Privacy Policy
Last updated 12 August 2026
The short version
- Basis has no ads, no trackers, and no analytics SDK. Nobody is buying your data, because we are not selling it.
- You can browse the whole library without an account. Nothing about your reading leaves your phone until you sign in.
- Signing in uses Sign in with Apple, so we get an email address and nothing else. If you use Apple's Hide My Email, we never see your real one.
- What we store is the stuff you deliberately made: the blocks you follow, your favourites, your notes, your own blocks, and how your widget is set up.
- You can ask for a copy of it or ask us to delete it, and we will do it.
Who this is about
Basis is an iPhone app that shows quotes from curated collections on your home screen. This policy covers the app, the home screen widget, and this website at basisquotes.com. It was written to be read, so if something here is vague in a way that matters to you, write to us and we will make it clearer.
In the language regulators use, Basis is the data controller for the information described below. Contact details are at the bottom.
What we collect
If you never sign in
Nothing about you. You can open the app, browse every block, read every quote, and pick your interests without an account. Those interests are saved to a file on your phone and are not sent anywhere. The app requests the quote library from our server the same way any app requests content, which necessarily involves your device's IP address reaching that server, but we do not build a profile from it or keep it as a record of you.
When you sign in
Basis offers exactly one way to sign in: Sign in with Apple. There is no password to create and no email or phone verification, because we deliberately removed the email path rather than maintain a second door. Apple sends us:
- An email address. If you choose Hide My Email, this is Apple's private relay address and we never learn your real one. Mail we send to it still reaches you.
- A user identifier that is unique to you and to this app. It is what ties your favourites to you and to nothing else.
- Your name, but only the first time you authorise the app, and only if you let Apple share it. Basis does not display a name anywhere, so nothing is built on it.
Apple never sends us your password, your Apple ID, your contacts, or your payment details.
What you make in the app
This is most of what we hold, and all of it is a result of something you chose to do:
- Blocks you follow from the library.
- Quotes you favourite, which is also how the Favorites shelf is assembled. There is no second copy of a quote to sync, just the fact that you starred it.
- Quotes you hide, so they stop appearing in your widget.
- Notes you write on a quote. These are short by design and are stored as you typed them. They are private to your account, they are never shown to anyone else, and nothing reads them for keywords.
- Blocks you create, including the name, description, tags, and which quotes you put in them. Your own blocks are private to you.
- Your widget setup: what you named it, which blocks feed it, and which tile theme you picked.
- Your interests from the onboarding picker, stored as a set of topic weights. They order the Browse list so the things you said you liked come up first.
Purchases
If you buy Basis Pro, the purchase itself happens through Apple. We never see your card, your billing address, or your Apple ID. We use RevenueCat to check whether a purchase is valid and still active, which means RevenueCat receives an anonymous purchase identifier, the product you bought, and the receipt Apple issued. We deliberately do not store your subscription status in our own database, because the store is the honest source of truth for it and two copies would eventually disagree.
This website
basisquotes.com is a static page hosted on Cloudflare Pages. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and embeds nothing from anywhere else. Cloudflare keeps standard server logs, which include IP addresses, for security and abuse prevention.
What we never collect
No advertising identifiers. No location. No contacts, photos, calendar, health, or microphone data. No behavioural analytics SDK, no session recording, no crash reporter that ships your data to a third party. The widget draws on your home screen but cannot see anything else on it, and Basis has no idea what other apps you have installed.
If we ever add crash reporting or basic product analytics, we will say so on this page before it ships and describe exactly what it sends.
What stays on your device
A fair amount, because the app is built to keep working without a signal:
- A cache of the library and of your own rows, written as ordinary JSON files inside the app's private storage. It is keyed to your account, so signing into a different one never reads the last one's data.
- Your appearance choice (match device, light, or dark) and whether you have finished onboarding.
- The widget queue: a pre-computed list of the quotes your widget will show next, plus the colour and type tokens for its theme, in a container shared between the app and the widget. This is what lets the widget rotate for days without waking the app or touching the network.
All of it lives in the app's own sandbox, and all of it is removed when you delete Basis from your phone.
Why we hold it
To run the thing you asked for. Your follows and favourites exist so the app can show them back to you and so they survive a new phone. Your widget setup exists so the widget knows what to draw. Your interests exist so Browse is not in an arbitrary order on your first day. Your email exists so we can identify your account and reach you about it.
Under GDPR terms, the basis is performance of our agreement with you for everything needed to run your account, and our legitimate interest in keeping the service working and secure for the rest. We do not rely on consent for marketing, because we do not send marketing.
Who else touches it
Four companies, each doing one job. None of them are permitted to use your data for their own purposes.
- Apple
- Sign in with Apple, and all payment processing for purchases. Apple's own privacy policy governs what they do with your Apple ID.
- Supabase
- Our database and authentication. This is where your account rows live. Hosted on Amazon Web Services in the United States (Oregon).
- RevenueCat
- Validates App Store receipts and tells the app whether Basis Pro is active. Receives an anonymous purchase identifier and the receipt, not your identity.
- Cloudflare
- Serves this website. Sees requests to basisquotes.com, not anything from inside the app.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. Under California law this includes not "sharing" it for cross-context behavioural advertising, which we have no mechanism to do even if we wanted to. We will also hand over data if a valid legal order requires it, and we will tell you unless we are forbidden from doing so.
Where it lives
On servers in the United States. If you are in the UK, the EU, or anywhere else with data transfer rules, using Basis means your data is processed in the US under the standard contractual clauses our providers operate.
How long we keep it
Your account data stays until you delete it or ask us to. There is no silent expiry, because an app you check in with twice a year should not lose your favourites for it.
When an account is deleted, the rows tied to it are deleted with it: your follows, favourites, hidden quotes, notes, your own blocks, and your widget configuration. Backups roll off on their own schedule, so a copy can persist in an encrypted backup for up to 30 days after that.
Your choices
See it or take it with you
Write to us and we will send you a copy of everything tied to your account in a readable format. No fee, no form to fill in.
Correct it
Most of it you can already change in the app: unfollow a block, unstar a quote, edit or clear a note, rename or delete a block you made. For anything else, ask.
Delete it
Email us from the address on your account, or from your Hide My Email relay if that is what you signed up with, and say you want the account gone. We will delete it and confirm when it is done.
Separately, you can revoke the app's access to your Apple ID at any time in Settings, Apple ID, Sign-In and Security, Apps Using Apple ID. That stops Apple vouching for you and you will not be able to sign back into the same account, but it does not by itself delete what we hold. If you want it gone, tell us.
Object, restrict, or complain
If you are in the UK or EU you can object to or restrict our processing, and you can complain to your local data protection authority. We would rather you came to us first, but it is your right either way.
Children
Basis is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect anything from them. If you believe a child has an account here, tell us and we will remove it.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what we collect or who sees it, we will update the date at the top and say what changed. Material changes get a notice in the app before they take effect, not a quiet edit.
Contact
[email protected]. A person reads it.