Privacy Policy
Hacker Flow is designed with your privacy in mind. We believe you should be able to read Hacker News without being tracked, profiled, or surveilled. This policy explains exactly what data the app handles and how.
No Account Required
Hacker Flow does not require you to create an account, sign in, or provide any personal information to use the app. There is no registration process and no user profiles are created on our servers.
On-Device Personalisation
Your personalised "For You" feed is powered entirely on-device. Reading history, liked stories, bookmarks, and topic preferences are stored locally on your device using Apple's built-in data storage. This data never leaves your device and is never transmitted to our servers.
Hacker News Data
The app fetches stories and comments from the public Hacker News API through our backend server. These requests do not include any user-identifiable information — no device IDs, no tokens, and no tracking parameters. Our server acts as a caching layer to improve performance and does not log individual requests.
AI Summaries
Hacker Flow offers AI-powered discussion summaries through three options:
- Apple Intelligence — Processing happens entirely on-device using Apple's built-in models. No data is sent externally.
- BYO API Key — If you choose to bring your own OpenAI or Google Gemini API key, the key is stored securely in your device's Keychain and is sent directly from your device to the provider's API. Your key never passes through our servers.
- None — You can disable AI summaries entirely.
Commute Caching
The offline caching feature downloads stories, comments, and linked articles to your device over Wi-Fi before your commute. All cached content is stored locally on your device. The download requests pass through our caching server but contain no user-identifiable information.
Read Later & Liked Stories
Stories you save to Read Later or mark as Liked are stored locally on your device. This data is not synced to any external server.
Analytics & Tracking
Hacker Flow does not include any third-party analytics SDKs, advertising frameworks, or tracking pixels. We do not use Firebase, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or any similar service. We have no interest in tracking your behaviour.
In-App Purchases
Hacker Flow Pro is available as a lifetime purchase or annual subscription through Apple's App Store. All payment processing is handled entirely by Apple. We do not receive or store any payment information, billing details, or Apple ID data.
Feedback Form
If you use the feedback form on this website, you may optionally provide an email address. This is used solely to respond to your message and is not added to any mailing list or shared with third parties.
Data Retention
Since we do not collect personal data, there is nothing to retain. All app data lives on your device and can be removed by deleting the app.
Children's Privacy
Hacker Flow does not knowingly collect any personal information from children under 13. Since the app does not collect personal data from any user, it is inherently compliant with children's privacy regulations.
Changes to This Policy
If we make changes to this privacy policy, we will update this page and the date below. Continued use of the app after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
Contact
If you have questions about this privacy policy, please use our feedback form.
Last updated: April 2026