offline and send them when connectivity and app execution permit. This may happen on later app use or through an Android background upload. Reports retain their original listening dates.
Turning sharing off stops further collection, cancels uploads and removes unsent reports. If removal fails, the app retries it. It retains the random identifier for each publisher, so enabling sharing again can use the same identifier. Switching sharing off does not retract reports already received, including a report accepted before cancellation took effect.
Advertising and tracking
Publishers may include advertisements within programmes and during or after articles. Ads are provided by publishers and can be selected through publication settings, campaign rules, rotation or article categories. Elseleaf does not use Apple’s advertising identifier or send your listening history to an advertising network to select these ads.
Elseleaf does not combine your installation-level listening or ad records with data about you from other companies’ apps, websites or offline activities for targeted advertising or advertising measurement. We do not sell your personal information or share these records with data brokers. Measuring playback within Elseleaf is separate from tracking you across other companies’ services.
Where we run promotions for Elseleaf or our own services in a publication, the same optional reporting can measure their playback. It does not create a separate marketing contact list or collect your email address. Our current reporting system does not use your listening history to create personalised recommendations or an advertising profile across publications.
Downloading an advertisement or its media reveals the associated network request to the host. Following an advertisement link takes you to a service with its own privacy practices. Optional ad playback reports go to the publisher as described above; this does not prevent external services from receiving ordinary request information.
Who can receive information
Depending on the features you use, recipients include participating publishers, the services that host their content and reporting, Elseleaf Directory for the publication summaries described above, and providers serving media and voice-model files. Providers handling our hosting or support may also process information needed to deliver those services. Independent publishers operate their own services and explain their additional practices in their privacy policies.
Recipients of personal information shared through Elseleaf must protect it to at least the standard described in this policy and use it only for the disclosed purposes. They must respect your reporting choice and must not use Elseleaf listening identifiers or reports for cross-company advertising tracking or disclose them to data brokers. Contact us if you believe a participating publisher is handling these reports inconsistently with this policy.
Information you send us
If you contact us for support or about privacy, we receive the information you provide, such as your name or email address, message and any attachments or diagnostics you choose to send. We use it to respond, investigate the issue and maintain relevant correspondence. Please avoid sending passwords or information unrelated to your request.
We may disclose information where required by law or reasonably necessary to address fraud, security incidents or legal claims.
The current app does not require payment details, contacts, camera access or microphone access. Operating-system and app-store diagnostics are governed separately by the platform provider and your settings.
Retention and deletion
Local library and settings. These remain until removed using the available app or device controls, replaced during normal use or cleared with the app’s data. Removing a publication or unsaving a passage does not necessarily erase every cached copy or related reading record. Unloading a speech model releases it from memory but keeps downloaded model files.
Pending listening reports. The app applies a maximum age of 90 days and a 10 MB limit to queued report and publisher-capability payloads, removing older records first. Database overhead is additional. These limits are applied when the app processes its queue; they do not guarantee deletion at a precise time while the app is closed. Acknowledged or permanently rejected reports are removed from the pending queue.
Reports received by publishers. The current Elseleaf Publisher plugin is configured to retain daily/monthly listening detail for approximately 12 months and duplicate-prevention records for 121 days. Compact ad-attempt keys and campaign counts remain to prevent repeat counting and preserve campaign totals. Listener identifiers and coverage on inactive ad attempts are cleared after 365 days without receipt. Scheduled cleanup depends on the publisher’s WordPress scheduler operating. Server logs, backups and exported reports may have different retention periods under that publisher’s policy. Turning reporting off does not itself delete existing publisher reports.
Directory summaries. Publication-only monthly summaries and separately sourced app acquisition figures have no automatic expiry in this release. They remain until removed by the operator. Disabling a publisher’s summary sharing stops future updates but does not remove previously received summaries.
