Kept privacy

Who this covers

Eight Point Labs LLC publishes Kept, an Android app for reading feeds and saving articles to read later. This page describes Kept. Our other apps have their own policies, linked from the main privacy page.

This site itself uses Google Analytics to count page views. That is the website, not the app; we operate no app analytics service. Google’s AI library has its own usage reporting. Section 5 covers the one Google component inside it that reports on itself.

1. What we collect

Nothing. Eight Point Labs holds no account for you and receives no copy of anything the app stores. We operate no analytics or crash-reporting service and include no advertising SDK. Google’s AI library includes usage reporting, described below. You are never asked to sign in, because there is nothing to sign in to.

One qualification, because a flat claim here would be wrong. The AI summaries in section 5 are made by Android itself, and Kept reaches them through a Google library. That library sends Google a record of its own use, and offers no setting to stop it. It does not carry the article, the summary, your subscriptions, or anything you have read, and it is the only thing of its kind in the app. We would rather name it here than let you find it.

A second qualification, if you buy Kept Pro. The payment is made to Google Play, inside Google Play’s own purchase screen, and Google keeps the purchase record. Google gives us a record of each order (for example the order number, item, price, date and country) so we can handle refunds and our accounts. We never receive your card details, and Kept itself sends us nothing when you buy.

There is exactly one address of ours the app ever contacts, the feed directory described in section 2. It hands out the same signed file to everybody who asks, and asking tells us nothing about you beyond what any web server sees when it is sent a request.

2. What leaves your phone, and why

Finding sources. Website catalogue search happens locally. Searching for Reddit communities sends your search terms to Reddit’s public service. Searching for a YouTube channel by name sends your search terms to YouTube, the same request a browser makes on its search page, and following a channel fetches its public feed from YouTube. Pasting or opening a source can contact that site to find its feed. Publishers and media hosts see normal web request information, including your IP address. Saved social posts and their media are fetched from the relevant provider.

Kept connects directly to the publisher you chose when it fetches a feed or an article. None of your reading is routed through us. Separately, Android hands a generated article file only to an app you select through the share sheet.

• Feeds you subscribe to. Kept fetches each feed's address on a schedule, including in the background while the app is closed, so new articles are waiting when you open it. It identifies itself with a user agent beginning Kept/ and sends no cookies or identifiers of its own.
• Articles you open. The reader displays the article's own HTML, so images and embedded media inside that article load from the publisher's servers, exactly as they would in a browser tab.
• The full text of an article. When a feed carries only a summary, or when you share a link into Kept from another app, Kept requests that article's own page from the publisher and keeps the readable part of it on your phone, so it can be read again with no connection. That request goes to the publisher and to nobody else: there is no extraction service in the middle, which is the usual way other readers do it.
• Files you choose to share. Kept creates a readable article file on your phone containing the saved text, cached images, attribution, and the original publisher link. Android gives only the app you select temporary access to that file. Kept does not upload it or create a public link.
• Addresses you paste. When you add a subscription by pasting a site address, Kept requests that page once in order to find its feed.
• The feed directory. The suggestions Kept offers on first run and in Discover come from a catalogue it downloads from discover.eightpointlabs.com, which is our address. It is a static file, signed so the app can prove it was not altered in transit, and every copy of Kept is served the identical one. The request carries no account, no identifier, and nothing about what you subscribe to or read. It is a download, not a lookup: Kept asks for the whole catalogue and then chooses from it on your phone.
• Sync, only if you switch it on. Sync is off until you set it up. If you set it up, you give Kept the address, username and password of a WebDAV folder you control, for instance a folder in your own Nextcloud. Kept then copies your subscriptions, folders, saved articles and their text and images, reading state, highlights, notes, tags and appearance settings into that folder, and reads back what your other devices put there. That data goes to the server you named and nowhere else. Eight Point Labs runs no sync service, and cannot see the folder or the password. The password is stored encrypted on the phone and is deleted when you turn sync off. What you have already copied to your own server stays there until you delete it.
• Newsletters, only if you set them up. Off until you set it up. If you do, you give Kept the address, username and password of your own mailbox and the one folder to read. Kept signs in to that mail server over an encrypted connection, opens only that folder, read-only, and copies the newsletters in it onto your phone. It cannot send, delete or move mail. The password is stored encrypted on the phone, is never part of a backup, and is forgotten when you turn this off. Your mail goes from your mail server to your phone and through nothing of ours.
• Connections, only if you set them up. In Settings you can connect a webhook of your own, Readwise or Notion. All are off until you enter an address or a token. Once connected, Kept sends the articles you keep, and the highlights and notes you make after connecting, to that service and to nothing else: for Readwise, your highlights and notes with the article's title, author and link; for Notion, a page with the article's title, link, short excerpt, highlights and notes; for a webhook, the title, link, author, tags, short excerpt and reading time, and each highlight and note, to the address you typed. The full article text is not sent. Each service then holds that copy under its own privacy terms. Tokens are stored encrypted on the phone and are never part of a backup. Disconnecting stops anything further being sent.
• Kept Pro and the free week. Kept is free for its first 7 days, then needs Kept Pro. To count the week it uses the date Android recorded when you installed it, and keeps a note of the latest date it has seen, both on the phone only. Kept asks Google Play for the price and whether this Google account owns Kept Pro, so the unlock follows you to a new phone or a reinstall. When you tap buy, it hands over to Google Play’s own purchase screen. That conversation is between the app and the Play Store app on your phone; nothing in it passes through Eight Point Labs.
• The browser extension, only if you install it. The Keep in Kept extension for desktop browsers writes the pages you choose into the same WebDAV sync folder, using the sync details you give it, and the phone picks them up at its next sync. It talks only to that one server. Nothing passes through Eight Point Labs.

