Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated:

1. Who we are

Zalek Labs Ltd ("we", "us", "our") is a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17414810. Alhora is our product: a publishing application that helps authors format books for print and digital distribution. Our website is alhora.app.

Zalek Labs Ltd is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. We are based in the United Kingdom, and we process personal data in line with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

If you have any questions about this policy, please contact us at [email protected].

2. The short version

We collect the minimum needed to run your account and your plan: an email address, records needed to verify your existing access, and a record of which devices you have activated. Your manuscripts stay on your device unless you deliberately send something to us. Most of the measurement on this website is our own and is a count of how often things happen, with nothing in it that identifies anybody. There are three exceptions, and we would rather lead with them than bury them. We advertise Alhora on ChatGPT, and to do that we run OpenAI's advertising pixel on this site and tell OpenAI when someone who clicked one of our ads installs the app or subscribes. We use Google Analytics to see which pages are worth keeping, and Microsoft Clarity for session recordings and heatmaps that help us improve the website. The first time you arrive we ask, in a banner where declining takes exactly one click and is no harder than accepting; if you decline, or simply ignore it, OpenAI and Clarity are not loaded. Google Analytics may send cookieless page-view signals, but its analytics cookies are only enabled if you agree. Sections 3 and 9 set out what each involves, and the Cookies link in the footer changes your answer at any time. We do no behavioural profiling, we do not sell your data, and we never will.

To delete your Alhora account and associated data, see the account deletion instructions below.

3. What data we collect

Account information

When you create an account we collect your email address and a hashed version of your password. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile picture URL from Google. If you sign in with Apple, we receive a stable identifier and an email address, which may be one of Apple's private relay addresses. We do not receive or store your Google or Apple password.

We store the provider's permanent identifier for your account so that signing in again matches you to the same Alhora account.

For Sign in with Apple, we also store an encrypted refresh credential so we can revoke Apple's authorization when you delete your Alhora account. This credential is not exposed to the app or included in account exports, and is deleted with your sign-in connection.

Billing information

Apple processes purchases in the iOS and iPadOS app. We receive and verify signed transaction identifiers, product identifiers, an opaque account-binding identifier, subscription dates and purchase status, including refunds and revocations. These records associate purchases with your Alhora account and prevent duplicate credit grants. We do not receive your Apple Account password or payment card details. See Apple's Privacy Policy for Apple's handling of payment data. Accounts with purchases from other platforms may also have Stripe billing records.

Device information

When you activate Alhora, we store a device identifier, a device name (which may include a name you have given your device), its platform (macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, iPadOS or Android), a hashed device fingerprint where available, and the dates of activation and last use. This is used to enforce any applicable account device limit and to let you manage your devices.

Microphone and audio recordings

If you choose to record in Narration Studio, Alhora asks for microphone permission to capture your voice for an audiobook. Recording, playback, audio measurement and mastering run on your device. Recordings and audio exports are stored on your device. You can decline or revoke microphone access and continue writing or import an existing recording.

Microphone access does not by itself send audio to us. If you enable Alhora Cloud for a project, its snapshot includes audio files stored inside that project, including saved narration and mastered exports. Audio files outside the project folder are not included in that snapshot. We handle cloud copies under the cloud-save and retention rules below. Deleting your Alhora account does not delete recordings or exports on your own device.

AI usage records

If you use the optional AI features, we keep a record of each attempt: which kind of check it was, whether it succeeded, how long it took, and the number of tokens processed. These are counts and timings tied to your account — we use them to apply fair-use limits, to bill credits correctly, and to spot faults. We do not store the text you checked. We also keep a credit ledger, which records amounts and reasons only.

One narrow exception: a longer background "deep read" needs somewhere to hold your text between the moment you start it and the moment you collect the result. That text sits on our servers only while the job is running and is erased as soon as it finishes. The result itself is kept for you to retrieve, and is deleted when you delete your account.

Hosted ARC files

If you use hosted ARC links, we store the EPUB file you upload, its original filename, the recipient's name, an optional recipient email address, the link's expiry, and a download count. The recipient's email address, if you provide one, is never included in any response from our systems — not in the public download route, and not in your own listing.

Optional cloud saves

If you choose to save a book to Alhora Cloud, we receive its project snapshot, including manuscript text and any included images or other project assets, so you can retrieve it on another signed-in device. We store the snapshot and its title encrypted at rest, together with your account identifier, project identifier, revision, file size, checksum and save dates. Encryption keys are managed by our service; this is not end-to-end encryption. Local projects are not uploaded unless you enable cloud saving for them.

