Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Gabriel Marchesan Almeida, Freiberufler (“we”, “us”, or “our”) collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal data when you use the Sagius mobile application (“the App”) and our website at sagius.app (together, “the Service”). This policy is designed to comply with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation — GDPR/DSGVO) and applicable German data protection law.

1. Data Controller

The controller responsible for the processing of your personal data pursuant to Art. 4(7) GDPR is:

  • Gabriel Marchesan Almeida, Freiberufler
  • c/o Postflex PFX-690-554
  • Emsdettener Str. 10
  • 48268 Greven
  • Email: contact@sagius.app

2. Data We Collect

a) Account Data

When you create an account, we collect your email address, display name, and authentication method (email/password, Google Sign-In, or Apple Sign-In). This data is processed by Firebase Authentication.

b) Usage Data

We collect information about how you interact with the App, including:

  • Quotes viewed, favourited, and shared
  • Screens visited and navigation patterns
  • Session count (number of times the App is opened)
  • Session duration (time spent in each session)
  • Total time spent in the App
  • Number of saved favourite quotes
  • Number of quotes shared

This data helps us understand how the App is used and improve the experience.

c) Device Data

We collect the following technical information about your device each session:

  • Operating system platform (iOS or Android)
  • App version number
  • Device language / locale setting
  • A push-notification token (Firebase Cloud Messaging) stored on your user record so notifications can be delivered to your device; it is deleted together with your account. Reading this token on your device is necessary to deliver the notifications you have requested (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG — German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act).

These values are kept on your user record as the latest value only (overwritten each session). The same kind of device and app information is also sent with usage events to Google Analytics for Firebase and kept there for the analytics retention period described in Section 4. It is used to understand platform usage and diagnose compatibility issues.

c.1) Profile and Region Data

Each session we also store:

  • Your device's time zone (for example Europe/Berlin)
  • Your device's region / country setting (for example BR), taken from the language and region chosen on your device — never from GPS.
  • An approximate location (city, region and country) that our server derives from your IP address when the App starts a session, via our hosting provider Vercel. We store only the resulting city, region and country on your account — never the IP address itself — and we never use GPS or ask for location permission. (Separately, Google Analytics derives its own approximate location; see Section 4.)
  • Optional age range (18–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54 or 55+), only if you choose to answer during onboarding or in Settings. You may also choose “Prefer not to say” or skip it.

These are stored for signed-in and guest users alike. We store only an age range — never your date of birth — and you can change or remove it at any time in Settings. We use this data to understand who uses Sagius and where, and to schedule content at sensible local times. Your approximate location is visible to our team on your account record (for example for support); in reports it is shown only in aggregate. Legal basis: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR); you can object at any time by writing to us, and the location is deleted with your account.

d) Payment Data

If you purchase credit packs, payment transactions are handled entirely by RevenueCat, Apple (App Store), or Google (Play Store). We do not receive or store your credit card number or payment details. We only store your credit balance and purchase history.

e) Preference Data

We store your in-app preferences, including language, theme, notification schedules, and favorite quotes. This data is synced between your device and our cloud service to provide a consistent experience across devices.

f) Philosopher quiz

Sagius may offer a “which philosopher are you?” quiz on the website. Scoring runs in your browser for instant feedback, but the answer array is also sent to our server so we can re-score it and issue a one-time erasure token tied to the same answers. Raw answers are not stored: the server uses them to produce a content-fingerprint digest, persists only the matched philosopher, the locale, and the one-time erasure token, then discards the answers immediately. The submission row is readable only by our infrastructure (Firestore rules deny every client read); the aggregate counts are world-readable. Completing the quiz does not create an account. The shareable result page names only the matched philosopher — not you. Art. 13 GDPR: the controller is Gabriel Marchesan Almeida, Freiberufler, Greven; the purpose is to show a public result page; the legal basis for processing the answers transiently and hosting the result page is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in operating the site). Art. 17 GDPR: if you saved the one-time erasure code shown after the quiz, you can zero that anonymous completion at /quiz/erasure. Email contact@sagius.app if you have a quiz-related request we can identify.

