Chapter One Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 1, 2026

This policy explains what information Chapter One collects, how we use and share it, and the choices you have. A few commitments up front:

• We don't sell your information, use it for targeted advertising, or use advertising trackers.
• We don't send your photos, messages, profile or books to outside AI services, and we don't use your information to train AI models that anyone outside LibraryThing uses. The AI we use to suggest matches and check content runs on our own systems.
• We don't infer your religion, politics, sexual orientation, health, ethnicity or similar characteristics from your books or anything else.
• Location access is optional. Other members never see where you are — only a rounded distance.
• Your profile is shown only to members whose search filters you match.

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

Chapter One is operated by LibraryThing.com, Inc. ("LibraryThing," "we," "us"), 286 Spring Street, Portland, ME 04102, which is responsible for your information. This policy covers the Chapter One app and the website at chapteronedating.com (the "Service"). LibraryThing's other services have their own privacy policies and don't use your Chapter One information (see Section 8 for how LibraryThing's servers help run Chapter One).

2. Information we collect

• Account information. Email address, password, date of birth, the name you go by, and your verified mobile phone number. From: you; Apple or Google if you sign in with them (name and email; Apple may give us a private relay address instead of your real email); our phone-verification provider confirms the code you enter.
• Profile information. Photos (including photos of your books or bookshelves), bio, short answers and essays, lists, captions, optional answers about things like religion, politics, drinking and smoking, the place name you display (free text you write yourself), your age (from your date of birth), and the books you list. From: you.
• Who you'd like to meet. Your gender and the genders of the people you'd like to meet, which you set when you join, plus any other search filters you set. These decide who you see and who sees you; they aren't shown on your profile. From: you.
• Location. If you allow it, your phone's location. If you don't, the place you enter for matching. We keep a record of changes. From: your device, with your permission; you.
• Activity. Likes and passes, matches, blocks, unmatches, and the messages you send and receive. From: you and other members.
• Purchase information. What you bought, when, and the transaction record. We don't receive full card numbers. From: Apple or Google.
• Usage and device information. How you use the Service, device type, operating system, app version, IP address, push-notification tokens, crash logs and performance data. From: your device, collected automatically.
• Safety information. Reports you make or that others make about you, results of our automated checks, moderation decisions and appeals. From: you, other members and our systems.
• Information we compute. Compatibility estimates between you and other members (never shown to anyone), where a face appears in a photo (so we can crop it), and the results of automated content checks. From: our own systems, using the information above.
• Communications with us. Support requests, appeals and feedback. From: you.

3. Your books

You enter your books directly in Chapter One. Every book you add is visible to the members who can see your profile; there is no option to keep individual books private. Books can say a lot about you, including your religion, politics, sexuality or health, so please consider this before adding a book.

We use your books to suggest matches, both by comparing book lists directly and by having software on our own systems, including AI models, estimate how compatible two profiles are. Those estimates are used only to order and suggest matches. They are never shown to you or anyone else, and we don't use them, or your books, to infer or record your religion, politics, sexual orientation, health, ethnicity or similar characteristics.

4. Your location

Every member sets a location, but location access is optional. If you allow it, we use your phone's location to show you people in your area (roughly within 60 miles counts as local, though we also suggest people farther away) and to detect spam and fake accounts. If you don't allow it, you enter a place instead, and we use that.

Other members never see your location or the place used for matching. The place name on your profile is separate: it's free text you write yourself, it can be as playful as you like, it isn't used for anything, and members see it exactly as you wrote it. Alongside it they see a rounded distance between you, such as "around 20 miles," which is deliberately imprecise.

You can turn off location access in your phone's settings at any time. We keep your location and the record of changes to it for as long as we keep your other account information (Section 12).

5. Sensitive information

Some information on Chapter One is sensitive.

• Who you'd like to meet. When you join, you tell us your gender and the genders of the people you'd like to meet. We use those answers to decide who we show you and who sees you. They never appear on your profile. Because they can indicate your sexual orientation, we treat them as sensitive.
• Optional profile questions. The questions about religion, politics, drinking and smoking are optional. If you answer them, your answers appear on your profile, and our matching software may take them into account when suggesting matches.
• Your bio, your answers and your books may reveal your sexual orientation, religion, politics, health or other sensitive matters if you choose to include them. They're shown on your profile because you put them there.
• Your precise location, if you allow it, is treated as sensitive by some state laws.

We use sensitive information only to provide the Service — to decide who you see and who sees you, to show your profile, to suggest matches, and to keep the Service safe. We tell you what each piece of sensitive information is used for at the moment we ask for it, and we collect it only when you go ahead. Using what you've told us about yourself is different from guessing: we don't infer or record sensitive characteristics you haven't stated, from your books or anything else, and we don't use sensitive information for any other purpose.

6. How we use information

• Create, verify and run your account. Account information, including phone verification.
• Show your profile to other members. Profile information, including your books and displayed place name, and a rounded distance.
• Suggest matches. Profile information, books, filters, location or chosen place, and the compatibility estimates we compute.
• Deliver messages and notifications. Activity, push tokens.
• Keep members safe and enforce our Terms. All categories, as needed, using automated checks on our own systems and staff review (Section 7).
• Detect spam and fake accounts. Location, device information, phone number, activity.
• Process purchases. Purchase and account information.
• Provide support and respond to appeals. Account information, communications with us, safety information.
• Maintain, secure and improve the Service. Usage and device information, crash and performance data.
• Send account and safety messages, including billing notices, verification codes, and fraud alerts (Section 8). Account information. These can't be turned off while you have an account.
• Tell you about Chapter One, such as new people near you or new features, by email or push notification. Account information. You can turn each of these off under Protagonist > Account or with the unsubscribe link in any email.
• Comply with the law and protect our rights. All categories, as needed.

