Almanac is a physical e-ink wall calendar and its companion mobile app. It shows the events from calendars you connect on a screen in your home. This policy explains what information we collect, why, and what control you have over it.
We have tried to write this in plain language. If anything here is unclear, email sswiston@gmail.com and we will explain it.
Contents
1. What we collect
- Identity. Your first name, last name, email address, and postal or ZIP code. The postal code is used only to determine which regional terms and privacy rules apply to you.
- Calendar content. From the calendar accounts you connect and the specific calendars you choose: event titles, start and end times, all-day flags, locations, and recurrence information.
- Device and settings. Your Almanac device identifier and your display configuration — which calendars are shown, layout, shading, timezone, and similar preferences.
- Diagnostics. Device heartbeat, battery level, sync success or failure, and error reports.
We do not collect your calendar's attendee lists, attachments, or meeting notes, and we do not ask for access to your email, contacts, files, or location.
2. Google user data, specifically
If you connect a Google Calendar account, Almanac requests one permission: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.readonly — read-only access to your calendars. We request no other Google permissions, and we request no permission that would let us change anything in your Google account.
What we read. Only from the calendars you explicitly select during setup: event titles, start and end times, all-day flags, locations, and recurrence rules.
What we do with it. We use it for exactly one thing: drawing the picture that appears on your Almanac display. Events are rendered into an image and sent to your own device.
What we never do. We never write, create, edit, or delete anything in your Google Calendar. We never sell Google user data. We never use it for advertising or to build advertising profiles. We never use it to train generalized artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models.
Google Limited Use commitment
Almanac's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically:
- We limit our use of Google user data to providing and improving the user-facing features that are prominent in Almanac — that is, showing your calendar on your display.
- We do not transfer Google user data to others except as necessary to provide those features, to comply with applicable law, or as part of a merger or acquisition with your prior notice.
- We do not use Google user data for serving advertisements of any kind.
- We do not allow humans to read Google user data, unless we have your explicit consent for a specific issue, it is necessary for security purposes such as investigating abuse, to comply with applicable law, or the data has been aggregated and de-identified.
You can revoke Almanac's access to your Google account at any time, independently of us, at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Doing so immediately stops us from reading any further calendar data.
3. How we use your information
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Calendar content | To render the image shown on your display. Nothing else. |
| Identity | To create and secure your account, to apply the correct regional terms, and to contact you about your device or order. |
| Device & settings | To send the right display configuration to the right device, and to let you manage it from the app. |
| Diagnostics | To tell whether a device is online, to warn you about a low battery, and to find and fix faults. |
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers.
4. Our legal basis
Canada. We collect and use your information on the basis of the meaningful consent you give during onboarding and, for invited household members, at the point of accepting an invitation. You may withdraw that consent at any time.
United States. We process your information to provide the service you have requested. Residents of states with applicable privacy laws have the additional rights described in section 10.
5. Who we share it with
We share data only with the service providers that make Almanac work, and only to the extent they need it:
| Provider | What it handles |
|---|---|
| Supabase | Database and account authentication |
| Google Firebase | Device records and push notifications |
| Railway | Application hosting and calendar rendering |
| Stripe | Payments. Stripe handles card details directly; we never see or store your card number. |
We also share information where the law requires it, or to protect the safety and rights of people using Almanac.
We do not sell your personal information, and we have not sold or shared it for cross-context behavioural advertising in the preceding twelve months.
6. Invited household members
Almanac is designed for shared spaces. If you invite someone into your household, the calendars they choose to connect are displayed on the shared device — that is the purpose of the product. Every invited member reviews and accepts this policy for their own region before any of their data is shown, and any member can disconnect their own account at any time without affecting anyone else's.
7. Storage and retention
We keep your information only as long as we need it to run the service.
- Calendar content is fetched to draw your display and is not kept as a long-term archive. When you disconnect an account or delete your Almanac account, the stored credentials and any cached event data for that account are deleted.
- Account and device records are kept while your account is active, and deleted when you delete your account.
- Diagnostic logs are kept for a limited operational period and then discarded.
8. Deleting your data
You have three independent ways to stop us holding your data:
- Disconnect one calendar account. In the Almanac app, open the account and choose to disconnect it. This deletes the stored credentials for that account and stops any further access to it.
- Delete your Almanac account. Request deletion from within the app, or email sswiston@gmail.com from your account's email address. This deletes your account, your device configuration, and all connected-account credentials.
- Revoke access at the source. For Google, visit myaccount.google.com/permissions and remove Almanac. This works whether or not you contact us.
We action deletion requests promptly, and in any case within 30 days.
9. Security
All data in transit is encrypted using HTTPS/TLS. Calendar credentials and OAuth tokens are encrypted at rest and are never exposed publicly. Access to production data is restricted.
No system is perfectly secure, and we will not claim otherwise. If a breach affects your personal information we will notify you and the relevant regulator as the law requires.
10. Your rights
Everyone. You may ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, and ask us to delete it. Contact us using the details in section 13.
Canada (PIPEDA and provincial PIPA). You may withdraw consent at any time. Withdrawing consent means your calendar will no longer be shown on the display. You may also challenge our handling of your information with our privacy contact, and escalate to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
United States. Depending on your state, you may have the right to know what personal information we collect, to request deletion or correction, to obtain a portable copy, and to not be discriminated against for exercising those rights. We do not sell personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of, but you may still contact us to confirm that.
We will not charge you for exercising these rights, and we will not treat you differently for it.
11. Children
Almanac is not directed to children. Account owners must be 18 or older. A household calendar may of course contain a child's activities — that data is the account owner's to control, and is handled under this policy like any other calendar content. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children.
12. Changes to this policy
We version this policy. If we make a material change, we will ask you to review and accept the new version in the app before continuing, and previous versions remain archived.
13. Contact us
Privacy questions, access requests, and deletion requests:
sswiston@gmail.com
Almanac · Calgary, Alberta, Canada