Support correspondence

If you email us, we keep your message and our reply so we can help you and pick up the thread later. If you send a file to help diagnose a problem, we use it only for that, and delete it afterwards.

Book availability alerts

If you request a book availability alert, we store your email address, the book you chose, and confirmation, cancellation and delivery records. After you confirm your email, we send one alert when that book becomes available to pre-order or buy. This does not subscribe you to an author's newsletter or Alhora marketing. You can cancel using the link in your confirmation email; no account is needed.

Technical logs

Our servers and the network in front of them produce standard logs — IP address, timestamp, request path, response status, user agent. We use these to keep the service running and secure. Application logs deliberately record counts, timings and status codes only, never the contents of a request.

Your manuscripts

Alhora is a local-first application. Your manuscript files, projects and exports are stored on your own device. Content reaches our service when you deliberately use a connected feature, such as an AI check, an ARC upload, an optional cloud save or a support attachment. Cloud saving stores a copy of the selected project on our infrastructure; it is not required for local writing.

Feature requests

If you post to the feature requests board, or vote on someone else's request, we store what you wrote and the fact that your account voted.

The board is public. Request titles, request text, vote counts and our replies are readable by anyone on the internet, with no account, and can be indexed by search engines. Treat anything you post there as published.

What is shown beside a request is a public handle you choose the first time you post — not your name and never your email address. Pick something you are happy to see in public and in search results. Your email is never displayed on the board or included in anything the board sends to a browser.

Some of it stays private: who voted for what is never shown, only the total, and if you report a request the person who wrote it is not told who reported it.

You do not have to use the board at all. Nothing about your account, your subscription or the app depends on it.

Measurement on this website

We count how often certain things happen on the marketing pages — how many people opened a guide, clicked a download button, or used one of the free calculators. We do this so we can tell which pages are useful, and it works like this:

  • The only thing stored is a number: one running total for each event, on each page, on each day. For example, “download clicked, on the KDP guide, on 8 August: 42”.
  • There is no identifier in it at all. No account, no session, no visitor id, no IP address — not even a hashed one — no device, no browser, no location, no referrer, no timestamp beyond the date.
  • Because there is nothing to link the counts to, they cannot be traced to you, and there is no way for us to reconstruct what any individual person did.
  • It sets no cookie and stores nothing on your device.
  • It is entirely our own, running on our own servers. No third party is involved and nothing is shared with anyone.

The counting described above is not personal data and stores nothing on your device.

If you arrived from one of our ads

We advertise Alhora on other platforms. When you click one of those ads, the link you follow carries the platform’s own numbers for the campaign and the ad — they are in the address bar when you land, and they identify the ad, not you. If, and only if, you arrive that way:

  • We add one to a counter for that ad, so we can see what our money bought. This happens either way, because it records that an advert we paid for was clicked and holds nothing about the person who clicked it — no cookie, no identifier, nothing stored on your device.
  • Only if you have agreed, we set one first-party cookie containing a random code we generated for that ad, and nothing else. There is no identifier for you in it — two people who click the same ad get an identical cookie — and it is HttpOnly, so no script on the page and no third party can read it. It lasts 30 days and is then gone. If you decline, or have not answered the banner, no cookie is set and there is nothing to link a later sign-up back to the ad.
  • If you go on to create an account within those 30 days, we record which ad brought it, and any purchase that account then makes is counted against that ad. That is a link between your account and an ad, and we would rather say so plainly than describe it as anonymous, because once you have an account it is not.
  • For most platforms, nothing goes back to them. Meta, Google and the rest are told nothing by us about what you did after you clicked. That counting happens on our servers and stays there.

Deleting that cookie costs you nothing: the only effect is that we cannot tell which ad you came from. Nothing about your account, your subscription or the app depends on it.

OpenAI's advertising pixel

We advertise Alhora inside ChatGPT. OpenAI, like every ad platform, will only run those ads properly if it is told which of them led to something — so this is a place where a third party is involved in measurement on this site, and where information about what you did goes back to somebody else. None of it happens unless you agreed to it in the banner. Here is all of it.

