Apple Books & Privacy

Apple collects books usage data, not associated with your Apple ID, to improve and personalize Apple Books. Your searches, browsing, purchases and device trust score may be used to personalize your experience, send you notifications including for Apple marketing, improve the store, and prevent fraud.
 

Apple Books is designed to protect your information and enable you to choose what you share.

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  • We collect your personal data so that we can provide you the content you purchase, download, or want to update in the App Store and other Apple online stores.
  • We also use information about your account, purchases, and downloads in the stores to offer advertising to ensure that Ads in the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks, where available, are relevant to you. You have choices with respect to this advertising, as described below.
  • We use information about your purchases and downloads in the stores, and other activities in Apple Books to tailor features, offer personalized recommendations, and send you notifications including for Apple marketing. You can opt out of the use of this data for this purpose, as described below. We collect non-personal data about user interactions with books to improve Apple Books for our users.
  • To help identify and prevent fraud, information about how you use your device, including the approximate number of phone calls or emails you send and receive, will be used to compute a device trust score when you attempt a purchase. The submissions are designed so Apple cannot learn the real values on your device. The scores are stored for a fixed time on our servers.
  • To find ways to improve the stores, we use information about your browsing, purchases, searches, and downloads. These records are stored with IP address, a random unique identifier (where that arises), and Apple ID when you are signed in to the App Store or other Apple online stores.

Protecting the privacy and security of your information is a priority for everyone at Apple. We work hard to collect only the data we need to make your experience better, and when we do collect data, we believe it’s important for you to know what we’re collecting and why we need it, so you can make informed choices. Apple Books, like every Apple product and service, is designed with these principles in mind.

Providing the Stores

We use your personal data to provide the services and features in the App Store and other Apple online stores, including iTunes Store and Apple Books. This information includes, for example, your account and payment information, which you can access and change in settings, and your purchase and download history.

When you download content from Apple Books, identifiers such as your device’s hardware ID and IP address are logged by Apple along with your Apple ID.

As a convenience to you, Apple Books syncs your bookmarks, notes, and collections across your signed-in devices and computers. This information is stored in association with your Apple ID.

Improving the Stores

To improve the experience in the App Store and other Apple online stores, we collect information about your usage of Apple Books, including when you open or close the store, what content you search for, the content you view and download, and your interactions with notifications. We also collect information about your device such as the type of device, the version of your operating system, and the amount of free space on your device. We may use this information to assess whether requested content can be downloaded, to understand general trends in use of device storage, and whether your device is connected by Wi-Fi or cellular. What you search for also makes it possible for us to offer trending searches.

We collect user interactions with books to understand user engagement, prioritize features, and understand aggregate reading activity. This information is associated with random unique identifiers for each user and each book so that Apple does not learn a particular user’s reading activity. For books downloaded from Apple Books, usage is aggregated across users in association with information about the book, such as genre. For books or other documents not downloaded from Apple Books, we collect file format but no information about the content of the book.

We use iCloud to sync identifiers using end-to-end encryption for books usage activity across your devices that are signed in to iCloud. To reset these identifiers on iOS, go to Settings > Books and tap to turn on Reset Identifier.

Personalizing the Stores

We use your interactions with Apple Books to help you discover the content that’s most relevant to you. For example, knowing what content you view or download makes it possible for us to offer personalized features like More Books You Might Like. We recommend content that we think will be of interest to you based on what you’ve previously searched for, viewed, downloaded, updated, reviewed, or added to your Want to Read List. We also use your reading activity, such as your progress within a book, to generate more relevant recommendations. This reading activity is not associated with your Apple ID. We use your purchase history and payment methods together with account information derived from your Apple ID. You can turn off personalization features in the App Store, Apple Books, iTunes Store, Apple TV, Podcasts, and for subscriptions from Apple, by turning off Personalized Recommendations for your Apple ID. On iOS and iPadOS devices, go to Settings > [your name] > Media & Purchases, tap View Account, and then tap to turn off Personalized Recommendations.

Siri suggests content you might like based on on-device processing of information derived from the apps you use. This information is not sent to Apple. You can disable this at any time on your iOS or iPadOS device by going to Settings > Books > Siri & Search, and tapping to turn off Show in App.

Communicating with You

Apple may use information about your account, such as the Apple products you own and your subscriptions to Apple services, to send you communications about the Apple Books and other Apple products, services, and offers that may be of interest to you. Apple may also use information about your activity within Apple Books to send you communications about new features, content, and offers available on Apple Books.

