Privacy Policy
The short version: the Aplomb app has no accounts and never asks who you are. Your settings stay on your device. The app sends anonymous usage statistics, tied to a random ID and not to you, which you can turn off in Settings. Videos play in YouTube's player, which is covered by Google's privacy policy. The only personal details we hold are what you send us: your email address if you join the waitlist, and your message if you use our contact form.
Who We Are
Aplomb is an independent project run by a small team. For any question about this policy or your data, email hello@aplomb.news. We reply within 5 working days.
The Aplomb App
What the app stores, and where
The app stores the country sections you add and the sources you hide on your device only. This information is not sent to Aplomb. Deleting the app deletes it.
The app's language follows your phone's language (English or French) unless you choose one in Settings > Language. It also sets the language of the reports: in French, you get French and English reports; in English, English reports only. The Québec and France sections are in French whatever the setting. On a new install on a phone set to French, the app turns on the Québec section if you are in Canada, or the France section elsewhere; anyone can add or remove them in the settings. Your language choice is stored on your device only, and your phone's language is not stored by Aplomb or linked to you.
Anonymous usage statistics
To understand which newsrooms and features people use, and to improve the app, the app sends usage statistics to PostHog, an analytics provider (PostHog Inc., data stored in the United States). The data goes through our own addresses, e.aplomb.news (and e.upright.news in older versions of the app), before reaching PostHog.
- No identity. Each installation gets a random ID created on your device. We never send your name, email address, phone number, contacts or advertising ID, and we do not create a profile of you.
- What is sent: the screens you open; which stories you watch, for how long, and their outlet, section and language; when you open a story's details, the "Visit" button or related stories; sound on or off; tab changes; the country sections and sources you turn on or off; videos YouTube refused to play; and when the app is opened, closed, installed or updated.
- Added by PostHog: your device model, operating system and app version, screen size, language and time zone, and an approximate location (country and city) that PostHog derives from your IP address. We do not use your IP address itself.
- Never collected: screen recordings, screenshots, your taps or keystrokes, your precise location, or anything you type.
- Your choice: turn it off at any time in Settings > Privacy > "Share anonymous usage data". The app then sends nothing to PostHog.
These statistics are not sold, not used for advertising and not shared with the news outlets.
What the app does not collect
There is no account, no sign-in, no likes and no comments. Aplomb does not collect your name, email address, contacts or precise location through the app, and the app contains no advertising software.
How the app gets its stories
The app downloads the list of stories from our database, hosted by Supabase in Canada (Montreal). It holds only public information about the videos, kept for 7 days. Like any request on the internet, this exchange uses your device's IP address, which the hosting provider may log for security and operations. We do not use it to identify you.
YouTube API Services
Aplomb uses YouTube API Services to show videos, which play in the embedded YouTube player provided by Google. Aplomb does not ask you to sign in to Google and does not access your Google account. When you watch a video, the YouTube player may collect usage data and set cookies under Google's own policies. By watching videos in Aplomb you agree to the YouTube Terms of Service; Google's handling of data is described in the Google Privacy Policy.
Links to news sites
When you open an outlet's website from the app, it loads on that outlet's site, which has its own privacy policy.
This Website
Visit statistics, no cookies. We count visits with Vercel Web Analytics: the page viewed, the referring site, your browser, operating system and device type, and your country, derived from your IP address. It sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. Visits are told apart by a hash of the request that changes every day and is not kept, so we cannot identify you or follow you from one day to the next. You can turn it off in our cookie settings.
No advertising. This site shows no ads and uses no advertising cookies. It stores two small preferences in your browser, described in our cookie policy.
Waitlist. If you join the waitlist on our download page, we store your email address, the platform you chose (iPhone or Android) and the date, in our database, hosted by Supabase in Canada (Montreal). If you live outside Canada, this means your email address is stored in another country. We use it only to tell you when Aplomb is available. We delete the list within 12 months of launch, or earlier on request.
Contact form. If you write to us through our contact form, we store your message, your email address, your name if you give it, the topic and the page you came from, in the same database hosted by Supabase in Canada. We use them only to reply, and delete messages after 12 months.
Videos on this site use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode and only load when you press play.
Hosting. The website is hosted by Vercel, which processes standard request data such as IP addresses to deliver and protect the site.
Legal Basis
Where data protection laws such as the GDPR apply, we store your waitlist email address on the basis of your consent, which you can withdraw at any time by asking us to remove it. The app's usage statistics and hosting logs are processed on the basis of our legitimate interest in understanding how Aplomb is used and in running and protecting our services; you can turn the statistics off in the app at any time.
Where Data Is Stored
Our database (stories, the waitlist and contact messages) is hosted by Supabase in Canada (Montreal). The app's usage statistics are stored by PostHog in the United States. The website and its visit statistics, and the e.aplomb.news and e.upright.news relays for usage statistics, are served by Vercel, which uses data centers in several countries, including the United States. These providers process data only on our behalf.
No Sale or Sharing of Personal Data
We do not sell personal data, share it for advertising, or use it to build profiles. This includes "selling" and "sharing" as defined by California law.
Your Rights
Depending on where you live, data protection laws such as the GDPR in Europe or privacy laws in the United States and Canada give you the right to access, correct or delete your personal data, and to object to its use. To use these rights, email hello@aplomb.news; for the waitlist, this simply means asking us to remove your address. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.
In Quebec, the person in charge of the protection of personal information at Aplomb can be reached at the same address.
Children
Aplomb is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal data.
Changes to This Policy
We will update the date at the top of this page when the policy changes, and note significant changes on our corrections page.
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