Privacy

By the Book for iPhone and iPad. Last updated October 11, 2026.

By the Book is made by one person, Ryan Pliske. It is free, has no ads, no account and no tracking. This page says what the app keeps, where, and what leaves your phone.

What stays on your phone

• Nightly reviews, your sobriety date and your Ask conversations are stored only on your device, encrypted, and are never sent to us or anyone else. You can lock reviews behind Face ID.
• Settings such as whether you finished onboarding and whether you agreed to the Ask notice.
• Where you left off in a speaker recording.
• Location, if you allow it, is used on the phone only to sort meetings by distance. It is never stored or sent anywhere. You can enter a ZIP code instead.

"Erase everything on this phone" in Settings removes all of it.

What leaves your phone

Ask. When you send a question, it goes to our server, which sends it to OpenAI (to search the text of the book) and to Anthropic (to write the reply). The app asks for your agreement before the first question. The server does not store your question or the reply, and neither appears in its logs.

To count questions, the app creates a random anonymous id for your phone the first time you ask. It has no name, email or phone number behind it. Our server keeps a count of questions per id per day, and a daily total cost, and nothing else. "Erase everything on this phone" discards the id.

Speakers. Playing a recording fetches the audio from our storage. No id and no credential is sent with that request.

Usage. The app records which screens are opened and which buttons are tapped (for example "review_begin"), through Firebase Analytics, so we can see which features are used. It never records what you wrote, what you asked, a page number, a meeting, your date or your day count.

What we never collect

No name, email, phone number or contacts. No account. No advertising identifiers, and no data is sold or shared for advertising.

Children

The app is for adults and is not directed at children under 13.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the date above changes with it. Questions: tplisk@gmail.com.

This app is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., or any A.A. group or service office. It was made by one A.A. member and speaks for no one.