Privacy

Without an account

Everything you log stays on your phone: your diary, reviews, ratings, watchlist, imports and settings. None of it is sent to me. If you uninstall the app, it’s gone, unless you made a backup file.

What the app asks other services

To find titles, posters and air dates, Watch Heart sends what you search for, and the ids of titles you log, track or keep on your watchlist, to these services. On Android it also checks for new air dates and release dates in the background, about twice a day, even when the app is closed. They see your IP address the way any website would, but not your diary.

• TMDB (The Movie Database) for films, series, anime and posters. TMDB’s privacy policy
• TVmaze for series, exact air times and what’s trending. TVmaze’s privacy policy
• OMDb for IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores; it’s sent the IMDb id of the title you open. OMDb’s terms
• Expo, which delivers app updates. When the app checks for an update, Expo learns the app version and that it runs on Android. Expo’s privacy policy

With an account

An account is optional. It backs up your diary and keeps your devices in sync. If you create one, these are stored with Supabase, the service that hosts Watch Heart’s accounts:

• Your email address and your password, which is stored only as a secure hash.
• Your diary entries and watchlist: titles, dates, ratings, reviews, tags, notes, and the episodes you’ve ticked off.
• Your lists: their names, descriptions and titles.
• Your profile, if you fill it in: name, bio, photo, four favourite titles, yearly goal, and what you share with friends. The photo is stored as a small picture in private storage that only your account, and friends you add, can open.

Each account can read only its own diary; the database refuses everyone else. I don’t read your diary. Your email is used only to sign you in, confirm your account and reset your password.

Friends

Friends are optional and need an account. Each account has an invite code; anyone who enters yours becomes your friend, both ways. Friends can then see:

• Your name, bio, photo and four favourites.
• Your diary: what you watched, when, your ratings, hearts and vibes. You can turn this off in Settings.
• Your reviews (spoiler-marked ones stay hidden until they tap). You can turn this off too.
• Your lists. You can turn these off as well.

Who you watched with, and your tags, are never shared. Friends can’t see your email, watchlist or episode tracking. Friends don’t read your diary directly: the server checks the friendship and returns only what you share. Unfriend anyone at any time, both ways; making a new invite code stops the old one working. Deleting your account removes your friendships and code.

Finding people and suggestions. If you turn on “Let people find me by name”, other people with an account can find you by your name and ask to be friends, and you can be suggested to friends of your friends, who see how many friends you share. If you also turn on “Suggest me to people who watch the same things”, the server compares the titles in your diary with those of others who turned it on too, and suggests you to each other with how many titles you share, never which ones. Both are off until you turn them on.

On your phone only

• Fingerprint lock. Android checks your fingerprint or screen lock. The app only learns whether it matched.
• Memory photos. A photo you put in a memory story is read on your phone to make the picture. Watch Heart doesn’t keep or upload it; it goes only where you share or save the story.
• Imports. Files from Letterboxd, IMDb and other apps are read on your phone. What you import joins your diary like anything else you log.
• Stories and photos. Story images are made on your phone. They go only where you share or save them. The app asks for access to your photos only to save a story there. A profile photo is chosen with Android’s photo picker, which shares only the one picture you pick; the app keeps a small square copy.
• Your TMDB key, if you add one in Settings, stays on your phone.
• The home-screen widget. If you add it, the titles it shows are saved on your phone for it, and Android loads their posters from TMDB.
• Notifications. New-episode, watchlist-release, picks and recap alerts, and movie-night reminders, are worked out and scheduled on your phone, then shown by Android. No server sends them. They appear only if you allow notifications, and you can turn each kind off in Settings.
• Your country and language, chosen in Settings, stay on your phone. They pick what Home shows first and where-to-watch services.

Deleting your data

In the app: Settings, tap your email address under Account, then Delete account. Your account and everything synced to it are deleted at once and for good. You can also ask by email; see Delete your account. To remove what’s on your phone, uninstall the app.

Children

Watch Heart is not made for children under 13, and I don’t knowingly keep accounts for them. If you think a child has made one, write to me and I’ll delete it.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be here with a new date. If the change is significant, the app will say so.

Contact

Inigo, who makes Watch Heart: inigo@tosstheworld.org