g) Chat conversations

When you chat with a philosopher, mentor, or the comfort companion in the App, your messages and the AI-generated replies are stored under your account so that your conversation history is available to you across sessions and devices. For signed-in users, the App may additionally maintain a short, AI-generated summary of each philosopher conversation so that replies can take earlier context into account (“memory”). Your messages are processed by our AI providers (Section 5) solely to generate the reply and are not used by us to train models. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (performance of the service you request). Conversation history and summaries are deleted when you delete the conversation in the App or delete your account (Section 7); you can also request erasure at any time via contact@sagius.app (Art. 17 GDPR). If you choose a grammatical form for replies (masculine, feminine or neutral), it is stored only on your device and sent with your messages so that replies in gendered languages are grammatically correct; we do not store it on our servers.

h) Reminders when you haven't used the App (push notifications and e-mail)

In short: if you haven't used the App for a few days, a week or two weeks, we may send you a reminder. Our server sends at most one reminder a day and at most one reminder e-mail a week, and only between 10:00 and 19:00 your local time; the App's own reminders on your device are separate and can arrive on the same day. Push reminders come only if you switched on “Daily Quote Reminder”, and those from our server only if you also agreed to them in the App (only current App versions can ask for this) — to stop them, switch it off. Reminder e-mails come only if you agreed to e-mails from Sagius and we cannot reach you by push — to stop them, tap “Stop these reminders” in any reminder e-mail or switch off “E-mails from Sagius”.

If you have not opened the App for a few days, we may send you a short reminder — for example today's quote (the first quote of each day stays free) or a “we miss you” note after a week. Push reminders are sent only if you have switched on “Daily Quote Reminder” in the App (Settings → Notifications). This switch is off until you turn it on; while it is off, you receive no push reminders from us. Current App versions schedule the first reminders themselves as local notifications on your device (after about 1–2 and 7 days without use), likewise only while this switch is on; for these, no data leaves your device. In addition, our server may send a push reminder after 14 days without use, but only if you have also agreed to reminders from us: by tapping “Turn on reminders” in a one-time prompt in the App (“Get one quote a day, plus an occasional reminder if you haven't visited in a while. You can turn this off anytime in Settings.”) or by switching on “Daily Quote Reminder” in Settings. If you had switched the reminder on before we introduced this consent, the App asks you once. Push reminders from our server are sent only if this consent is recorded on your account, which only current App versions can ask for. Reminder e-mails (see below) may be sent after 2, 7 and 14 days without use to older App versions, and only after 14 days to current App versions. The App's own reminders on your device are separate from our server's reminders and their limits, so an App reminder and a server reminder can occasionally fall on the same day. For these server reminders we process:

  • the time of your last activity (when you last opened the App or signed in), your App version, App language and your time zone or country — so that reminders stop as soon as you return and are only sent between 10:00 and 19:00 your local time;
  • whether you are a paying customer and your credit balance — only to choose the wording (for example, telling someone whose free credits are used up that the daily quote stays free);
  • the technical address our server needs to send a notification to your device (push token, Section 2 c), the position of your “Daily Quote Reminder” switch and whether you agreed to push reminders from our server;
  • for e-mail reminders, only the e-mail address stored with your marketing consent (see below);
  • a reminder record on your account: which reminders of the current period of inactivity were sent and the send times of the last 7 days. It enforces our limits for server reminders — never the same reminder twice in the same period of inactivity, at most one per day and three per week, and at most one reminder e-mail per week. The App's own local notifications are not part of this record;
  • a record of each reminder decision (which reminder, wording, language, channel, time, and the delivery result: number of devices reached, or the e-mail's delivery status). To check whether reminders actually help, about 1 in 10 accounts, chosen at random once and then kept fixed, simply gets no server reminders. Nothing else in the App changes for them.

Each reminder is sent only once, either as a push notification or, if we cannot reach you by push, as an e-mail. Legal basis for push reminders from our server: your consent — Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR. As proof of consent (Art. 7(1) GDPR) we store whether you consented or withdrew, the time (server time and your device's time), the version of the consent text shown and where in the App you decided (for example after a reply, a comfort conversation, a favourite, or in Settings). No e-mail address is involved in push reminders.

Withdrawing your consent (Art. 7(3) GDPR): you can withdraw your consent to push reminders at any time with effect for the future, free of charge and without giving reasons. Simply switch off “Daily Quote Reminder” in the App under Settings → Notifications (this stops both the App's own reminder notifications and our server's push reminders), or write to us (Section 12). Turning off notifications for the App in your device's system settings also stops them from being shown; the App records this as a withdrawal the next time you open or return to it. Withdrawing your consent to push reminders does not stop reminder e-mails, which follow your separate e-mail consent (see below).

E-mail reminders are sent only if you cannot be reached by push and you have consented to e-mails from Sagius in the App (Settings → Notifications → “E-mails from Sagius”, or a one-time prompt in the App). Consent can only be given from a signed-in account whose e-mail address has been verified, and only that address is used. This consent is separate from the notification switch: switching notifications off does not stop e-mails, and withdrawing e-mail consent does not stop notifications. If you switch off push reminders but agreed to e-mails, reminders may come by e-mail instead. Legal basis: consent — Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and § 7(2) no. 2 UWG (German Act against Unfair Competition). As proof of consent (Art. 7(1) GDPR) we store whether you consented or withdrew, the time, the version of the consent text shown, where in the App you decided, and the e-mail address, together with a log of every change. You can withdraw at any time with effect for the future, in three ways:

  • in the App, by switching off “E-mails from Sagius” (Settings → Notifications) — stops all our marketing e-mails, reminders included;
  • with the “Unsubscribe from all e-mails” link in every reminder e-mail — also stops all our marketing e-mails, no login needed;
  • with the “Stop these reminders” link in every reminder e-mail, or with your e-mail program's one-click unsubscribe button — stops reminder e-mails only; other e-mails you agreed to keep coming.

E-mails are delivered through Resend (Section 5); we do not track opens or clicks. No reminder e-mail goes to an address to which e-mail could not be delivered (hard bounce), was reported as spam or was unsubscribed.

Messages from a mentor you hired: if you hire a mentor in the App, that mentor may occasionally send you a message, delivered in the mentor chat and, if your device allows notifications, as a push notification. These messages are part of the service you chose when hiring the mentor (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) and do not depend on the “Daily Quote Reminder” switch. To stop their notifications, turn off notifications for the App in your device settings; to stop the messages themselves, end the mentor engagement in the App (“End relationship”). Separately, shortly before a mentor engagement ends, the mentor may remind you in the mentor chat that you can renew it; this reminder appears only in the chat, never as a push notification. It is based on our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR); you may object at any time (Art. 21(2) GDPR) by writing to us (Section 12), and we will stop sending it.

3. How We Use Your Data

We process your personal data only when we have a valid legal basis under Art. 6 GDPR. The following table describes each processing activity and its legal basis:

  • Provide the Service (account management, delivering quotes, syncing data across devices) — Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (performance of a contract).
  • Process payments (managing in-app purchases via RevenueCat/App Store/Play Store) — Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (performance of a contract).
  • Send notification reminders (daily quote notifications as configured by you) — Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (performance of a contract — user-configured feature).
  • Analytics and improvement (understanding usage patterns to improve the App) — Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest). Our legitimate interest is to maintain and improve the quality of the Service. You may object to this processing at any time (see Section 8).
  • Service e-mails (for example a notice that a new App version is available for your device, or the install link you asked for when joining a waitlist) — Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR where you requested the message, otherwise Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in keeping users informed about the Service they use).
  • Marketing e-mails (announcements, offers, review or feedback requests) — Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR (consent). We send them only to people who have given consent, and every such e-mail contains an unsubscribe link; you can withdraw consent at any time. E-mails are delivered through Resend (Section 5).
  • Reminders when you haven't used the App (push notifications, only if you switched on “Daily Quote Reminder” and agreed in the App to reminders from our server, and e-mails, only with your consent, when you have not used the App for some days; see Section 2 h) — Legal basis: for push notifications Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR (consent; you can withdraw it at any time, Art. 7(3) GDPR), for e-mails Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and § 7(2) no. 2 UWG (consent).

4. Analytics (Google Analytics for Firebase)

We use Google Analytics for Firebase, provided by Google Ireland Limited / Google LLC acting as our processor (Art. 28 GDPR), in addition to statistics we keep in our own Firebase Cloud Firestore database, to understand how Sagius is used.

