Privacy Policy — Pagely: PDF Maker
Effective date: 9 August 2026
This policy explains how Pagely — PDF Maker ("Pagely", "the app") handles your information. Pagely is published by North Stack Studio ("we", "us"), which is the data controller for the purposes of the UK and EU GDPR. You can reach us at northstackstudio8@gmail.com about anything on this page.
The short version
- Your documents never leave your phone. Scanning, OCR, editing, merging, compression and every other document operation happens on your device. We operate no servers that receive your files, and we cannot see them.
- There is no account. We do not collect your name, email address or contacts.
- The free version shows ads. Google AdMob, Google Firebase Analytics, Google ML Kit and RevenueCat do receive limited data — device identifiers, coarse device details, app interaction events and purchase records. Details below.
- Payments are handled by Google Play. We never see your card or bank details.
1. Your documents stay on your device
- Scanning and camera images are processed on-device. Camera frames are used only for live edge detection and capture, and are never transmitted.
- Text recognition (OCR) and barcode scanning use machine-learning models bundled inside the app that run offline. The pages you scan are not uploaded. (The ML Kit component does report anonymous usage and diagnostic statistics about itself to Google — see section 3 — but never the content of your pages.)
- Your PDF library is stored in the app's private storage, which other apps cannot read. Password-protected documents remain encrypted; when you unlock one, the temporary decrypted copy exists only for that viewing session and is deleted afterwards.
- Documents are excluded from Android's cloud backup. We deliberately opt them out, so your library is never copied to Google Drive. The trade-off is that your documents do not transfer to a new phone — export anything you want to keep. Your app settings do transfer.
- Sharing is always your action. A document leaves the app only when you explicitly share, export or open it elsewhere, and you choose the destination.
Because your files never reach us, we cannot access, recover or delete them for you. They are yours alone.
2. Permissions the app requests
- Camera — to scan documents and read QR/barcodes. Used only while the scanner is open.
- Photos (Android's system photo picker) — when you import images, the picker gives Pagely access only to the specific photos you pick, never your whole gallery.
- Notifications — only if you set an expiry reminder on a document. Reminders are generated on your device.
Pagely does not request location, contacts, microphone or broad file-storage access.
3. What our partners collect, and who receives it
Pagely itself collects nothing. These third-party components run inside the app and transmit data to their own servers:
Advertising — Google AdMob
The free version shows ads. AdMob may collect your device's advertising ID, coarse device information (model, OS version, language), ad interaction data (which ads were shown, viewed or tapped) and an approximate, IP-derived location for ad delivery and fraud prevention. Google uses this for its own advertising purposes, which means this is a genuine sharing of data with a third party, not merely processing on our behalf. See Google's Privacy Policy and how Google uses information from apps that use its services.
Analytics — Google Firebase Analytics
We use Firebase Analytics to understand aggregate usage — which features are opened, session counts, app version — so we can improve Pagely. It collects device identifiers, coarse device information, an IP-derived approximate location, and app interaction events, including an automatic event when a purchase completes. It never receives your documents or their contents. Pagely ships no crash-reporting SDK; we do not receive crash reports or stack traces.
On-device machine learning — Google ML Kit
Text recognition and barcode scanning run entirely on your device. The ML Kit libraries nonetheless send Google anonymous diagnostic and usage statistics about themselves (such as library version, latency and error counts). Your page content is not part of that.
Consent — Google User Messaging Platform
In the EEA and the UK, a consent dialog appears before any ad request. The consent SDK records your choice and processes limited technical data to do so.
Purchases — Google Play Billing and RevenueCat
Payments are processed by Google Play; we never receive your card, UPI or bank details. We use RevenueCat as our service provider to validate purchases and track entitlements. RevenueCat receives your purchase and subscription history along with an anonymous identifier it generates; it does not receive your name or email.
Identifiers used
Between them these components use: the Android advertising ID, a Firebase installation ID, an App Set ID, and an anonymous RevenueCat user ID. None of these identify you by name, and no account ties them together.
4. Summary of data collected
| Category | Collected by | Purpose | Shared |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approximate location (from IP) | AdMob, Firebase Analytics | Ads, analytics, fraud prevention | Yes |
| Purchase history | Play Billing, RevenueCat, Firebase Analytics | App functionality, analytics | Yes |
| App interactions | Firebase Analytics, AdMob | Ads, analytics, fraud prevention | Yes |
| Diagnostics | AdMob, Firebase Analytics, ML Kit | Analytics, functionality, security | Yes |
| Device or other IDs | AdMob, Firebase, RevenueCat | Ads, analytics, fraud prevention | Yes |
| Your documents, photos and files | Nobody — never transmitted | — | No |
All of this is sent over encrypted (HTTPS/TLS) connections.
5. Your choices
- Change or withdraw ad consent (EEA/UK). Open Settings → Ad privacy options in the app at any time. Withdrawing is as easy as giving consent, and takes effect on the next ad request.
- Remove ads entirely by purchasing Pagely Pro or the one-time Remove Ads option. This stops ad requests and the data collection that goes with them.
- Reset or delete your advertising ID in Android Settings → Privacy → Ads. Deleting it stops personalised advertising across all apps.
- Uninstall the app. Because nothing is backed up to the cloud, uninstalling permanently deletes your documents, thumbnails and database from the device.
6. Keeping and deleting your data
We hold no copy of your documents, so there is nothing for us to retain or delete — we cannot delete what we never received. Data held by our partners is retained under their own policies, linked above; Google Analytics data is retained for a limited period set in our Firebase configuration.
To ask about, access or delete data held by us or to raise a concern, write to northstackstudio8@gmail.com. If you are in the UK or EEA you have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and portability, and the right to complain to your local data protection authority. Where we rely on consent (advertising in the EEA/UK) you may withdraw it at any time as described above; elsewhere we rely on legitimate interests in operating and improving the app.
7. Children
Pagely is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your country) and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has provided data through the app, contact us and we will act on it.
8. International transfers
Our partners are global services and may process data on servers outside your country, including in the United States. Those transfers are governed by the partners' own safeguards, including the standard contractual clauses described in their privacy policies.
9. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes materially we will update the effective date above and, where the change is significant, note it in the app. Continuing to use Pagely after a change means you accept the updated policy.
10. Contact
North Stack Studio
northstackstudio8@gmail.com