Privacy Policy — Soundica FM

Operated by Soundica. Effective 2026-08-10. Version 1.1.

This policy explains what information the Soundica FM application (the "App") and the associated pages on soundica.app process, why, and your rights under applicable laws including the EU/UK GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), Canada's PIPEDA and Quebec's Law 25, the Korean Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), Japan's APPI, Singapore PDPA, India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, Brazil's LGPD, and the Australian Privacy Act.

1. At a glance

• No account, no login, no email required.
• No advertising identifiers are read.
• No analytics SDKs and no crash-reporting SDKs by default.
• No contacts, no location, no microphone, no camera, no SMS, no call logs.
• On-device text-to-speech. News summaries are read aloud by Android's built-in TextToSpeech engine, locally on your device. No audio leaves the device.
• All audio streams directly from its original host (publisher podcast servers, the Internet Archive, Wikimedia Commons, Jamendo, incompetech.com). Soundica hosts none of it.
• We hold no personal data linked to you on our servers, so there is nothing to retain, sell, or share.

2. Scope

This policy applies to the Soundica FM app on all form factors and stores it is distributed through, and to the corresponding pages on soundica.app. Soundica FM combines four kinds of content in one app: news headlines, podcasts, public-domain audiobooks, and openly licensed music and ambient sound.

3. Data we collect

• No account, no login, no email. We do not require you to sign up.
• No advertising identifiers. We do not read the Android Advertising ID.
• No analytics, no crash-reporting SDKs by default. If a future version adds optional analytics, you will be asked for consent first.
• No sensitive runtime permissions. The App does not request contacts, location, microphone, camera, SMS, or call-log access.

4. Data processed when you use the App

• News refresh. When the App refreshes headlines, your device requests the publishers' public RSS feeds directly. Each publisher sees only the standard network metadata of any web request (URL, a generic app User-Agent, and your device's public IP address at the transport layer). Soundica does not receive, log, or store these requests.
• Thumbnails. Images referenced by a feed are fetched by your device from the publisher's own CDN, which may log the fetch under the publisher's privacy policy. Soundica does not host or relay these images.
• Source logos. Many publisher logos are bundled inside the App and need no network request. When a logo is not bundled, your device requests it from Google's public favicon service (t3.gstatic.com), sending that publisher's domain name and, at the transport layer, your device's public IP address. No identifier of you or your reading history is attached, and Soundica neither receives nor stores these requests. Google processes them under its own privacy policy.
• Podcast directory and playback. Chart and search requests go to Apple's public iTunes Search and RSS endpoints; episode audio streams directly from each show's own hosting provider. These parties see standard network metadata only.
• Audiobooks, music, and ambient sound. Audio streams directly from the Internet Archive (archive.org), Wikimedia Commons (upload.wikimedia.org), Jamendo (prod-1.storage.jamendo.com), or incompetech.com, depending on where the recording is published. Soundica does not host, rehost, or proxy the audio.
• On-device reading. Karaoke-style read-aloud of news summaries uses Android's local TextToSpeech engine. Nothing is transmitted for synthesis.
• Local-only state. Your language choice, topic selections, playlist, bookmarks, listening history, recently viewed articles, resume positions, and playback settings are stored in the App's private storage on your device only. They are never transmitted to Soundica and are deleted when you uninstall the App or clear its data.
• System-level events. Android may surface playback state (title, artwork, position) to the lock screen and system notification. These flows are handled by the operating system, not by Soundica's servers.

5. Legal basis (EU/UK GDPR)

Under GDPR Art. 6(1)(b), the limited processing described above is necessary to deliver the service you have asked for (fetching content you request and restoring your local preferences). No consent banner is required because we do not set tracking cookies, do not profile you, and do not share data with advertising partners.

6. Data retention

Because the App stores nothing about you on our servers, we have nothing to retain. Local state remains on your device until you uninstall the App or clear it in Settings.

7. Children

The App is not directed at children and contains no ads, purchases, or social features. News content is sourced from general-audience publishers.

8. Your rights

Because we hold no personal data about you, requests for access, correction, deletion, or portability can usually be satisfied by noting that no server-side data exists. You can exercise full deletion yourself by uninstalling the App. For any privacy question, contact us and we will respond within the statutory period that applies to you.

9. Third parties you interact with through the App

News publishers, podcast hosts, Apple (iTunes directory), Google (public favicon service, for publisher logos that are not bundled in the App), the Internet Archive, Wikimedia Commons, Jamendo, and incompetech.com each process the network requests your device sends them under their own privacy policies. Soundica selects these sources but does not control their processing.

10. Changes and contact

We will post any changes to this page and update the version number above. Contact: see the imprint on soundica.app. Related documents: Terms of Service, Content and software licenses.