Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains what information the PDF Reader Android application (“the App”) collects, why it is collected, how it is used, and the choices you have. It applies to the App published on Google Play under the package name com.elixir.pdf.reader, and to this website.

By installing or using the App you agree to the practices described here. If you do not agree, please do not use the App.

2. Who we are

The App is developed and published by Elixir Infotech (“we”, “us”, “our”), the data controller for the limited information described in this policy.

• Support and privacy contact: elixirinfotechindia@gmail.com
• Registered business address: Office No. 317, Sadguru Arcade, Dhebar Road One Way, Near Jivan Commercial Complex, Rajkot, Gujarat 360001, India

3. Summary at a glance

• We never receive your documents. There is no upload feature and no cloud storage.
• No account, no sign-in. We do not collect names, email addresses, phone numbers or contacts.
• We do not sell personal information and we do not share it with data brokers.
• The App shows ads through Google AdMob, which may also request ads from Meta Audience Network. Both use your device’s advertising identifier.
• You are asked first where the law requires it. In the EEA, the UK, Switzerland and several US states the App shows a privacy choice before personalised ads are used, and you can change it later in the App.
• Anonymous usage and crash data is collected through Firebase to keep the App working.
• Premium is optional. Payment is handled entirely by Google Play; we never see your card, UPI or bank details.

4. Your PDFs, images and files

Every document feature in the App runs locally on your Android device. That includes:

• Opening, reading, searching and bookmarking PDFs
• Highlighting, underlining and striking through text, and adding comments
• Editing and annotating — text, ink, highlights, shapes, notes, stamps, images and signatures
• Scanning pages with the camera, including edge detection and filters
• Merging, splitting, extracting, reordering, rotating, deleting pages and compressing
• Adding and removing PDF password protection
• Converting Word to PDF, PDF to Word, image to PDF, PDF to image, PDF to text with optical character recognition (OCR), and making scanned PDFs searchable

None of these operations transmit your file, its contents, its file name, or its text to us or to any third party. The conversion engines and the OCR text-recognition models (for Latin-script languages and for Devanagari) are bundled inside the App, which is why these features also work with no internet connection.

Files the App creates are written to a PDFReader folder in the App’s own storage area on your device (Android/data/com.elixir.pdf.reader/files/PDFReader). They belong to you: you can open, share, move or delete them. Android deletes this folder when the App is uninstalled, so share or move any file you want to keep to another location first. Your original documents are never modified and are not affected by uninstalling.

5. Information we collect

The App does not ask you for personal details. The information below is collected automatically by the Google services embedded in the App.

6. Permissions the App requests

Android permissions are requested at the point a feature needs them, and you may decline. Declining a permission disables the feature that needs it; the rest of the App continues to work.

7. Advertising and ad choices

The App is free and is funded by advertising. An optional Premium subscription turns ads off (see section 12). Ads are served by Google AdMob, and the App may display banner, native, interstitial, app-open, rewarded and rewarded-interstitial ad formats. No ad is shown while a document is open for reading or editing.

To serve and measure ads, Google may access your device’s advertising identifier, your IP address (from which an approximate location can be derived), and information about your interaction with the ads shown. Google acts as an independent controller for that processing. Its practices are described in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services and in the Google Privacy Policy.

Ad mediation: Meta Audience Network

AdMob uses mediation: when the App needs an ad, AdMob may ask other certified ad networks to bid for that slot alongside Google, and shows the winning ad. The App uses one mediation partner, Meta Audience Network, operated by Meta Platforms, Inc. and Meta Platforms Ireland Limited. When Meta takes part in an auction it receives the same kind of information AdMob uses — the advertising identifier, IP address, device and app information, and ad interaction events — and acts as an independent controller for it, as described in the Meta Privacy Policy.

Mediation never involves your documents. No file, file name, document text or page image is sent to Google, Meta or any other ad network.

