Privacy Policy

This page is maintained by Plainly ("Plainly", "we", "us"), the seller and operator of the Plainly application, to answer common privacy questions about the service. It describes what we collect, why, and the controls you have. Plainly is not a law firm and this document is not legal advice.

Who is responsible for your data

Plainly is the data controller for the personal data described on this page. That means we decide what personal data is collected through the Plainly app and how it is used. For billing data, Paddle.com acts as the Merchant of Record and is an independent controller for the payment information it collects directly from you at checkout.

Information we collect

• Account data: your email address, a chosen display name, and an encrypted password hash managed by our authentication provider.
• Documents you upload: the original file (PDF or image) and the plain-language decoding we produce from it.
• Billing data: subscription status and transaction history. Card details are handled by our payment processor (Paddle, acting as merchant of record) and are never stored on our servers.
• Basic technical data: logs required to operate the service and diagnose errors.

How we use your data and our legal basis

We only use your personal data for the purposes below, and each purpose has a legal basis under applicable data protection law (including the UK GDPR and EU GDPR):

• Providing the service — decoding your documents, showing the results, and keeping your saved history available in your account. Legal basis: performance of a contract with you.
• Payments and subscription management — creating and managing your subscription and keeping records of transactions. Legal basis: performance of a contract and compliance with legal obligations (tax and accounting).
• Security and abuse prevention — detecting fraud, abuse, and misuse of the service, and keeping the service reliable. Legal basis: legitimate interests in protecting Plainly and its users.
• Support — responding to your questions and requests. Legal basis: legitimate interests, or performance of a contract where the request concerns your account.
• Legal compliance — responding to lawful requests and meeting our regulatory obligations. Legal basis: compliance with legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use your documents to train third-party AI models.

Where your documents live

Uploaded files are stored in a private cloud bucket scoped to your account. Only you can read them through the app. Decoded results are stored in a database row that is also scoped to your account.

AI processing

To produce a decoding, we send the contents of your document to a third-party AI provider through a gateway. The provider processes the request to generate a response and does not retain the content for model training.

Who we share data with

• Hosting and infrastructure providers that store your data and run the app on our behalf.
• Paddle.com, our Merchant of Record, which processes payments, manages subscriptions, handles refunds, and takes care of tax and invoicing.
• AI provider, via a gateway, to generate the plain-language decoding of your document.
• Professional advisers (for example legal or accounting) and authorities where we are required to share information by law.

Your controls

• Auto-delete: set an expiration on any saved document; it will be deleted automatically at that time.
• Manual delete: delete a document at any time from your history.
• Sharing: a share link is only active while you keep it enabled and can be revoked at any time.
• Account deletion: email us to close your account and remove your data.

Retention

Documents remain until you delete them or until their auto-delete time is reached. Basic account and billing records are kept as long as needed to operate the service and to meet legal, tax, and accounting obligations.

Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data, including encryption in transit, access controls scoped to your account, and private storage for uploaded files.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or export your personal data, to object to or restrict certain processing, and to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at the address below. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

Children

Plainly is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Contact Plainly at support@plainly.app.