Privacy policy

Who we are

Watcho is an app for tracking, rating and sharing the films and TV you watch, and watcho.app is its website. The data controller responsible for your personal data is [Controller name, address]. For anything about your data, email [email protected].

What we collect

When you create an account

• Your @handle, email address and password. Your password is stored hashed, so nobody at Watcho can read it.
• A display name. It starts as your handle and you can change it.

We don’t ask for your date of birth, phone number, gender or location.

Your profile

• A profile picture, if you upload one, and the film backdrop you pick as your banner.
• Your Top 4 and favourite characters.
• Your privacy settings: whether your profile is private, who can invite you to lists, who can see the comments you like, and the spoiler shield.

What you do in the app

• The films, series and episodes you mark as watched, when you watched them, and on what kind of screen if you say so.
• Your ratings and reactions.
• Your comments, including @mentions and spoiler tags, and the comments you like or vote on.
• Your lists and who you share them with.
• Your friends and friend requests, and the “watched with” invites you send and answer.
• Swipe sessions: the mood and time you choose, your yes and no votes, and who’s in the session.
• Game results: scores, times, moves and streaks.
• Release radar reminders.
• Your in-app notifications.

Imports

If you import your history from TV Time, Letterboxd or IMDb, we read the export file you give us to add those titles, ratings and watches to your account.

• The uploaded file is deleted once the import finishes or fails.
• An import you start but never confirm is deleted within a few hours.
• We keep the titles we added and a short receipt of anything we couldn’t match.

Technical information

To keep you signed in, the app stores a sign-in token on your phone, and we store a record of it that notes when it was last used. Like any online service, our servers also log basic request details such as IP address and time, to keep Watcho running and secure.

What we don’t collect

• No advertising or tracking. There are no ads, analytics or crash-reporting tools in the app or on this website.
• No location. The app never asks for your location. The country used for “where to watch” is a setting you choose, stored on your phone.
• No contacts, camera roll or microphone. The app only sees a photo when you pick one as your profile picture.
• No emails or push notifications. Watcho doesn’t send either today. Notifications live inside the app.

How we use it, and why

• To provide Watcho to you: your history, profile, lists, games, Swipe, release radar, and showing your activity to your friends. We need this data to run the service you signed up for.
• To suggest people you might know: based on mutual friends and who has used the app recently. This is in our legitimate interest in helping you find friends; you can simply ignore suggestions.
• To keep Watcho safe: preventing abuse and fixing problems, which is in our legitimate interest.

We don’t sell your personal data, and we don’t use it for advertising.

Who can see what

• Your profile is private by default. While it’s private, people who aren’t your friends only see your name, @handle, profile picture and badges. Your stats, history, lists and Top 4 are hidden.
• Your friends see what you watch, rate and react to in their feed and in stories, your average score on a title next to theirs, and your full profile.
• If you make your profile public, anyone signed in to Watcho can see your profile, and your activity can appear in the app’s wider activity feed.
• Comments are public inside the app. Anyone signed in can read them, with your name and profile picture, whatever your profile setting.
• Game leaderboards show your name, profile picture and best score to other players.
• Finding you: other signed-in users can find you by your name, @handle or email address. Friends, and people who have sent you or received a friend request from you, can see your email address.
• Swipe sessions: people in the same session can see each other’s name and profile picture.
• Your profile picture is stored at a web address so the app can show it to others, so anyone who has that address can open the image.

Services we rely on

• TMDB (The Movie Database). Film and TV information and images come from TMDB, which is based in the United States. The app and this website load posters and backdrops straight from TMDB’s servers, so TMDB receives your IP address when an image loads. We never send TMDB your name, email or account details. During an import, we send TMDB the titles, years and IMDb or TVDB IDs from your file so we can match them.
• Hosting. Our servers are run by a hosting provider that stores and processes data on our behalf and isn’t allowed to use it for anything else.
• Links you open. Trailers, streaming services, IMDb and similar links open in YouTube, the service’s own app or your browser. From then on, their privacy policies apply.

On your phone

The app keeps a few things on your device:

• your sign-in token;
• your settings (language, theme, country for where to watch, your streaming services);
• your recent searches;
• which friends’ stories you’ve already seen.

Logging out removes your sign-in token. Uninstalling the app removes the rest.

The app asks for two Android permissions: internet access, and vibration for tap feedback.

This website

• watcho.app sets no cookies and uses no analytics.
• Posters on these pages load from TMDB, as described above.
• Our server logs basic request details to keep the site running.

How long we keep it

• We keep your account data for as long as you have an account.
• Import files are deleted as soon as the import is done.
• When your account is deleted, your profile and everything linked to it is deleted from our database: watches, ratings, reactions, comments, lists, friendships, game results, notifications and sign-in tokens.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

• give you a copy of your data;
• correct it;
• delete it or your whole account;
• limit how we use it;
• object to how we use it.

You can change most things yourself in the app, including your name, handle, picture and privacy settings. For anything else, email [email protected] and we’ll answer within 30 days.

If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your data, you can complain to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, Datatilsynet, or the data protection authority where you live.

Children

Watcho isn’t meant for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their data. If you think a child under 13 has an account, email us and we’ll delete it.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top of this page. If the change affects what we collect or who can see it, we’ll also tell you in the app.