Privacy notice
Last updated 10 November 2026
This notice explains what Wider Reading keeps about you, why, for how long, and who else sees it. We use your data to run the site for you and, if you allow it, to give you a personalised experience. We keep as little as we can. We never sell your data.
Who we are
Wider Reading is run by Olivia Jayeola, a sole trader in the United Kingdom, who is responsible for your data (the “controller”). Questions, or requests about your data: privacy@widerreading.com.
Your choices
Personalisation and counting how the site is used are off unless you allow them. You can change your answer here at any time; it takes effect straight away.
What we keep, and why
Your account and your books.
- The first time you save something, we make a guest account for this browser. It has a random number, not your name.
- If you sign in with Google, Microsoft or Yahoo, we keep the name and email address they give us, so we can show you which account you used. We only email you if you sign up for price alerts or our newsletter, and you can stop them at any time. We never use your email to link accounts.
- What you add: your library, wishlist and lists, reading plans and reading days, notes, ratings, the answers you give when you set up your profile, and your settings.
- Your country and currency, so prices are right for you. We guess your country from your device's time zone, never from your address or location, and you can change it.
Price searches. When you look up a book's price, we send the book's title, author or ISBN and your country to eBay and the bookshops we search. We never send anything that says who you are.
The newsletter, only if you ask for it. If you sign up at the foot of a page, or say yes when you set up your profile, we keep your email address, whether you want the newsletter, where you signed up and when, and, if you were signed in, which account it belongs to. We use it only to send the newsletter. To stop it, choose No in My account → Change your answers, or email us; every newsletter will also have an unsubscribe link. When you unsubscribe we keep your address marked as unsubscribed, so we don't email you again, unless you ask us to delete it.
Personalisation and counting how the site is used, only if you allow it. We count which pages and books are looked at, what is added to libraries and wishlists, and what is searched for (search words are made lower-case and shortened). We use this to personalise your experience on the site, see what's useful and improve the site. Before it leaves our server, your account number is replaced by a code that can't be turned back into it by anyone with only the counts. We don't keep your IP address with it. It is never used for advertising. If you are under 13, we don't collect it.
Keeping the site running. Our hosting provider records each request to the site, including the IP address, for a short time, to keep it secure and working. When something goes wrong, we record the error without your name, email or IP address.
The legal reasons: running the service you asked for (your account, books and searches); our legitimate interest in keeping the site secure and working; and your consent for personalisation, counting how the site is used, price alerts and the newsletter, which you can withdraw at any time.
On your device
We keep a few things in your browser so the site works: your sign-in (in cookies the page itself can't read), your light or dark theme, your country and currency, and your answers about your age and counting. Only if you allow counting, a random visit number is kept until you close the tab. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies.
Who else sees it
- Railway hosts the site and its database, in its EU data centre (Amsterdam).
- Cloudflare runs our domain name, and briefly sees your IP address if you type widerreading.com without the www.
- Amazon Web Services stores the usage counts and error records, in London.
- Google, Microsoft or Yahoo, only if you sign in with them.
- eBay and the bookshops we search receive the book details and your country, never who you are.
- Open Library and the Internet Archive supply book covers, and eBay supplies photos of listings. Your browser loads these straight from them, so they see your IP address and the page you were on.
We will update this notice before adding any advertising.
How long we keep it
- Your account and books: until you delete them or your account.
- A guest account nobody has used for 13 months is deleted.
- A sign-in on a device: until you sign out, or after 400 days unused. A record that it ended is kept for our records.
- Usage counts: the raw records for 30 days, the cleaned records for 24 months. Totals that cover at least 10 readers contain nobody and are kept.
- Error records: 90 days.
- The newsletter list: while you're subscribed; after you unsubscribe, your address stays marked as unsubscribed until you ask us to delete it. It goes with your account if you signed up while signed in.
- Backups of the database: 35 days.
Deleting your account
My account → Delete account deletes your account and everything in it from our database at once, including a newsletter sign-up made while signed in (one made while signed out isn't linked to your account: email us to delete it). Your usage counts are deleted overnight. Backups age out within 35 days.
Children
Wider Reading is used by students, including under-18s. We ask your age so we can look after you properly. Personalised recommendations are off until you accept them. If you're 13 to 17, they come only from our own chosen books, and you are never shown personalised adverts. If you're under 13, a parent or carer would have to agree before we could personalise anything, so we don't keep any record of how you use the site. Parents or carers with a question can email us.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it or delete it, object to how we use it, or withdraw your consent. Email privacy@widerreading.com; we reply within a month. If you're unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, 0303 123 1113.
Changes
If this notice changes, the date at the top changes too. We'll ask again before using your data in a new way.