  • If you agreed, a script from OpenAI runs on the pages of this website. It is loaded from bzrcdn.openai.com. If you declined, or have not answered, it is not loaded at all — the page is served without it, rather than with it and asked not to do anything. It is not on the pages of the desktop app, which contains no analytics of any kind.
  • It stores things on your device. OpenAI's script sets a first-party __oppref cookie holding an identifier for the ad you clicked. Separately, we save a small record in your browser's local storage containing the campaign and ad numbers from the address bar, and the date you arrived. Both last 30 days and are then gone. Earlier versions of this policy said our measurement stored nothing on your device; that is no longer true of this part, and this paragraph replaces it.
  • We tell OpenAI when an ad worked. If you arrived from one of our ads and go on to sign in to the app, or to buy a subscription, our server sends OpenAI an event saying so. For a purchase, that event includes the list price and the plan you bought.
  • We do not send OpenAI anything that identifies you. Not your email address — not even a hashed one — not your name, not your IP address and not your browser's user agent. OpenAI's own format has fields for all of those and we leave every one of them empty. The only thing we send that is specific to you at all is OpenAI's own click identifier, which came from them, describes the ad rather than the person, and is what lets them match the sale to the advert.
  • We have switched off OpenAI's "automatic advanced matching". That is a setting which, left on, lets their script read what you type into forms on this site — an email address on the sign-up page, for instance — hash it, and send it to them to match you to an advert. It is on by default for new advertisers. We turned it off, because the previous bullet would otherwise not be true.
  • OpenAI is an independent controller of what it receives, and will use it for measuring and improving its advertising. Their handling of it is governed by their own privacy policy, not this one.

If you would rather none of this happened, decline in the banner, or use the Cookies link in the footer to change an answer you have already given. There is no consequence for doing so: nothing about your account, your subscription or the app depends on any of it. One thing we would rather state than leave implied: if you agreed at some point and later withdraw, we stop collecting from then on, but we do not go back and un-tell OpenAI about a sale it has already been told about.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 on this website to see which pages people find useful and which are not worth keeping. Its analytics cookies are only enabled if you agree; the cookieless signals sent without consent are described below.

  • If you decline, or have not answered the banner, no cookie is set. The tag is loaded with Google’s consent signals switched to “denied” before it is configured, which is what stops it writing anything — not a request afterwards to please forget. In that state Google receives an anonymous record that a page was viewed, with no cookie and no identifier that follows you between visits or between pages.
  • If you agree, it sets two first-party cookies, _ga and _ga_<property>, holding a randomly generated number for the browser you are using. That is what lets Google tell a returning visit from a new one. They last two years unless you clear them.
  • What Google receives is the address of the page, the address of the page you came from, and the general characteristics of your device and browser. Your IP address is used to work out an approximate location and, for visitors in the UK and Europe, is discarded rather than stored.
  • We never send it anything about your account. Not your email address, not your name, not a customer number, not what you bought — nothing that could tell Google which Alhora account you are, and no identifier of ours is passed to it. We do not use it for advertising: Google’s advertising consent signals are left off for everybody, including people who accept, so nothing here feeds ad targeting or is shared with advertisers.
  • Nothing from your manuscripts, ever. Google Analytics runs on this website only. It is not in the desktop app, and no part of a book you are writing is on this website to begin with.
  • Google is an independent controller of what it receives and handles it under its own privacy policy, not this one.

You can change your mind at any time with the Cookies link in the footer of any page, and blocking third-party scripts or clearing site data for alhora.app has the same effect. Nothing about your account, your subscription, your licence or the app depends on your answer.

Microsoft Clarity

With your agreement, we use Microsoft Clarity for website session recordings and heatmaps. It receives page content and interaction data, such as clicks, scrolling and pointer movements, to help us understand and improve the website. See Microsoft's data collection description and Microsoft's Privacy Statement.

If you decline or have not answered the banner, the Clarity script is not loaded. After acceptance, we grant analytics storage and keep advertising storage denied. Clarity is not installed in the Alhora app, private manuscript reading rooms, or App Store sign-in and return-to-app pages. Use the Cookies link in the footer to withdraw consent and stop loading Clarity on subsequent page loads.

What we do not collect

The iOS and iPadOS App Store app does not report device activations to advertising platforms. Its browser sign-in and return-to-app pages do not load Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity or OpenAI's advertising pixel, even if you previously accepted cookies on our website.

