How Auren handles your data.

Information Auren handles

Your library

Imported books, articles, documents, images, audio, transcripts, cover images, and reading progress are stored by the Auren app on your device. If you turn on iCloud backup, Auren copies that library to the iCloud Drive account signed in on your device.

Sign in with Apple

Sign in is optional and is not required to browse Auren, buy or restore a subscription, import reading, or listen with Apple voices. If you choose to sign in for account-based cloud translation or to connect a cloud voice provider, Auren receives a stable private Apple account identifier. Auren does not request your name or email. Auren creates an account record, a session, and a Support ID so online features and support requests can be connected to your account.

Earlier Auren builds requested a name and email from Apple. The current app deletes those fields from the device, and Auren has removed previously stored email values from its service. You can delete the server account and its linked records at any time from the Account screen.

Article translation

When you choose article translation and confirm that you want to use the online service, Auren sends the article title, summary, selected text, and requested language through Auren's Cloudflare Worker to Google Gemini. This content is used to return the translation you requested.

Auren stores monthly source-word totals to enforce translation limits. Auren does not write the submitted article text or the returned translation to its D1 database or R2 storage. The translated copy is saved to your device as part of your Auren library and is included in iCloud backup if you turned that feature on.

Cloud narration with your API key

You can connect an xAI, OpenAI, or Google developer API key to use that provider's text-to-speech service. The key is stored in iOS Keychain on your device. When an uncached passage needs audio, Auren sends the key, that passage, the selected voice, and its language through Auren's Cloudflare Worker to the provider you selected.

Auren disables Cloudflare AI Gateway logging and caching for these narration requests. Auren does not write provider keys, submitted passages, or generated narration audio to its D1 database or R2 storage. The generated audio is cached on your device so replaying it does not send the same request again. Narration cache files are excluded from Auren's iCloud backup.

The selected voice provider processes each request under its own terms and privacy policy. Disconnecting a provider removes its saved key from Auren on that device. Clearing cached content removes locally generated narration audio.

Imported audio

When you ask Auren to transcribe an imported audio file, iOS may send the audio to Apple Speech for recognition. The resulting transcript is saved in your local Auren library.

Discover and personal feeds

Auren's service checks a limited catalog of U.S. federal-government and openly licensed feeds for written articles. It temporarily downloads feed and web-page data to check whether a link resolves, contains enough readable text, appears complete, and has a usable canonical URL and lead image. Auren stores the source, title, author, publication, canonical URL, image URL, publication date, topic, readiness results, and ranking data. It does not store the article body for Discover.

Discover metadata is normally removed 30 days after publication. When you open or save an article, the app downloads and prepares the article on your device. Saved articles remain in your local library until you delete them. Personal RSS feeds that you add are stored on your device and refreshed at your request.

Audio Cards and listening links

Auren renders Audio Card videos and speech on your device. When you export a video without creating a listening link, Auren does not upload that video or audio.

If you are signed in and choose to create a listening link, Auren uploads the short preview audio, public article metadata, attribution, playback position, captions, and word timing needed for the public preview. The share is linked to your Auren account so you can revoke it. Auren accepts article excerpts only when both the app and server can verify an allowed sharing basis from the canonical source. Otherwise, the preview is limited to the title, attribution, canonical source link, and commentary you wrote.

The public link uses a random address. Anyone with that address can play the preview and see its public metadata until it expires or you revoke it. Auren records limited funnel events such as page view, play, completion, App Store tap, app open, article start, and downstream share. Event records use an hourly timestamp, hashed random event or session identifiers, and coarse platform or referrer categories. They do not store a recipient account, article text, full referrer URL, or user-agent string. A short-lived hashed network bucket is used only to limit abuse.

Services Auren uses

• Apple for Sign in with Apple, App Store purchases, Apple Speech, and optional iCloud backup.
• Cloudflare for Auren's online service, account database, and network delivery.
• xAI for cloud narration when you connect and select an xAI API key.
• OpenAI for cloud narration when you connect and select an OpenAI API key.
• Google Gemini for cloud narration when you connect and select a Google API key.
• Google Gemini to translate article text when you request translation.
• Standard Ebooks as the source for Auren's downloadable public-domain book catalog.
• Approved public feeds for the limited government and openly licensed Discover catalog shown in the app.

These providers process information under their own terms and privacy policies.

Retention and deletion

Each account session expires 90 days after it is created. Your server account, Support ID, and linked usage records remain while your account is active.

You can delete your Auren account from the Account screen in the app. Account deletion removes the server account, active sessions, linked translation-usage totals, listening links, uploaded preview audio, share events, and legacy purchase or credit records tied to that account.

A listening link expires after 7 days by default. Auren allows a creator to choose an expiration between 1 hour and 30 days. Revoking a link removes its uploaded audio immediately. Expired preview audio is removed by the next hourly cleanup. Share event records are removed when their listening link is deleted.

Signing out of Auren or deleting your account also removes connected voice-provider keys from that device.

Deleting your Auren account does not delete the library stored on your device or an optional iCloud backup stored in your Apple account. You control that content separately on your device and through your Apple account.

Provider API keys and generated narration cache files are stored on the device. You can remove a key by disconnecting its provider and remove generated audio by clearing cached content before deleting the app.

Advertising and tracking

Auren does not show advertising, track you across other companies' apps or websites, or sell personal information.

Policy changes

If Auren's data handling changes, 21 Media LLC will update this page and its last-updated date.