For publisher requests, the publisher's web server sees the request the way any web server sees a request, which includes your IP address. That is inherent to fetching anything over the internet and is not something Kept adds. If you would rather a publisher not see your address directly, use a VPN, exactly as you would when browsing.

3. What stays on your device

Your subscriptions, the articles Kept has fetched, which ones you have read, and which ones you have saved all live in the app's own private storage on your phone. No other app can read it, and we cannot read it. Uninstalling Kept deletes all of it.

You can export your subscriptions as a standard OPML file at any time from the Feeds tab. It is a plain text file any other reader can import, written to whatever location you pick.

4. Permissions, and why

• INTERNET — to fetch the feeds and articles you asked for. A reader cannot work without it, and we would rather say that plainly.
• ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE — so a scheduled refresh waits for a connection instead of failing and wasting battery.
• ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK — so a feed you host yourself on your own network keeps working on Android 17 and later, which otherwise blocks apps from reaching local addresses. Kept contacts a local address only if you subscribed to one.
• POST_NOTIFICATIONS — only used if you switch on new-article notifications, which are off until you turn them on. Android asks you for the permission at that moment, and refusing it leaves the rest of Kept working exactly as before. A notification is assembled on your phone out of articles Kept has already fetched. There is no push service, no notification account, and nothing is sent anywhere to make one appear.

Kept asks for no location, no contacts, no microphone, no camera, and no access to your photos or files beyond the files you choose through Android’s picker for import, export or sharing.

Six more that an inspector will show, and where they come from

The four above are the ones Kept declares. An APK inspector reads the merged manifest, which also carries what the app's libraries declare, so it will list six more. None of them is asked of you at runtime.

Three come from WorkManager, the standard Android component Kept uses to run its background refresh: WAKE_LOCK so a refresh that has started can finish before the phone sleeps, RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED so the schedule survives a restart, and FOREGROUND_SERVICE, which WorkManager declares for jobs Kept does not use.

One, DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION, is defined by Kept for Kept by a standard Android library. It is a signature permission, which means only an app signed with our key could hold it, and it grants nothing to anyone else.

One, com.android.vending.BILLING, comes from Google Play Billing, the library behind the Kept Pro purchase. It lets Kept talk to the Play Store app on your phone about that one purchase, and nothing more.

The last, com.google.android.apps.aicore.service.BIND_SERVICE, lets Kept talk to AICore, the part of Android that runs the on-device model behind the summaries in section 5. It reaches a component of your phone's system software and grants no access to the network, to your files, or to anything else. We would rather point at all six here than have you find them and wonder what we left out.

5. Summaries, and the one thing we do not control

Kept can show an article preview: opening sentences lifted word for word out of the piece Kept already downloaded, picked on your phone. Nothing leaves the device and nothing is invented.

