Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 2026

Reality Awake ("we", "us") runs realityawake.com. This policy explains exactly what we collect, why, where it is stored, and the rights you have over it. We collect as little as possible and we do not sell your data, ever.

What we collect

• Account: your email address, a display name, a hashed password (if you register with one), and a profile image if your sign-in provider supplies one.
• Profile (optional): anything you choose to add: username, short bio, website link, avatar, and interests.
• Welcome questions (optional): if you complete the welcome card after signing in, we store the answers you give: whether you identify as female or male (or neither, if you prefer not to say), your birth date, and up to three topics you are drawn to. Your birth date is used to work out your zodiac sign and your birthday page, and we store that sign alongside it. Your birth date is private: it is never shown on your public profile or to other members. You can change or clear any of these at any time from Edit profile, and skipping the welcome card is always allowed.
• Your activity: comments, likes, votes, bookmarks, follows, reactions, journal entries, saved readings, submitted stories, and direct messages are stored against your account so the features work.
• Files you upload: images or documents you attach are stored on our server so they can be displayed back to you and other readers where you posted them. They are deleted when you delete your account.
• Newsletter: if you subscribe, we store your email address for that purpose only.
• Aggregate page views: we count views per article. This is anonymous and not tied to your identity.

We do not collect your phone number, postal address, payment details, or location. If we don't need it, we don't ask for it.

Where your data is stored

Your data is stored in a PostgreSQL database on our own server hosted with Amazon Web Services in the Asia Pacific (Mumbai), India region. It is not copied to third-party data brokers. Encrypted backups are kept for a short rolling window and then deleted.

How we use it

• To authenticate you and keep your session active.
• To show your posts, comments, and profile to other readers.
• To send notifications about replies, follows, and other activity.
• To send the newsletter, only if you subscribe.

What we don't do

• We don't sell, rent, or share your personal data with third parties for their own use.
• We don't run third-party advertising or analytics trackers.
• We don't track you across other websites.

Cookies

We use a single first-party session cookie to keep you signed in. That is a strictly necessary cookie, so no consent banner is required for it. We also store a small theme preference (light or dark) in your browser's local storage. We set no advertising, analytics, or cross-site tracking cookies of any kind.

Third-party services we use

These are every external company that can process data connected with this site, and what each one receives:

• Google LLC (sign-in): only if you choose Google sign-in. Google confirms your identity and shares your email address, name, and profile picture URL with us. We receive nothing else, and we do not post anything to your Google account.
• Google LLC (Fonts): our typefaces load from Google's servers, so your browser's IP address is visible to Google when fonts are fetched. No cookie is set by this.
• Amazon Web Services (hosting): our server and database run on AWS infrastructure in the Asia Pacific (Mumbai) region. AWS stores the data on our behalf and does not use it for its own purposes.
• Amazon Web Services (Simple Email Service): used to deliver sign-in and newsletter emails. It receives the recipient email address and the message content.
• Pinterest: we publish our own articles as pins from our account. This sends only our public article titles, images, and links. No member data is ever sent to Pinterest.
• Anthropic and OpenAI (AI providers): used to help draft site content, as described below. Personal data of members is not sent to them.

We do not use advertising networks, data brokers, or cross-site analytics services.

AI and automated content

We are honest about this because most sites are not:

• Some of our writing is AI-assisted. Articles, birthday profiles, and similar reference pages may be drafted with the help of AI language models (from Anthropic or OpenAI) and then reviewed and edited by a human before publishing. Our beat writers are pen names for this editorial process, not real individuals.
• Readings are interpretation, not prediction. Tarot pulls, zodiac and birthday profiles, angel number pages, and quizzes are traditional symbolism presented for reflection. They are not factual claims about your future, and they are not medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.
• Your personal data is not used to train AI models. We do not send your profile, journal entries, messages, or activity to AI providers, and nothing you write here is used as training data.
• No automated decisions. Nothing about your account is decided by an algorithm alone in a way that has legal or similarly significant effects on you.

If you are struggling or in crisis, please see our support lines. An article is not a substitute for a trained human.

Your rights (GDPR, UK GDPR, CCPA and others)

Wherever you live, you have the following rights over your data, and we have built tools so you can exercise most of them yourself, instantly:

• Access & portability: download a copy of your data from Account settings (Export my data).
• Erasure ("right to be forgotten"): delete your account and all associated data from Account settings (Delete account). This is immediate and permanent.
• Rectification: edit your profile and account details at any time.
• Objection / restriction: unsubscribe from the newsletter via any email's link, or contact us.
• CCPA: we do not sell personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of; your access and deletion rights above apply.

If you prefer, you can also email us to exercise any of these and we will respond within 30 days.

Children

Reality Awake is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date above. Material changes will be noted on the site.

Contact

Questions, or want to exercise a right manually? Contact details are on the Grievance Officer page. The same contact answers data protection questions and formal complaints.