  • Our website measurement providers are OpenAI, Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity, as described above. Session recording is limited to the consent-based Clarity integration on the website. Tutorial pages also offer optional YouTube players, described below.
  • Our own aggregate counters do not identify visitors. Consented website analytics can distinguish browsers and sessions, and ad-campaign attribution can link an account to the ad that brought it.
  • No analytics of any kind inside the desktop app. Everything in the section above applies to this website only.
  • No behavioural profiling, and no automated decision-making with legal or similarly significant effects.
  • No special category data. Please do not send us any.

4. How we use your data, and our lawful basis

Under UK GDPR we must have a lawful basis for each purpose. Ours are:

  • Creating and running your account — email address, password hash, sign-in identifiers. Basis: performance of a contract.
  • Authenticating you across the desktop app and website. Basis: performance of a contract.
  • Saving and retrieving optional cloud copies — project contents and the account-linked save records described above. Basis: performance of a contract.
  • Taking payment and managing your plan — original billing-provider identifiers, plan status and transaction records. Basis: performance of a contract.
  • Keeping accounting and tax records of what you paid. Basis: legal obligation.
  • Enforcing the device limit and issuing export entitlements. Basis: performance of a contract.
  • Running AI checks you request, and the credit accounting behind them. Basis: performance of a contract.
  • Applying fair-use limits and daily caps to AI features. Basis: legitimate interests — keeping the service available and affordable for everyone.
  • Hosting ARC files you upload and serving them to the recipients you choose. Basis: performance of a contract.
  • Sending transactional email — password resets, receipts, service notices you need to receive. Basis: performance of a contract.
  • Answering support requests. Basis: performance of a contract, or legitimate interests where you are not yet a customer.
  • Publishing what you post to the feature requests board, under the handle you chose, and counting your votes. Basis: consent — you choose whether to post at all, and you give it by posting. You can withdraw it by asking us to remove a request.
  • Moderating that board — reviewing reports, hiding abusive or spam content, and deciding what to build next from what authors asked for. Basis: legitimate interests — keeping a public board usable and safe, and building the software our customers want.
  • Security, fraud prevention and diagnosing faults — logs, rate limiting. Basis: legitimate interests — protecting the service and its users.
  • Product and marketing email you opt in to. Basis: consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether our interest is outweighed by your rights, and we have kept the processing to the minimum that achieves the purpose. You can object to any of it — see section 8.

We will never sell your personal data, and we will never use it for advertising or share it with data brokers.

5. Who we share data with

We share data only with the service providers below, only to the extent needed to operate Alhora, and only under contracts that require them to protect it. None of them may use your data for their own purposes.

  • Stripe — payment processing, subscription management and invoices. Receives your email address and payment details you enter with them.
  • Render — cloud hosting for our servers and database. Holds the account, billing-reference, device, AI usage, ARC and cloud-save records described above. Optional cloud-save files are held in private encrypted object storage or private server storage; our server processes the selected project when saving and retrieving it.
  • Cloudflare — network and security layer in front of alhora.app. Processes connection data such as IP addresses in transit.
  • Anthropic — the AI provider behind Alhora's optional AI checks. Receives the passage of text you submit for a check, and nothing else — no name, no email, no account identifier. Your text is not used to train models.
  • Google — only if you choose to sign in with Google.
  • Apple — if you choose to sign in with Apple, or make an App Store purchase. Purchase verification uses an opaque account identifier and signed transaction records.
  • Google Fonts — this website loads its typefaces from Google's font service, which means your browser's IP address is visible to Google when a page loads. No fonts are loaded from third parties inside the desktop app.
  • Resend — delivers our email: transactional messages such as password resets and purchase confirmations, and, only if you have asked for them, release notes. Receives your email address and the contents of that message.
  • OpenAI — advertising measurement, and only while our ads are running. Receives the events described earlier in this section. It is the one entry on this list that is not simply a supplier acting on our instructions: OpenAI is an independent controller of what it receives, and uses it for its own advertising measurement under its own privacy policy.

We may also disclose data where the law requires it — for example in response to a valid court order — or to establish or defend legal claims. If Alhora or Zalek Labs Ltd is ever sold or reorganised, your data may transfer to the new owner, who would be bound by this policy or a materially equivalent one; we would tell you first.

6. Where your data is processed

Our servers are hosted by Render in the United States, and Stripe, Resend, Anthropic, Cloudflare, OpenAI, Google and Apple also process data outside the UK.

Where personal data leaves the UK, we rely on an approved transfer mechanism — UK adequacy regulations where they apply, and otherwise the International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with the supplementary safeguards those require. You can ask us for details of the mechanism used for any specific transfer.