Some phones can do better. Android includes a system component called AICore that runs a small language model on the device itself. Where it is there, Kept hands it the article text it already stored and shows the few bullet points it produces instead of the four sentences. That text goes from Kept to that part of your phone's system software and no further. It is not uploaded, and there is no AI service in the middle. The model itself is downloaded to the phone by Android, from Google, the first time anything on the phone asks for it; we do not host it, and Kept sends nothing with the request.

The part we do not control: the Google library Kept uses to reach AICore reports its own use back to Google, and it offers no setting to switch that off. What it reports is about the library. The article text and generated summary stay on the device for inference; usage and device diagnostics are governed by Google’s library terms. It is still traffic Kept cannot stop, which is why it is named in section 1 and again here rather than left for you to find. AI generation is unavailable when the required AICore service or model is not ready.

Kept distinguishes an Article preview, which quotes downloaded text, from an AI summary, which is generated on supported phones. Availability depends on Android’s AICore service and model. If generation is unavailable, the article preview remains available. Read-aloud uses the voice engine configured on your phone.

6. No automatic cloud backup of your reading

Kept's manifest sets android:allowBackup="false". Android's automatic backup would otherwise copy the app's database, which is a record of what you read, into your Google Drive. We turned it off, because a promise that your reading stays on your device should hold in the manifest and not only in the marketing. The trade is deliberate: you move subscriptions with OPML, or configure optional WebDAV sync for your library, instead of relying on automatic Android backup.

You can also make a backup yourself, from Settings > Your data. Kept writes one file containing your library and settings to the place you pick through Android's file picker, and nowhere else. If the place you pick is a cloud folder, that copy lives with that provider. Sync, connection and mailbox passwords are never written into a backup. Restoring reads a backup file you pick and replaces the library on the phone.

7. The reader runs no scripts

Article content is untrusted by definition, because it comes from whoever published it. The reader displays it with JavaScript disabled, so a page cannot run code, fingerprint you, or act on your behalf inside the app. Tapping a link hands it to your normal browser instead of following it inside Kept.

8. Things that hand data to another app, at your request

• Opening in your browser. Kept passes the article's address to whichever browser you use. What happens after that is between you and that browser.
• Sharing. Sharing an article sends its title and address to the app you pick from the system share sheet, and nowhere else.
• Obsidian. If you choose Obsidian, Kept hands the note to the Obsidian app on your phone through Android, and Obsidian saves it in your vault. Kept itself sends nothing over the network for this.
• E-books and other files. Exporting an article as an e-book, or as Markdown, creates a file on your phone and gives it only to the app or location you pick.
• Saving into Kept. When you share a link into Kept from another app, that app hands Kept the link. Nothing travels the other way.

9. Children

Kept is not directed at children and collects no personal information from anyone, including children.

10. Your data rights

There is no request to make, because we hold nothing about you. Everything Kept knows is on your phone: export subscriptions with OPML and saved content or notes through the app’s export controls, or delete local data by uninstalling. Copies you shared or synced remain at those destinations until you remove them. If you would like to ask us something anyway, the address is below and a person answers it.

If you bought Kept Pro, the purchase belongs to your Google account. Your order history and refunds are in Google Play, and Google’s privacy policy covers that record.

11. Changes to this policy

If Kept ever gains a feature that changes any of the above, this page changes first and carries a new date at the top. We will not quietly widen what the app does and update the policy afterwards.

12. Contact

Privacy questions: [email protected]. Anything else: [email protected].

How to verify this yourself

None of this asks for trust. Every claim above is checkable from the installed app:

• The permission list. Any APK inspector reads the manifest. Kept's own four are INTERNET, ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE, ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK and POST_NOTIFICATIONS; the five the libraries add are all named in section 4, including the AICore one. Nine in total, nothing else is in there, and there is no location, contacts, microphone, camera or storage permission to find.
• No cloud backup. The same manifest shows android:allowBackup="false".
• What is inside it. The package can be scanned by a third-party analyser such as Exodus Privacy, which lists any known tracking library it finds. Expect it to report Google's own reporting component, which arrives with the AI summaries and is described in sections 1 and 5. Anything else it finds, we would want to hear about.
• Where it connects. Point a network monitor at your phone and watch Kept refresh. Expected destinations include the feeds, articles and media you request, Reddit during source searches, Google’s library reporting, our feed directory at discover.eightpointlabs.com, and, if you set sync up, the WebDAV server you named yourself.