Consent and privacy choices

The App uses Google’s User Messaging Platform, a Google-certified consent management platform, to ask for your choice where the law requires it:

• EEA, UK and Switzerland: before ads are requested, the App shows a consent message with Consent, Do not consent and Manage options. If you do not consent, personalised ads are not used; ads may still be limited or non-personalised. Until a choice has been recorded, the App requests no ads at all.
• US states with privacy laws (such as California): the App lets you opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information for targeted advertising.
• Changing your choice: wherever one of these messages applies to you, Settings → Ad privacy options in the App reopens it so you can change or withdraw your choice at any time.

The ad partners that receive your choice include Google and Meta, and are listed inside the consent message itself.

Remote control of advertising

The App reads its advertising configuration from Firebase Remote Config. Separate switches can disable individual ad formats — banner, interstitial, native, rewarded, rewarded-interstitial and app-open — so a misbehaving format can be turned off without an update. When the App cannot reach Remote Config, it falls back to its built-in default, in which advertising is enabled. Remote Config never overrides your consent choice.

Rewarded ads

Watching rewarded video ads is always optional. You can watch three rewarded videos to remove ads for 24 hours, and the App may offer a single video in exchange for a shorter ad-free period. Some optional tools also ask you to watch a rewarded video before their result is saved; the result is created and kept on your device, and if you decline it is deleted and your original file is left untouched. These are free, repeatable choices — not purchases. Reward state is stored on your device only and no payment information is involved. The only purchase in the App is the optional Premium subscription described in section 12.

Your advertising choices

• In the App, Settings → Ad privacy options (shown where a consent or opt-out message applies) lets you change your consent or opt-out choice.
• Android Settings → Privacy → Ads lets you reset or delete your advertising ID and opt out of ad personalisation. If you delete it, ads may still be shown, but they will be less relevant.

8. Analytics (Firebase Analytics)

Firebase Analytics records anonymous, aggregated usage events so we can see which features are used and where they break. Typical events include opening the App, viewing a screen, opening a document, using a tool, completing or failing a conversion, and changing a setting such as theme or language.

Where an event carries detail, that detail is deliberately non-identifying — for example a document’s size in kilobytes and its page count, or how long a library scan took. Document names, paths and contents are never included.

Analytics data is tied to an app-instance identifier that Google generates for your installation, not to you personally. Clearing the App’s data or reinstalling it resets that identifier.

9. Crash reporting (Firebase Crashlytics)

When the App crashes or hits a handled error, Crashlytics sends a report so the fault can be fixed. A report contains the stack trace and a set of diagnostic keys: app version, Android version, device model, the screen you were on, the selected theme and language, and — if a document was open — its page count and byte size.

Crash reports never contain document contents, file names or passwords.

10. Remote configuration (Firebase Remote Config)

The App fetches configuration values from Firebase Remote Config, chiefly the advertising switches described in section 7. This lets us disable a misbehaving feature without shipping an update. Fetching configuration sends your app-instance identifier and basic device information to Google.

11. Notifications (Firebase Cloud Messaging)

If you allow notifications, the App registers a device token with Firebase Cloud Messaging so we can send occasional product announcements. If you subscribe to Premium, the same token is stored with your subscription record so we can remind you 3 days and 1 day before your subscription ends or renews (section 12). The token identifies the installation, not you. Notifications are optional: you can decline the permission when asked, or turn them off at any time in Android’s app settings, and everything else keeps working.

12. Premium subscriptions

The App offers an optional Premium subscription that turns off all advertising, including the video some tools show before saving a result. No tool is locked behind it. Plans renew automatically every week, month, 3 months, 6 months or year until you cancel.

Payment

Subscriptions are sold and charged by Google Play under the Google Play Terms of Service. Google Play handles your payment method, billing address, receipts, renewals, cancellations and refunds; we never receive your card, UPI or bank details, your name or your email address. Google’s handling of that information is described in the Google Privacy Policy.

