Privacy Policy

We use your personal information exclusively for the following purposes (APPI Art. 17):

• Creating and authenticating your account
• Matching you with other members for book lending and borrowing
• Sharing your shipping address with the other party to a borrow so books can be sent
• Sending transactional emails (borrow requests, reminders, dispute notifications)
• Displaying your public library and reviews to other members
• Resolving disputes about individual borrows
• Generating personalised book recommendations
• Complying with legal obligations

We do not use your data for advertising, profiling for commercial purposes, or any purpose not listed above.

Your personal information is disclosed to other members only to the extent necessary to complete a borrow: specifically, your shipping address is shared with the other party once a borrow is agreed upon.

We do not sell, rent, or otherwise transfer your data to any third party for their own purposes.

We may disclose your information when required by Japanese law, court order, or other governmental authority.

We use the following infrastructure providers to operate the service. Each processes your data only on our behalf:

• Supabase — authentication and session management
• Self-hosted database and file storage — all application data and uploaded images are stored on our own server located in Japan

We retain your personal information for as long as your account is active. Completed borrow records and reviews are retained to maintain an accurate lending history for all members.

When you delete your account, we erase your name, email address, and shipping address, and anonymise your historical records. Dispute evidence photos are also deleted. This process is irreversible.

All data is transmitted over HTTPS. Uploaded photos are stored outside the public web root and served only to authenticated users. Passwords are managed entirely by our authentication provider and are never stored by Lend the Library.

As a data subject under APPI, you have the right to:

• Disclosure — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• Correction — request correction of inaccurate data (you can update most data directly from your profile settings)
• Deletion — request erasure of your personal information; you can also delete your account directly from profile settings
• Suspension of use — request that we stop using your data in specific circumstances

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at the email below. We will respond within a reasonable period in accordance with APPI.

We use session cookies set by our authentication provider (Supabase) to keep you logged in. We do not use cookies for advertising or cross-site tracking. No third-party analytics cookies are used.

Lend the Library is not directed at children under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has registered, please contact us and we will delete the account.

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the date below. Continued use of Lend the Library after a policy change constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.