The following data is sent to Google Analytics:

  • Usage events (for example screens opened, quotes viewed or shared, onboarding steps, paywall views, purchases)
  • Device and app information (platform, operating-system and app version, device model, language)
  • An approximate location (country, region, city) that Google derives from your IP address — Google does not share your IP address with us, and we never use GPS
  • Your device's country and time-zone settings
  • Your age range, only if you chose to provide it (optional)
  • For purchases: product, price and currency (the start of a free trial is recorded with a value of 0)

This data is linked to a random app-instance identifier, not to your name, email address or account ID.

Advertising identifiers: on iOS, the advertising identifier (IDFA) is read only if you allow tracking in Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt. On Android, the advertising ID is not collected. Ad-personalisation signals are disabled.

Purposes: understanding how the App is used, fixing problems and measuring the impact of new features. We do not use this data for advertising and we do not sell it.

Retention: Google Analytics keeps event data for up to 14 months. We export a copy to Google BigQuery (EU region) for our own analysis; that copy is retained for 14 months, after which it is deleted. Retention of our own statistics is described in Section 7.

Account deletion: deleting your account erases your data on the device and resets the Google Analytics identifier, so nothing recorded afterwards is linked to you. Data already sent remains under the previous random identifier until the retention period ends; on request to contact@sagius.app we will ask Google to delete it earlier.

Opt-out: you can switch analytics off at any time in the App under Settings → Privacy & data → “Share usage analytics”. While it is off, the App sends no analytics to Google; the choice persists across restarts. Crash reports (Firebase Crashlytics, Section 5) are not affected by this switch.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in maintaining and improving the Service). You may object at any time using the switch above or by contacting contact@sagius.app. Google's processing terms: Google Ads Data Processing Terms.

5. Third-Party Service Providers

We use the following third-party service providers (processors) to operate the Service. Each provider processes data on our behalf and is contractually obligated to protect your data:

  • Firebase Authentication (Google LLC) — User authentication and account management. Privacy Policy
  • Cloud Firestore (Google LLC) — Cloud data storage and synchronization of user preferences, favorites, and account data. Privacy Policy
  • Firebase App Check (Google LLC) — Security and fraud prevention to protect the integrity of the Service. Privacy Policy
  • Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google LLC) — Delivery of push notifications sent by our server (for example reminders when you haven't used the App, Section 2 h) to your device; receives your push token and the notification text. Privacy Policy
  • Google Analytics for Firebase (Google LLC) — Usage analytics as described in Section 4, with export to Google BigQuery (EU region). Privacy Policy
  • Firebase Crashlytics (Google LLC) — Crash reports: when the App crashes or hits an error, the error details and stack trace, device model, operating-system and app version and a random installation identifier (not your name, email address or account ID) are sent to Google and kept in the Firebase console for 90 days. We also export a copy to Google BigQuery (EU region); that copy is retained for 14 months, after which it is deleted. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in a stable App). The analytics switch in Section 4 does not turn crash reporting off. Privacy Policy
  • Mistral AI SAS (France) — Primary AI provider for chats with philosophers, mentors and the comfort companion, quote explanations and AI-generated quotes. Receives, through our server, the text you write, the recent conversation and memory summary needed for context and, if set, your chosen grammatical form (masculine, feminine or neutral) — not your name, email address or account ID, unless you write them in a message yourself. Privacy Policy
  • Google Gemini API (Google LLC) — Backup AI provider, used only when Mistral AI is unavailable; receives the same data as Mistral AI for that request. Privacy Policy
  • RevenueCat (RevenueCat Inc.) — In-app purchase management, purchase validation, and credit balance tracking. Privacy Policy
  • Vercel Inc. — Hosting of our website (sagius.app) and of the server that relays every AI and API request from the App (for example to Mistral AI or Google Gemini). Vercel processes your IP address and the content of these requests in transit, and keeps technical request logs for operating and securing the service. Privacy Policy
  • Resend (Resend Inc., USA) — Delivery of our e-mails (service e-mails such as update notices, and marketing e-mails where you consented; see Section 3). Receives your e-mail address, your name if we know it, and the message content. Resend records delivery events (delivered, bounced, marked as spam); we do not track whether e-mails are opened or links clicked (no tracking pixel, no link rewriting). We use these events to stop sending to addresses that bounce or complain and to see whether our e-mails arrive. Privacy Policy
  • Apple Inc. (App Store) — iOS app distribution and payment processing. Privacy Policy
  • Google LLC (Play Store) — Android app distribution and payment processing. Privacy Policy

6. International Data Transfers

Your personal data may be transferred to and processed in countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA), specifically the United States, by the following providers: Google LLC (Firebase, Google Analytics, Crashlytics, Gemini, Play Store), RevenueCat Inc., Vercel Inc. and Resend Inc.