What we keep, and why

After a purchase, the App sends the purchase token Google Play issued to our server, which runs on Google’s Firebase Cloud Functions. The server asks Google Play whether that token is a genuine, active subscription and turns Premium on only if it is. It then keeps one record per subscription in Cloud Firestore containing:

• a one-way hash of the purchase token (not the token itself)
• the plan, its status (for example active, cancelled, on hold or expired), its expiry date and whether it renews automatically
• your Google Play order number (it begins with GPA.), whether Google Play has acknowledged the purchase, and whether it was refunded
• the notification token of the device that last checked the subscription, and the App language in use
• when the record was last checked and which reminders have been sent

Google Play notifies our server when a subscription renews, is cancelled, enters a grace period or account hold, is refunded or expires, and the record is updated. The record contains no account, name or email address, and is never used for advertising.

Reminders

If notifications are allowed, we send a reminder 3 days and 1 day before your subscription ends or renews (only the 1-day reminder for the weekly plan). While the App is open, the Home screen also shows how many days are left during the last 3 days. Turning off the App’s notifications in Android settings stops the reminders; the Home notice is worked out on your device.

Managing or cancelling

You can cancel, change plan or update your payment method at any time in Google Play under Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions, or from Settings → Premium in the App. Premium stays on until the end of the period you have paid for. Uninstalling the App does not cancel a subscription.

13. Google Play services and app updates

The App is distributed through Google Play and uses Google Play’s in-app update mechanism to check whether a newer version is available. It may also show Google Play’s in-app review prompt, which lets you rate the App without leaving it; any rating or review you submit goes to Google Play under your Google account, not to us. Google Play’s own handling of your data is governed by the Google Privacy Policy.

14. Data stored on your device

The following is stored locally on your device and is not transmitted to us:

• Your list of recent files, favourites, bookmarks and the last page you read
• App preferences — theme, language, reading mode and similar settings
• A cache of page thumbnails, to make your library load quickly
• The expiry time of a temporary ad-free period
• If you subscribe, the subscription status and expiry date last confirmed by our server, so Premium keeps working offline
• PDF passwords you explicitly ask the App to remember, held in Android’s Keystore-backed encrypted storage
• Signatures you save for reuse, encrypted with AES-256-GCM under a key held in the Android Keystore

If Android backup is turned on for your Google account, Android may include the App’s settings, recent files, favourites and bookmarks in that backup. Remembered PDF passwords, saved signatures and the files the App creates are deliberately excluded from backup and device transfer.

You can clear all of it at any time from Android Settings → Apps → PDF Reader → Storage → Clear data, or by uninstalling the App.

15. How information is used

• To operate the App and its features
• To understand which features are used, so development effort goes to the right place
• To find, diagnose and fix crashes, errors and performance problems
• To display and measure advertising, which funds the free App
• To confirm Premium subscriptions with Google Play and send optional expiry and renewal reminders
• To deliver optional product announcements
• To protect against fraud, abuse and invalid ad traffic
• To comply with legal obligations

We do not use your information for automated decision-making that produces legal effects, and we do not build advertising profiles ourselves.

16. Legal bases for processing (EEA and UK users)

17. Sharing and third-party services

We do not sell your personal information. Information is shared only with the service providers that make the App work:

• Google AdMob — advertising delivery, measurement and consent messaging
• Meta Audience Network — advertising, as a mediation partner bidding through AdMob
• Firebase Analytics — anonymous usage analytics
• Firebase Crashlytics — crash and error diagnostics
• Firebase Remote Config — remote feature configuration
• Firebase Cloud Messaging — optional notifications
• Google Play services — distribution and app updates
• Google Play Billing — selling, charging and renewing Premium subscriptions
• Firebase Cloud Functions and Cloud Firestore — our server that confirms subscriptions and stores the subscription records described in section 12

Meta Audience Network is operated by Meta Platforms, Inc. and Meta Platforms Ireland Limited; see the Meta Privacy Policy. All the other services are operated by Google LLC and its affiliates; see the Google Privacy Policy and Firebase privacy information.