7. Automated systems, AI and who can see your content

On our own systems only. The AI models that estimate compatibility and check content run on LibraryThing's servers. We don't send your information to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or any other outside AI service, and we don't use your information to train AI models for anyone else. If that ever changes, we'll update this policy and tell you first.

Content checks. Automated checks review photos when you upload them and some text when you save it. They can hold content for staff review, flag it, and notify you; they never remove content or close accounts on their own — people do that. On your phone, the app detects where a face is in a photo so it can crop it; we store the position of the face, not a face template, and we don't use it to identify anyone.

Messages. Messages are not end-to-end encrypted. No automated system reads your messages as you send them. Our staff can read a conversation when it's reported, when content in it is flagged, or when the law requires it. When you or the other person unmatch, block or delete an account, the conversation disappears from the app for you both, but copies remain in our systems for the period in Section 12, and the other person's copy is retained with their data.

Photos. Staff may view your photos when they're flagged or reported, and when you ask us to check a face photo.

8. How we share information

We share information only as follows:

• With other members whose filters you match: your profile — photos, name, age, bio and answers, displayed place name, books — a rounded distance, and the messages you send. Members you've blocked can't see your profile.
• With service providers who help us run the Service under contracts that limit their use of your information: Apple and Google (sign-in, purchases, push notifications); Twilio (phone verification — it receives your phone number and sends the code); and New Relic (performance and error monitoring — it may receive request data such as your IP address and account identifier). We host Chapter One and send its email from our own servers in Massachusetts; no hosting or email provider sees your information.
• With LibraryThing's own systems. LibraryThing's servers help run Chapter One (for example, looking up the coordinates of a place you type). LibraryThing's other services — the catalog, TinyCat and the rest — don't use your Chapter One information.
• Fraud alerts. If we remove a member for suspected fraud or a false identity, we tell the members who exchanged messages with them the removed member's profile name and why they were removed (see the Code of Conduct and Community Guidelines).
• For legal and safety reasons: to comply with law or legal process, respond to lawful requests from authorities, protect anyone's safety, report apparent child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as federal law requires, or investigate fraud or violations of our Terms.
• In a business transfer, such as a merger or sale of LibraryThing or Chapter One, subject to this policy.

When you follow a link to a bookstore, the bookstore may collect information under its own privacy policy. Some bookstore links are affiliate links.

We don't sell your information, share it for targeted advertising, or show third-party ads.

9. Cookies

The Chapter One website is informational. It uses only the cookies needed to run the site. The app uses no third-party analytics or advertising tools. We don't track members across other websites or apps, so "Do Not Track" and Global Privacy Control signals don't change how we handle your information; we honor them where the law requires.

10. Your choices and rights

You can view and edit most of your information in the app, delete content, turn off location access in your phone's settings, disable your account, and delete your account, all under Protagonist > Account.

Depending on where you live, you may also have the rights below. To use any of them, email [email protected].

• Know and access. Ask whether we process your personal information and what we hold, including the categories we collected, where they came from, why, and the categories of third parties we disclosed them to. This includes the information we compute about you (Section 2).
• Delete. Ask us to delete your personal information, subject to the exceptions in Section 12 and the law.
• Correct. Ask us to correct inaccurate information.
• Portability. Receive a copy of your information in a portable format.
• Opt out of sale, sharing and targeted advertising. We don't sell personal information, share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use it for targeted advertising, and haven't in the past 12 months, so there is nothing to opt out of.
• Limit use of sensitive information. California residents can ask us to use sensitive personal information only as needed to provide the Service. We already limit our use to those purposes.
• Opt out of profiling. Some states let you opt out of automated profiling used for decisions with legal or similarly significant effects. Chapter One's compatibility estimates only order match suggestions; we don't use personal information for decisions of that kind.
• Third-party direct marketing. We don't disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing. California residents may ask about such disclosures under California Civil Code §1798.83.
• Equal service. We won't deny you service, charge you a different price or give you a different quality of service because you used any of these rights.

Verification. We'll verify your identity before acting on a request, for example by asking you to confirm details that match our records.

Authorized agents. Someone you authorize can make a request for you where state law allows, with your signed, written permission; we may need to verify your identity and where you live.

Appeals. If we decline your request, we'll explain why. You can appeal by emailing [email protected] with "Privacy appeal" in the subject line. If we deny your appeal, we'll tell you how to contact your state attorney general.

11. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect your information, including encrypting stored phone numbers. No system is completely secure, so we can't guarantee security. If a breach affects your information, we'll notify you as required by law.

12. How long we keep information

While your account is open, we keep your information for as long as you keep it on the Service, plus the history described below.

When you delete your account, your profile disappears from the Service immediately, and we delete your personal information within 90 days, except:

While your account is disabled, everything stays as it is.

13. Children

Chapter One is only for people 18 and older. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If we learn that someone under 18 has an account, we'll close it and delete their information, keeping only what we need to stop them re-registering and what the law requires us to preserve.

14. United States only

Chapter One is offered only in the United States and isn't intended for people outside it. We store and process information in the United States — on our own servers in Massachusetts — and our service providers process it in the United States too.

15. Changes to this policy

If we make material changes, we'll tell you in the app or by email before they take effect, and update the effective date above.

16. Contact us

LibraryThing.com, Inc., 286 Spring Street, Portland, ME 04102, [email protected].