These transfers are safeguarded by:

  • The EU-US Data Privacy Framework adequacy decision by the European Commission (July 10, 2023). Google LLC and RevenueCat Inc. are certified participants in the Data Privacy Framework.
  • Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) adopted by the European Commission, which provide additional contractual safeguards for the protection of your data.

7. Data Retention

We retain your data for the following specific periods:

  • Account data: Retained while your account is active. Deleted within 30 days of account deletion.
  • Usage statistics on your account (session count, time spent, favourites count and similar): kept while your account exists and deleted with it.
  • Daily aggregated statistics in our own database (counters such as sessions per day, containing no user ID or other personal identifier): kept for as long as the Service is operated; no automatic deletion is currently implemented.
  • Payment records: Retained for 10 years as required by German tax law (Abgabenordnung §147).
  • Notification preferences: Deleted immediately upon account deletion.
  • Device data: Latest value only on your user record (overwritten each session); copies sent with analytics events follow the Google Analytics retention (Section 4).
  • Google Analytics: up to 14 months (Section 4).
  • Our BigQuery copies of analytics and crash data: retained for 14 months, after which they are deleted (Sections 4 and 5).
  • Crash reports in the Firebase console (Firebase Crashlytics): 90 days (Section 5).
  • Reminder records (Section 2 h): the reminder record on your account and the record of each reminder decision are kept while your account exists and are deleted with it; the reminder record itself keeps send times of the last 7 days only.
  • Marketing-consent record and its change log: kept while your account exists, as proof of consent, and deleted with it.
  • Push-reminder consent record (Section 2 h): kept while your account exists, as proof of consent, and deleted with it.
  • E-mail blocklist: if you unsubscribe or withdraw consent, or an e-mail to you could not be delivered (hard bounce) or is reported as spam, we keep the e-mail address and the kind of opt-out on a blocklist, also after account deletion, solely so that we never e-mail that address again unless you consent again in the App or undo the unsubscribe on the confirmation page within 24 hours; after a hard bounce or a spam report, the address stays blocked. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR — legitimate interest in honouring your opt-out.

8. Your Rights Under the GDPR

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

  • Right of access (Art. 15 GDPR) — You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
  • Right to rectification (Art. 16 GDPR) — You have the right to request correction of inaccurate personal data.
  • Right to erasure (Art. 17 GDPR) — You have the right to request deletion of your personal data (“right to be forgotten”).
  • Right to restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR) — You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your data under certain circumstances.
  • Right to data portability (Art. 20 GDPR) — You have the right to receive your data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format.
  • Right to object (Art. 21 GDPR) — You have the right to object to the processing of your data based on legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) at any time.
  • Right to withdraw consent (Art. 7(3) GDPR) — Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.
  • Right to lodge a complaint (Art. 77 GDPR) — You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority if you believe your data has been processed unlawfully.

How to exercise your rights: Send an email to contact@sagius.app. No-account quiz completions can also be zeroed at /quiz/erasure with the one-time code. We will respond within 30 days as required by the GDPR.

Supervisory authority: The controller is based in 48268 Greven (North Rhine-Westphalia); the competent authority is the Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen (LDI NRW) — www.ldi.nrw.de

9. Cookies

The Sagius mobile app does not use cookies. Our website (sagius.app) may use essential cookies required for the website to function properly. For detailed information, please see our Cookie Policy.

10. Children's Privacy

Our Service is not directed at anyone under the age of 16, in accordance with Art. 8 GDPR (Germany applies the default age of 16). We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16 years of age. If we become aware that a child under 16 has provided us with personal data, we will take immediate steps to delete that data. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal data, please contact us at contact@sagius.app.

11. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. For material changes, we will notify you through the App or by email before the changes take effect. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page indicates when this policy was last revised.

12. Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your data protection rights, please contact us:

  • Gabriel Marchesan Almeida, Freiberufler
  • c/o Postflex PFX-690-554
  • Emsdettener Str. 10
  • 48268 Greven
  • Email: contact@sagius.app