We may also disclose information if required by law, court order or a valid request from a public authority, or where necessary to protect our rights, safety or property.

When you use Android’s share sheet to send a document to another app, or open a PDF that another app sent to PDF Reader, that file is handled by the app you chose and by its own privacy policy. We are not a party to that transfer.

18. International data transfers

The Google and Meta services listed above process data on servers in the United States and other countries, which may have different data-protection laws from your own. Google and Meta rely on mechanisms such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses for those transfers; see their policies for details.

19. Data retention

• On-device data (recents, favourites, bookmarks, settings, thumbnails, remembered passwords) is kept until you clear the App’s data or uninstall it.
• Analytics data is retained by Google for the period configured in our Firebase project, after which it is deleted or aggregated.
• Crash reports are retained by Firebase Crashlytics for a limited diagnostic window — 90 days by default — and are then deleted.
• Advertising data is retained by Google and, where it took part in serving an ad, by Meta, in line with their own retention practices.
• Subscription records are kept while the subscription is active and afterwards for as long as needed to handle support, refund and accounting questions, then deleted. You can ask us to delete yours sooner (see section 21).
• Your consent or opt-out choice is stored on your device by Google’s User Messaging Platform until you change it, clear the App’s data or uninstall the App.

20. Security

Because your documents never leave your device, the strongest protection available to them is the security of the device itself. In addition:

• Passwords you ask the App to remember are stored using Android’s Keystore-backed encrypted storage, not in plain text.
• Saved signatures are encrypted on the device with a key that never leaves the Android Keystore, and are never included in backups.
• Lock PDF encrypts documents with AES-256 by default.
• Network traffic to Google services uses encrypted connections; the App does not permit cleartext HTTP traffic.
• The App requests only the permissions its features need, and drops the rest.

No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please keep your device locked and updated.

21. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live — for example under the EU/UK GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act, Brazil’s LGPD or India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act — you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the processing of your personal information, to withdraw consent, to data portability, and to lodge a complaint with your data-protection authority.

Practical controls available to you right now:

• Change or withdraw your ad consent, or opt out of sale/sharing, in the App under Settings → Ad privacy options (shown where these choices apply to you).
• Reset or delete your advertising ID in Android Settings → Privacy → Ads.
• Turn off notifications in Android’s app settings.
• Revoke storage or camera access in Android’s app permission settings.
• Clear all local data from Android Settings → Apps → PDF Reader → Storage.
• Cancel Premium in Google Play under Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions.
• Uninstall the App, which stops all collection. It does not cancel a Premium subscription.

To exercise a right that needs our involvement, email elixirinfotechindia@gmail.com. Because the App has no accounts, we may need information such as your app-instance identifier — or, for a subscription record, the Google Play order number (GPA.…) from your purchase receipt — to locate any data relating to you; if we cannot identify it, we will tell you so.

We do not sell personal information for money. Some US state laws, such as California’s, treat giving advertising partners like Google and Meta access to identifiers for targeted advertising as a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information. Where those laws apply, you can opt out at any time in the App under Settings → Ad privacy options, or through the privacy message the App shows.

22. Children

The App is a general-purpose productivity tool. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your country). If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

23. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the App changes or the law requires. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page always reflects the current version. Material changes will be highlighted in the App or on this website. Continuing to use the App after an update means you accept the revised policy.

24. Contact us

Questions about this policy, or about your data:

• Elixir Infotech
• Email: elixirinfotechindia@gmail.com
• Postal address:
  Elixir Infotech
  Office No. 317, Sadguru Arcade
  Dhebar Road One Way, Near Jivan Commercial Complex
  Rajkot, Gujarat 360001
  India

See also our Terms & Conditions.