Support correspondence, service logs and backups
We retain support correspondence while handling your enquiry and for as long as reasonably necessary for related follow-up, resolving disputes or meeting legal obligations. We review retained correspondence and delete or de-identify personal information when it is no longer needed.
Server and security logs are retained for the time reasonably needed to operate our services, investigate faults and detect or respond to abuse and security incidents. Relevant records may be retained longer where an investigation or legal obligation requires it.
Backup copies are retained for recovery purposes and expire according to the backup schedules configured with our service providers. Information deleted from active systems may remain in backups until those copies expire. Access to backups is restricted, and they are not used for routine business activities. If a backup is restored, we take reasonable steps to reapply relevant deletions.
On Android, you can use the system’s Clear storage control or uninstall the app to remove its local app data. On iPhone or iPad, use Delete App, rather than Offload App, to remove the app and its data. On Mac, deleting the application alone may leave its support files and preferences behind; contact us for removal guidance. Device backups or separately shared widget data may require separate management. These actions do not erase records already held by a publisher or information you sent to support.
Elseleaf has no reader account to delete. Because reports use random identifiers, an email address alone may not identify a listening record. To request access, correction or deletion, contact us at leigh@elseleaf.com or contact the relevant publisher about records it holds. Include the publication and approximate dates involved, but do not send passwords or unrelated sensitive information. We will explain what additional information is reasonably needed to locate the records and verify the request. We may be unable to identify a particular record from the information available, and we will explain any limits on deletion or retention required by law.
Security and backups
Elseleaf uses HTTPS for public content delivery and requires HTTPS for listening reports. Reporting endpoints are restricted to the verified publisher, and reporting requests do not follow redirects. Local information is held in app storage using platform protections. No storage or transmission method can guarantee complete security.
The listening-report database is excluded from normal device backups on Apple platforms and Android. The current Android app also disables app backup and configures exclusions for cloud backup and device transfer. Other Apple app data may be included in device backups according to your settings. A device backup is separate from an Elseleaf account or synchronisation service.
International processing
Publishers, file hosts and service providers may process information in countries other than where you live. Their locations depend on the content and services you use. This includes providers serving voice-model files and publisher media. Hugging Face states that its services may process information in the United States and other countries where it or its providers operate; see its privacy policy.
Elseleaf’s website is hosted by RackNerd on servers in Seattle, Washington, United States.
Support and privacy enquiries are handled directly by Publishr Pty Ltd. Messages sent to leigh@elseleaf.com are received through Gmail, provided by Google. Email addresses, messages and attachments may therefore be processed outside Australia, including in the United States.
We use these services to operate Elseleaf and respond to enquiries. Our handling of information remains subject to the uses, sharing limits and security measures described in this policy.
Your requests and complaints
You can contact leigh@elseleaf.com to ask about information we hold, request access or correction, request deletion, or raise a privacy complaint. Depending on the law that applies, you may also have rights to restrict or object to processing or receive a portable copy of certain information. You can withdraw optional listening-statistics consent through Settings at any time.
We will consider your request, take reasonable steps to verify that it concerns your information, and respond within the period required by applicable law. If we cannot fulfil a request, we will explain why, subject to any legal restrictions. For a complaint, please describe what happened and the outcome you seek; we will investigate and provide a response.
You may also contact the privacy regulator responsible for your location. In Australia, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner provides information about privacy complaints and its jurisdiction.
Children
Elseleaf is intended for people aged 16 and over and is not directed at children under 16. The current app does not request your date of birth or independently verify your age.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child under 16 has provided personal information to Elseleaf, contact leigh@elseleaf.com. We will investigate and take reasonable steps to delete information we hold about that child, unless we are legally required to retain it. Information held by an independent publisher is also subject to that publisher’s privacy practices; we can help identify the relevant publisher for a request.
Changes to this policy
We will update this policy when our information-handling practices change and revise the date above. Where a change requires a new notice or consent, we will provide that notice or obtain consent before the relevant new processing begins.