Privacy policy
Your library is yours.
In short: Ibid. has no account, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. We do not receive, collect or store any of your data. Your library stays on your device, in your own iCloud only if you turn on backup, and in your Obsidian vault only if you set up sync. When you look a book up, its ISBN, or its title and author, is sent to public library catalogues.
Who is responsible
Ibid. is published by Derwan Consulting Ltd (“we”), a company registered in England and Wales, number 08617945, registered office 167–169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor, London W1W 5PF. It is made by Andre Astovasadourian. To get in touch, see Support.
What we collect
Nothing. Ibid. has no server of its own and contains no analytics, crash-reporting, advertising or other third-party code. We cannot see your books, passages, notes, photos or how you use the app.
What stays on your device
Your books, passages, notes, reading status, ratings, projects and cover photos are stored on your iPhone or iPad. They are included in your device’s own backups, as for any app.
- Camera. Ibid. uses the camera to photograph book pages, scan barcodes and photograph covers. Page photos are read on your device to find the text; the photo itself is not kept, only the text you choose to save. Cover photos you take are kept on your device.
- Photos. Choosing a photo uses the system picker, which gives Ibid. only the photo you pick. Saving a quote card to your photo library asks your permission first.
What is sent when you look up a book
To find an edition, Ibid. sends the book’s ISBN, or the title and author you typed, to these public catalogues:
- Open Library, run by the Internet Archive (openlibrary.org, covers.openlibrary.org and archive.org). Internet Archive terms and privacy.
- BnF Catalogue général, run by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (catalogue.bnf.fr and openapi.bnf.fr). BnF legal notice.
Ibid. also fetches cover images from these catalogues by catalogue number, including automatically when the app opens for books that are missing one. As with any website, these services see your device’s IP address when they answer. Nothing else is sent: never your passages, notes, reading status, projects or photos. Their handling of requests is governed by their own policies.
Optional iCloud backup
If you turn on Automatic backup, Ibid. saves recovery copies of your library to your own iCloud Drive, in a container belonging to the app. This is stored by Apple under your Apple Account; we have no access to it. It is off until you turn it on.
Obsidian sync
Obsidian sync is optional and off until you set it up. When you choose your Obsidian vault:
- Ibid. creates one folder in it, named Ibid, and keeps one note per book there, with its details, passages, notes, reading status and rating. It reads that folder to bring back edits you make in Obsidian. The rest of your vault is never read or changed.
- If you also choose a folder of your own book notes, Ibid. reads the notes in that folder to match them to your books, adds a link to each matched note, and writes a note for any book that has none. Removing the link removes what Ibid. added; your notes stay.
- Ibid. syncs when you open it, and from time to time in the background, which iOS allows. All of this is file reading and writing on your device, in the folder you gave Ibid. access to. Ibid. does not connect to an Obsidian account or to any server.
Where your vault goes next is up to you. If your vault is synced by a service such as Obsidian Sync, iCloud Drive, Remotely Save or Synology Drive, that service copies the notes Ibid. writes, including your passages, to wherever it stores your vault, under its own terms and privacy policy. Ibid. does not talk to these services and we have no access to them. To stop, remove the connection in Ibid.; the notes already in your vault stay until you delete them.
Exports and sharing
When you export or share, Ibid. hands over exactly what you chose to the place you chose: a file, another app through the share sheet, or your photo library. What happens next is governed by that place.
Keeping and deleting your data
- Your data is kept for as long as it is on your device and in your backups.
- To delete everything, delete the app. Notes Ibid. wrote to your Obsidian vault stay in the vault; delete its Ibid folder if you want them gone. To delete the iCloud backup, open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then Manage Storage (or Storage), and delete Ibid.’s data.
- Because we hold none of your data, there is nothing to request, correct or delete from us. You can still write with any question.
Children
Ibid. is not directed at children and collects no data from anyone.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be published here with a new effective date. If Ibid. ever starts collecting data, that will be stated here and on its App Store page before it happens.
Contact
See Support.