Privacy Policy

Last updated: 21 October 2026

Hamesh ("we") is an independent app operated by Hayfa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This policy explains what personal data we collect when you use Hamesh, why, and the choices you have. Contact us at hello@hameshbooks.com with any question or request.

What we collect

• Account details: your email address, used to sign you in.
• Profile: display name, short bio, favourite genres, avatar colour and any photo you upload.
• Activity: clubs you create or join, posts, replies, likes, poll votes, reports and blocks.
• Reading shelves: books you add and your reading progress. Shelves are private to you.
• Ratings: the stars you give books.
• Friends and private messages: who you're friends with, friend requests, and the messages you send and receive, including when they were read.
• Technical data: basic logs (such as IP address and device type) kept by our hosting providers for security.

We don't collect payment details, precise location or contacts, and we don't sell personal data.

Why we use it

• To run the service you asked for: sign-in, clubs, discussions and shelves.
• To keep the community safe: reviewing reports and enforcing our Terms.
• To fix problems and improve Hamesh, using aggregated information where possible.

We process your data with your consent, which you give when you create an account, and to provide the service you ask for. You can withdraw consent at any time by deleting your account.

Who can see what

• Your display name, avatar, bio, favourite genres, club memberships and posts are visible to other Hamesh users and visitors.
• Your book ratings are public and appear on your profile.
• Your email address and reading shelves are not shown to other users.
• Your friends list and friend requests are visible only to you and the other person involved.
• Private messages can be read only by the two people in the conversation. If you report a message, we may review that message and the conversation around it to keep people safe.
• Club hosts can see reports about posts in their club, but not who filed them.

Service providers and storage location

We use these providers to run Hamesh: Supabase (database, sign-in and photo storage), Netlify (website hosting), Google (sending sign-in emails through Gmail), Google Books and Open Library (when you search for a book, your search words are sent to them), and Jitsi Meet (when you join an online meeting room). They process data on our behalf under their own security commitments. Our database is stored outside Saudi Arabia. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and transfers outside the Kingdom are made in line with the PDPL and its regulation on transferring personal data abroad.

How long we keep it

We keep your data while your account is active. When you delete your account, your profile, posts, replies, likes, votes, shelves and any clubs you host are deleted from our database straight away. Copies in our providers' backups are overwritten within 30 days.

Your rights

Under the PDPL you can ask to be informed about how your data is used, to access a copy of it, to correct it, and to have it deleted. You can edit your profile at any time and delete your account from Profile → Account → Delete account. For anything else, write to hello@hameshbooks.com and we will reply within 30 days. You can also complain to the Saudi Data & AI Authority (SDAIA).

Children

Hamesh is for people aged 13 and over. If you are under 18, please use Hamesh only with the permission of a parent or guardian. If we learn that someone under 13 has an account, we will delete it.

Changes

If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect.