Privacy Policy

This policy describes the personal data the World Headlines mobile app collects, what we do with it, where it goes, how long it is kept, and the choices you have. World Headlines Inc. operates the app and is responsible for this data.

You can read articles, browse channels, search, and listen to articles read aloud without an account. An account is needed only to comment, save stories, like articles, keep reading history across devices, manage your channel order, or block another commenter.

1. What we collect

1.1 Data you give us

• Email address. You sign in by entering your email address; we email a six-digit code and you enter that code. There is no password.
• Display name. The public name shown on your comments, which you set and can change.
• Comments and replies. The text you post, and the comment you are replying to.
• Reports. When you report a comment or an advertisement, we receive the reason you selected and, for a comment, an optional note of up to 300 characters.
• Blocks. The account you choose to block.
• Search terms. What you type in the search box is sent to our servers to produce results.
• Saved stories, likes, reading history, and channel order. Reading history includes which article you opened, when, and how far you read.
• Your acceptance of the Community Rules. We record which version you accepted and when.

1.2 Data collected automatically

• App version and platform. Every request carries a header such as ios/2.0.0+213 or android/2.0.0+213. It is used for logging and for deciding whether an update is required.
• Device model and time zone, once, at sign-in. The sign-in verification request also carries your device model (for example iPhone15,2 on iOS, or the manufacturer's model name on Android), the platform, the app version, and the IANA time zone reported by the operating system (for example America/New_York). This is sent only with that one request, so that the account record shows which device signed in. It is not sent with any other request, and it is not an identifier assigned to your device.
• Content language and channel. Requests carry the language edition and channel you are reading, because they determine which articles are returned.
• IP address. As with any service reached over the internet, our servers see the IP address your device connects from. We use it to limit request rates and to investigate abuse; where it is written to the account audit record it is stored as a hash rather than in plain form. We do not use it to determine your location and we do not use it to personalize what you see.

1.3 What the app does not collect

The following are absent from the app.

• No password, and no password hash.
• No advertising identifier and no hardware device identifier. The app does not read or send IDFA, the Android advertising ID, IDFV, a MAC address, or a serial number.
• No location data, precise or approximate, and no location permission is declared on either platform.
• No third-party analytics, crash reporting, performance monitoring, or attribution software. The app contains no such component.
• No sign-in through Google, Apple, or any other third-party identity provider.
• No payment or financial data. The app sells nothing and contains no purchase mechanism.
• No camera, photo library, microphone, contacts, or calendar access. The app cannot record or upload audio, photographs, or files.
• No push notification token. Push delivery is closed in this release: the app does not ask for notification permission and does not register a token.

2. How we use it

We use the data above only to operate the features you use:

• Your email address and the code we send identify you at sign-in and let us re-establish your session afterwards.
• Your display name appears on your comments. Your comments and replies are published in the article's comment thread, where they are visible in every language edition of that article.
• Saved stories, likes, reading history, and channel order let those lists follow your account rather than one device.
• Search terms return search results.
• Reports and blocks are used to moderate comments and advertisements and to hide accounts you have blocked.
• Device model, time zone, app version, and platform are used for the account's device record, for support and diagnostics in our own logs, and for version policy.
• IP address is used for rate limiting and abuse investigation.

We do not profile you for advertising, and we do not rank articles, channels, or search results by your behavior. Ordering is described in How We Rank.

3. Where it goes

3.1 Our servers

Everything in Section 1 is sent to servers we operate at api.wh.news, with wh.news as a fallback endpoint. The app sends your data to no other destination. World Headlines Inc. is based in the United States, and the data is processed there.

3.2 Third parties

The app contains no third-party advertising, analytics, crash-reporting, or social-login component, so no third party receives your data from the app as part of its normal operation. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Three ordinary actions do send data outside the app, each one at your request:

• Opening a link. Tapping an original-source link or a policy link opens that address in a browser. That site then applies its own privacy policy.
• Sharing an article. The share button hands the article's link to your device's share sheet; whichever app you then pick receives it.
• Contacting support. The contact link opens your own email app with a message addressed to support@wh.news and pre-filled with the app version, platform, device model, and content language, so that a support request arrives with that context. Nothing is sent until you send the message, and you can edit or delete that text first.

Article images and read-aloud audio are downloaded from the addresses our servers return with each article.

We may disclose data where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to enforce our Terms of Service or protect the rights and safety of our users.

4. Storage and retention

4.1 On your device

• Your sign-in credential is stored in the iOS Keychain or the Android Keystore. The short-lived access token is held in memory only and is never written to storage.
• Articles and pages you have loaded are cached in a local database so that you can read them offline, and article images are cached as files.
• Your settings are stored locally: content language, text size, light or dark appearance, read-aloud autoplay, the accepted Community Rules version, and whether you asked not to be prompted again before opening an external link.
• If you are not signed in, stories you save and articles you read are recorded only on that device. When you later sign in, the app offers them to your account once; until then they never leave the device.

Signing out clears this device's session and your comment drafts. Saved stories and reading history remain on the device.

4.2 On our servers

• Account data — your email address, display name, and the lists attached to your account — is kept while the account exists.
• Reading history is kept for the period set in the app's configuration, which is 90 days by default, after which older entries are removed automatically.
• Comments remain in the thread they were posted in, subject to Section 5.

5. Your choices

5.1 Read without an account

Articles, channels, search, and read-aloud all work signed out. Signing in is your choice.

5.2 Delete your account

You can delete your account inside the app, under Me → Account → Delete account. It takes two confirmations and no typing. There is also a web path, described on the Account & Data Deletion page, if you no longer have the app installed.

Deletion works in three stages:

• Immediately: you are signed out on every device, this device's stored data is cleared, and your comments become anonymous in every language edition.
• Within 30 days: our servers delete the account.
• Afterwards: a short abuse log is kept where the law requires it.

5.3 Remove data without deleting the account

You can delete a single comment, remove a saved story, delete one reading-history entry or clear the whole history, unblock an account from your blocked list, change your display name, and sign out of this device.

5.4 Access and portability

The app has no export button. To request a copy of the data held under your account, or to ask us to correct it, write to support@wh.news from the address the account uses. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to object to or restrict processing, to withdraw consent, and to complain to your data protection authority.

5.5 Notifications

This version of the app sends no push notifications and asks for no notification permission. The in-app notification list shows replies and updates only while you are in the app. If push delivery is ever enabled, it will be announced in an updated version of this policy before it takes effect.

6. Children

The app is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, write to support@wh.news and we will delete it.

7. Changes to this policy

If what we collect, how we use it, or how long we keep it changes, we will update this page and its effective date. A change that broadens collection — enabling push notifications, for example — will be described here before it takes effect.

8. Contact

World Headlines Inc.
500 8th Avenue FRNT 3-1632
Manhattan, NY 10018
United States

Email: support@wh.news