7. How long we keep data

  • Account data — for as long as your account exists. Deleting your account removes it from our systems immediately.
  • Billing records — retained by us and the payment provider for up to 7 years after your last transaction, to meet UK tax and accounting obligations. These survive account deletion because the law requires it. App Store records retain an opaque purchase association after deletion so that a refund can be processed and the same transaction cannot grant credits again.
  • Device activations — until you deactivate the device or delete your account.
  • AI usage records and credit ledger — for the life of the account, then deleted with it.
  • AI deep-read text — erased the moment the job finishes, whether it succeeded or failed. The result is deleted with your account.
  • Cloud saves — kept until you delete the cloud copy or your account. Replacing a save removes the previous stored snapshot after the new save commits. Deleting a cloud copy removes its stored snapshot and title; a record of its identifier, revision and deletion remains until account deletion to prevent old devices from restoring a deleted copy. Upload retry receipts for superseded revisions are eligible for cleanup after 30 days. Account deletion removes cloud keys, book records and retry receipts, and schedules deletion of their stored encrypted files. Failed file removals are retried by storage cleanup; deleting a cloud copy does not delete your local project.
  • Hosted ARC files — the link stops working at expiry (you choose, up to 30 days) or when you revoke it. Files are removed when you delete the link or your account, and may also be lost earlier on a server redeploy.
  • Sign-in handover tokens — the temporary tokens used to pass a desktop sign-in from your browser to the app expire after 5 minutes and are deleted on pickup.
  • Feature requests you posted — kept after you delete your account, but no longer connected to you: the request stays on the board shown as from a deleted account, and your handle is released for someone else to use. They are kept because other authors' votes and our public replies are attached to them, and deleting the request would take those with it.
  • Your votes and any reports you sent — deleted with your account. Removing your votes lowers the totals on the requests you voted for.
  • Support correspondence — up to 2 years after the matter is closed.
  • Technical logs — kept for a short rolling period by our hosting and network providers, then deleted automatically. They are never used to build a profile of you.

Delete your Alhora account and data

You can delete your account yourself from the account settings, including Delete account in the iOS app. It is immediate and cannot be undone. Cancel any recurring subscriptions with the provider first. In the iOS app, use Manage App Store subscriptions for Apple purchases. Deleting your Alhora account does not by itself stop a recurring payment.

To request deletion without installing or opening the app, email [email protected] from the email address on your Alhora account and ask us to delete your account and associated data. We may ask you to verify ownership before we act. We will respond within one month and explain any information we must retain. Cancel recurring subscriptions with their original billing provider first; if you need help with this, include that in your request.

Two things deliberately outlive the account, and we would rather say so plainly than have you find out: billing records, because tax law requires it, and anything you posted to the public feature requests board, which stays but is detached from you as described above. If you want a request of yours taken down as well, email us and we will remove it.

8. Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

  • Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
  • Rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
  • Erasure — ask us to delete your data ("right to be forgotten"). We may need to keep billing records for the statutory period.
  • Restriction — ask us to pause processing while a dispute about accuracy or legitimate interests is resolved.
  • Portability — request your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
  • Object — object to processing based on legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time.
  • Withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent. Withdrawing it does not affect processing already carried out.

To exercise any of these rights, email [email protected]. We will respond within one month, and will tell you if we need longer because the request is complex. There is no charge. We may ask you to confirm the email address on the account before we act, so that we do not hand your data to someone else.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you can complain to the UK's supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner's Office — ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or 0303 123 1113. We would rather you told us first so we can put it right.

9. Cookies and local storage

The Alhora website uses strictly necessary storage:

  • A session cookie and a CSRF token cookie, set by our web framework to keep forms and sign-in secure.
  • Browser localStorage, which holds your sign-in tokens so you stay signed in between visits.
  • A cookie recording your answer about the others, named alhora_consent. It holds one word — whether you agreed or declined — and no identifier for you. It is strictly necessary in the plainest sense: it exists so that a refusal is remembered and honoured rather than the question being put to you on every page. It lasts six months, after which we ask once more.

And one more, only if you arrive through a referral link:

  • A referral cookie, set only when you follow a link of the form alhora.app/r/… that another author has shared. It contains that author's referral code and nothing else — no identifier for you — and it exists so that if you go on to create an account we know who to credit. It lasts 30 days and is then gone. It is a first-party cookie: it is never sent anywhere but to us, and no third party can read it. Deleting it costs you nothing; the only effect is that the author who recommended us is not credited.

