Privacy Policy
Last updated: 19 July 2026
Who we are
Beyond News is a news app that translates and explains the news of the country you have moved to. This policy covers the app and this website.
Beyond News is the data controller for the information described here (the one responsible for how it is handled) and is based in Portugal. You can reach us at hello@beyondnews.ai.
The short version
- We collect what you tell us when you sign up, and how you read, because reading behaviour is what lets the app judge what to explain to you.
- We do not sell your data, show you ads, or track you across other apps.
- Your account and reading data are stored in the European Union.
- Nothing about you is sent to the AI models that write the articles.
- You can export or permanently delete everything from inside the app.
What we collect, and why
Your account
When you sign in with Google or Apple we receive your name, email address, and profile photo. We store your name and photo; your email address stays with our authentication provider and is not copied into our own database.
Why we can do this: it is necessary to perform our contract with you (GDPR Article 6(1)(b)). There is no account without it.
What you tell us about yourself
During setup you choose which country's news you want. In your profile you can optionally add a display name, nationality, date of birth, current location, and preferred reading language.
Why we can do this: contract. You asked for news from a particular place, in a particular language.
How you read
This is the important one, so it is worth being specific. We record which articles you open, how long you spend on them, which paragraphs you linger on, which people, places and organisations you tap, which explanations you follow, and which stories you skip.
We collect this because it is the product. Beyond News works by noticing what you already seem to understand and what you do not, and adjusting how much it explains. An app that did not observe how you read would have nothing to calibrate against.
Why we can do this: contract. Personalised explanation is the service you signed up for, not an add-on. You can switch personalisation off in Privacy & Data at any time, and we will stop using your reading behaviour to build your profile.
Bookmarks and reports
We store what you bookmark, and any article you report to us together with the comment you write.
Why we can do this: contract for bookmarks; our legitimate interest in fixing bad content for reports.
Crash and error reports
When the app crashes or hits an error, a report goes to Sentry, which processes it inside the EU. These reports do not carry your name, email, account identifier, or IP address. They do include technical context, such as the screen you were on and which parts of our API the app was calling, because without it a crash report is not actionable.
Why we can do this: our legitimate interest in the app not being broken (Article 6(1)(f)). You can turn crash reports off in Privacy & Data.
Technical information
Like any app or website, our hosting and content-delivery providers see your IP address and basic request information when your device connects to them. This is how the internet works rather than something we set out to collect, and we do not use it to build a profile of you.
Why we can do this: legitimate interest in operating and securing the service.
How your feed is personalised
Beyond News builds a picture of which subjects, people and places you appear to be familiar with, based on how you read. That picture decides which stories you are shown, in what order, how much background each article includes, and which terms get an explanation attached.
This is automated, and the law calls it profiling, so we want to be plain about its limits. It only shapes what you read. It does not produce any decision with legal or similarly significant consequences for you. We do not use it to set prices, assess you, or make judgements about you that reach outside the app. Nothing about your profile is sold, shared for anyone else's purposes, or used to target advertising.
If you would rather the app did not do this, switch personalisation off in Privacy & Data. The app keeps working; it just stops calibrating to you.
What we don't do
- No advertising. There are no ad networks or advertising identifiers in the app.
- No selling or sharing. We do not sell your data and do not share it with anyone for their own purposes.
- No cross-app tracking. We do not track you across other apps or websites, which is why you never see Apple's tracking permission prompt.
- No product analytics. We currently run no analytics or usage-tracking service of any kind.
- No push notifications. Not built yet, so no device tokens are collected.
- Nothing about you goes to the AI models. The models that write and summarise articles receive news reports only. Your identity, profile and reading history are never sent to them, and they play no part in personalising your feed. That is ordinary arithmetic on our own servers.
Who else handles your data
We use a small number of service providers, who process data on our instructions and may not use it for anything of their own:
- Supabase: our database and sign-in, hosted in Ireland. Holds your account, profile, bookmarks and reading history.
- Neo4j Aura: the knowledge graph that tracks which subjects you have encountered, hosted in the EU. It holds only your account identifier and those connections: no name, email or photo.
- Sentry: crash and error reports, processed in the EU.
- Railway: hosts the API your app talks to, in the EU.
- Cloudflare: serves this website and delivers article images.
- Google and Apple: only when you sign in, and only to confirm that you are who you say you are.
Where your data is stored
Your account, profile and reading data are stored in the European Union.
Some of our providers run global networks, so limited technical data, principally your IP address as your device connects, may be handled outside the EU or EEA. Where that happens, the transfer is covered by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.
Separately, the AI models used to write articles are operated by providers in the United States. As set out above, they receive news content only, never anything about you.
How long we keep it
We would rather tell you what actually happens than describe a schedule we do not run:
- Your account, profile, bookmarks and reading history are kept until you delete them or delete your account. We do not currently expire them automatically.
- Reading history can be cleared on its own, at any time, from Privacy & Data.
- Crash reports are kept for as long as Sentry retains them under our plan, and are not linked to your account.
- A record that a deletion happened is kept after you delete your account, containing your account identifier and the date. We keep it so we can show that we honoured the request, and it holds nothing else about you.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you can:
- See what we hold: Privacy & Data → "See what we hold"
- Get a copy to take elsewhere: Privacy & Data → "Export my data"
- Correct anything wrong: Profile → You
- Delete everything: Privacy & Data → "Delete my account". This is permanent.
- Object to, or restrict, processing we do on legitimate-interest grounds: the crash-report and personalisation toggles do this directly, and you can email us about anything else.
You do not have to pay to exercise any of these, and we will respond within one month. If you think we have handled your data badly, please tell us first, but you are entitled to complain directly to a data-protection authority. Ours is the Portuguese CNPD; you may also complain to the authority where you live.
Keeping it safe
Traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted, access to the production databases is restricted, and we keep the number of places your data lives deliberately small. No system is perfectly secure, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.
Children
Beyond News is not intended for children, and you need to be at least 16 to use it. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone younger. If you believe a child has created an account, email us and we will remove it.
Cookies
This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics or tracking scripts. The app is not a website and does not use cookies either.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes we update the "last updated" date at the top. If a change materially affects you, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.
Who is behind Beyond News
Beyond News is run from Portugal by an individual rather than a company. In practice that means your data is looked after by one person rather than passed around a team, and that the same person reads the email address below.
If you need the operator's full name and contact details in writing, whether to exercise a data-protection right or to take a complaint further, just ask and we will provide them.
Contact
For anything at all about your data, including questions, requests and complaints, email hello@beyondnews.ai.