Last updated 2026-10-01

Privacy policy

Did They Really Read? is a free tool for parents and teachers. This page says what the site keeps, what it never keeps, and who else is involved. It is written to be read, not skimmed past.

Who uses the site

The site is made for adults: parents, teachers and homeschoolers. There are no accounts and no child accounts. Nothing on the site asks a child for anything, and we do not knowingly collect information from children.

The reader’s name is never stored

When you type a child’s name for the journal cover, it is used only to build the PDF you print, in the same request, and is not written anywhere. A share link (/j/…) carries the book, the questions and the print choices, and nothing else: names and dates are stripped before a share is saved.

What the site keeps

A visitor cookie. Your browser gets a random id (dtr_vid) that lasts a year. It is not tied to your name or email. It lets us count visitors and see whether people come back.
A usage log. Journals made, PDFs printed and share links made, with that random id, the book title and the time. Pages visited are logged once a day per kind of page. For requests that call the AI model we also keep a hashed version of your IP address, never the address itself, to cap how many model calls one connection can make in a day.
Feedback. If you send feedback, we keep the message and the email address you chose to give, and it is emailed to us.
“Tell me when” emails. If you leave your email to hear when a feature is ready, we keep that address for that one purpose.
The book library. Questions written for a book are kept so the next person asking for the same book gets them at once. They are about the book, never about a reader.

Other services the site uses

Matomo analytics, which we host ourselves, for page counts and which steps lead to a printed journal. It is given the same random id as the dtr_vid cookie so a return visit is counted once, and the server tells it when a PDF has been made. It never receives a name, an email address or a reader’s journal.
Meta Pixel, only when we run ads, to know whether an ad led to a visit.
Open Library, Google Books, Apple Books and the New York Times Books API for book covers, titles, series, page counts and best-seller history. Only the book’s title, author or ISBN is sent to them.
OpenAI writes the questions for a book we have not seen before. It is sent the book’s title and author, the chapter count, the reading level you chose, and what the catalogs say the book is about. It never receives a reader’s name.
Amazon. “Buy the book” links are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Amazon sees that you came from this site when you follow one.
Resend delivers our outgoing email (feedback and reports).
Google Fonts serves the site’s typeface.

What we do not do

We do not sell data, show third-party ads on the pages, or build profiles of readers. We do not use the usage log for anything but understanding how the site is used.

Deleting your data

Email tbattista@gmail.com and we will delete your feedback, your “tell me when” address and the usage lines tied to your visitor cookie. Clearing your browser’s cookies gives you a fresh id on your next visit.

Changes

If this page changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes with it.