And one more, only if you have agreed and you arrive by clicking one of our ads:

  • A campaign cookie, set only when you follow one of our ads from another platform. It contains a random code we generated for that ad and nothing else — no identifier for you, so two people who click the same ad get an identical cookie — and it exists so that if you go on to create an account we can tell which ad paid for itself. It lasts 30 days and is then gone. It is a first-party cookie: it is never sent anywhere but to us, no third party can read it, and no script on the page can either. Section 3 describes in full what we do and do not do with it. Deleting it costs you nothing.

And, only if you have agreed, two more set for advertising measurement. Decline and neither exists, because the script that sets them is never loaded:

  • OpenAI's __oppref cookie, set by OpenAI's advertising script, which runs on every page of this site. It holds an identifier for the ad you clicked. It lasts 30 days.
  • An attribution record in localStorage, under the key alhora_oai_attribution. It holds the campaign and ad numbers from the address bar and the date you arrived — no identifier for you — and it is what lets us tell OpenAI which ad led to a sale weeks after the click. It expires after 30 days.

And, only if you have agreed, two for measurement:

  • Google Analytics’ _ga and _ga_<property> cookies, holding a randomly generated number for this browser and nothing that identifies you to us. They are what lets Google tell a returning visit from a new one. They last two years. Decline and they are never written: the tag is loaded with Google’s consent signals already set to “denied”, so there is no moment at which the cookie exists and is then removed. Section 3 sets out what Google receives either way.

And, only if you have agreed, Microsoft Clarity analytics cookies:

  • Microsoft Clarity's _clck and _clsk cookies remember a pseudonymous browser identifier and connect page views into a session recording. The script is not loaded before acceptance. We keep Clarity's advertising storage consent denied. See Microsoft's cookie documentation for its cookie purposes.

None of this measurement storage is strictly necessary, and you can refuse them all without losing anything. We ask you the first time you arrive, in a banner where Decline is the same size and the same one click as Accept, sits first, and is not hidden behind a “manage options” screen. Ignoring the banner counts as declining: we treat silence as a no, never as a yes.

Changing your mind takes one click too. The Cookies link in the footer of every page forgets your answer and asks again, whichever way you answered the first time. Blocking third-party scripts, using your browser’s tracking protection, or clearing site data for alhora.app all work as well; so does any content blocker. Nothing about your account, your subscription, your licence or the desktop app depends on your answer, and we will never gate anything behind accepting. Section 3 sets out exactly what is sent to OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, and what is deliberately not.

The measurement cookies we use are listed above. Optional YouTube players are described below. The aggregate counting described in section 3 sets no cookie at all; the referral and campaign cookies above are our own, are readable only by us, and hold no identifier for you. Clearing your browser storage signs you out and loses nothing else.

One cookie above is not covered by the banner and we would rather say so than leave you to notice: the referral cookie, set only when you deliberately follow an alhora.app/r/… link another author shared. It exists to credit the person who recommended us, holds their code and no identifier for you, and we have kept it outside the banner because declining it would quietly cost that author money rather than protect you from anything. If you would rather not carry it, deleting it costs you nothing.

Optional YouTube tutorials

Our tutorials initially show images hosted by Alhora. When you choose “Watch tutorial”, we load an embedded player from youtube-nocookie.com. This connects your browser to YouTube and sends connection information, including your IP address. YouTube may use browser storage as part of playback. You can leave these players unloaded and continue using the rest of the website. The separate “Watch on YouTube” links take you to YouTube.

10. Security

We protect your data with:

  • HTTPS on all connections, with HSTS enforced.
  • Passwords hashed with industry-standard algorithms (never stored in plain text).
  • Short-lived JWT access tokens, with rotating refresh tokens.
  • Webhook signature verification for all Stripe events.
  • Rate limiting on authentication, password reset and AI endpoints.
  • Application logging that records counts, timings and status codes only — never the contents of your requests.

No system is 100% secure. If a breach affects your rights and freedoms, we will report it to the ICO within 72 hours and tell you without undue delay where the risk to you is high. If you become aware of a security vulnerability, please report it to [email protected] and give us a reasonable chance to fix it before disclosing it publicly.

11. Children

Alhora is not directed at children under 16, and accounts are for over-16s. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by posting a notice on the website. The "last updated" date at the top of this page indicates when the policy was last revised.

13. Contact

For any questions or requests regarding this privacy policy: