Privacy policy

This policy explains how Alphabet ("we") handles personal data in the TVTracker web app and mobile apps (together, "the service"). It covers the account you create, the watch history you build, and the small amount of technical data the service needs to run.

If anything here is unclear, or you want a copy of your data or its deletion, write to [email protected].

What we collect

Your account

• An email address and a username, which identify the account.
• A display name, and optionally a gender, an avatar and a cover image if you upload them.
• Your password, stored only as a one-way hash — we cannot read it. If you signed in with Google or Apple instead, we store the identifier that provider gives us and no password at all.
• Your language and theme preferences.

What you watch

This is the point of the service, and it is the bulk of what we hold:

• Films and shows you mark as watched, and which episodes, when.
• Ratings you give, and the "feelings" and cast votes you cast on a title.
• Your watchlist, favourites, and any lists you create.
• Comments you post, and the comments you like.
• Who you follow and who follows you.
• Derived statistics — watch time, streaks, genre breakdowns, levels and badges. These are computed from the above; they are not extra collection.

Imports

If you import a history from IMDb, Letterboxd, Trakt, TV Time or a CSV file, we read the file to create the matching entries on your account. We keep a record of the import so you can see what happened and retry a failed one.

Technical data

• A session cookie on this website, and an authentication token stored on your device once you sign in. Both are strictly necessary to keep you logged in.
• A push notification token, per device, if you allow notifications — so we can tell you when a show you follow returns.
• Ordinary server logs, including IP address, for security and debugging.
• In-app activity events (which screens you opened, what you tracked) used to build your own statistics and to see which parts of the service are used.

What we do not collect

• No payment or card details. The service does not currently take payment, and stores nothing about it.
• No advertising or cross-site tracking. There are no third-party analytics, advertising or tracking SDKs in the web app or the mobile apps. We do not sell or rent your data, and we never have.
• No contacts, photos, location or microphone access. The mobile apps ask only for the permissions needed for a feature you use — the photo library when you pick an avatar, notifications if you opt in.

Why we hold it

• To provide the service: your account, your history, your lists. Without this data there is nothing to show you.
• To keep it secure: detecting abuse, rate-limiting, and investigating problems.
• To notify you, if you asked to be notified.
• To improve the service, using aggregate usage rather than individual profiles.

Who else sees it

Other people using TVTracker

Some of what you do is social by design: your profile, comments, follows, and the lists you make public. Your email address is never shown to other users. Your privacy settings control the rest — check them under Settings in the app.

Services we depend on

• TMDB and OMDb supply film and show metadata, artwork and ratings. We send them the title being looked up, not who is looking.
• JustWatch data (via TMDB) tells you where a title is streaming.
• Google and Apple, only if you choose to sign in with them, and only to verify that sign-in.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) delivers push notifications to your device, if you enabled them.
• Our hosting and email providers, who process data on our instructions in order to run the service.

We do not share your personal data with anyone else, and we do not use it to build advertising profiles.

How long we keep it

Your account data stays for as long as the account exists. When you delete your account it is erased immediately and permanently, along with your watch history, lists, comments, follows, statistics and uploaded images. There is no waiting period and no recovery — see Deleting your account.

Two things deliberately survive with your name removed from them: moderation records, so a resolved report cannot be erased by deleting an account, and any product feedback you sent, which is kept without the link to you. Server logs and backups age out on their own ordinary schedule.

Your choices

• See and correct it. Everything about your account is editable in Settings.
• Export it. Settings → Data gives you a copy of your history.
• Delete it. Settings → Delete account, permanently, yourself, at any time.
• Turn off notifications, per type, in Settings — or at the operating-system level.

Depending on where you live you may also have rights to object to or restrict processing, or to complain to a data protection authority. Write to [email protected] and we will act on it.

Children

TVTracker is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us and we will remove it.

Security

Traffic is encrypted in transit. Passwords are hashed, never stored in a readable form, and never logged — the same is true of the identity tokens from Google and Apple sign-in. No system is perfect, but we treat your watch history as private data, because it is.

Changes

If this policy changes materially we will update the date at the top and, for anything significant, tell you in the app. Continuing to use the service after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Contact

Alphabet — [email protected]