You may receive these communications by email, if you consent to receive email marketing. You can change your email preferences and opt out of receiving these emails by going to appleid.apple.com, or on iOS or iPadOS devices by going to Settings > [your name] > Name, Phone Numbers, Email. You may also receive these communications by push notification. To update your notification preferences or to opt out of notifications on iOS and iPadOS devices, go to Settings > Notifications > Books.

Advertising

Apple-delivered advertising helps people discover apps, products, and services on the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks. We use information about your device, account, purchases, subscriptions, and downloads to ensure that ads are relevant. When you search on the App Store, we also use your search terms. We create groups of people, called segments, who share similar characteristics and we use these groups for delivering targeted ads. Information about you is used to determine which segments you are assigned to, and thus, which ads you receive. To protect your privacy, targeted ads are delivered only if more than 5,000 people meet the targeting criteria. The information used to determine which ads are relevant to you is tied to random identifiers and not tied to your Apple ID.

If the Personalized Ads setting is turned on, Apple’s advertising platform may use your information to serve ads that are more relevant to you. If you do not want to receive ads targeted to your interests from Apple’s advertising platform, you can choose to turn off Personalized Ads. Turning off Personalized Ads will prevent Apple from using your information for ad targeting. It may not decrease the number of ads you receive, but the ads may be less relevant to you.

Learn more about Apple Advertising & Privacy at www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertising.

Learn about how to opt out of personalized ads on the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks at support.apple.com/kb/HT202074.

Sharing with Third Parties

We are obligated to provide some non-personal data about your content purchases to strategic partners that work with Apple to provide our products and services, help Apple market to customers, and sell ads on Apple’s behalf to display in the App Store and Apple News and Stocks. For example, we may share non-personal data with content owners so that they can measure the performance of their creative work, meet royalty and accounting requirements, and improve their products and services.

Applicable Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data

We process your personal data in the Books app generally for performance of your contract with Apple as necessary for providing the service and to comply with our legal obligations. Where consent is the appropriate legal basis, we seek it in accordance with applicable local law.

Where applicable local law provides, we process the following categories of personal data as necessary for purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party, including information about:

  • Your use of the Books app, including features you use (for example, what you add to your Want to Read list), what content you search for, the content you view, your reviews, and your interactions with notifications
  • Your account, such as the Apple products you own, your subscriptions to Apple services, and your purchases and downloads
  • Your device’s hardware ID and IP address

These legitimate interests include:

  • Optimizing and improving the service for you and others
  • Helping you to discover content that’s most relevant to you
  • Sending you communications about Apple Books and other related Apple products, services, and offers that may be of interest to you
  • Providing reporting for content owners
  • Preventing fraud and other malicious activity

Retention

We retain personal data associated with your purchases and downloads for the periods specified by applicable laws relating to financial reporting, which vary by region. For most customers, that requires at least a 10-year retention period, but in regions such as China that period can be 30 years. We also retain a record of your purchase and downloads of content for at least as long as you have an account with us to allow you to redownload that content, again in line with our applicable terms. We retain other information such as browsing activity and searches for a shorter period, most typically two years. The period chosen takes account of applicable legal requirements to retain data and specific business use cases. However, some information, such as purchases but not your stored card details, may be retained as business records even after you close your account or stop using Apple Books or other Apple online stores.

When you use a payment card, Apple may retain and automatically update your card number and billing information for future purchases, recurring transactions, or other uses you authorize. Apple may obtain this information from your financial institution or payment network, and also use it for fraud prevention and verification.

Preventing Fraud and Other Malicious Activity

We also collect personal data to prevent fraud and other malicious activity in Apple Books and other Apple online stores, and other Apple apps and services. This information includes device information, such as device type and software version, location information (if available), download and purchase history, and other interactions with the stores. When you initiate a purchase, Apple may use information about your historical business relationship with Apple to process the request and determine whether to provide the product or service in advance of authorization by the payment partner.

We also compute a device trust score on your device when you attempt a purchase using information about how you use your device, including the approximate number of phone calls or emails you send and receive. The submission is designed so Apple cannot learn the real values on your device. The score is stored for a fixed time on our servers.

At all times, information collected by Apple will be treated in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/privacy

Published Date: September 18, 2023