Privacy policy
The short version
- You can use TV Casually without an account. Then your library stays on your phone and we don't know who you are.
- With an account we keep your email address (if you give us one), your library and watch history, your ratings and comments, and your settings, so they sync and are backed up.
- We don't show ads, sell your data or track you across other apps. What you watch is never shared for marketing.
- Comments are checked by a moderation model that runs on our own server. They aren't sent to any other company for moderation.
- You can export your history and delete your account in the app at any time.
1. Who we are
TV Casually (the iOS and Android app, its server and tvcasually.com) is run by Boring Lava LLC, Washington, United States ("we", "us"). We are the controller of the personal data described here.
Questions or requests about your data: support@boringlava.com.
2. Using TV Casually without an account
You can start without an account ("Continue without an account"). Your library, watch history and settings are then stored only on your phone, and we create no account for you on our server.
The app still asks our server for show information: searches, show pages, the popular list, suggestions based on the shows you're watching, and updates to the shows you follow. Those requests can contain what you searched for and show ids. They don't include an account id. Like every request on the internet, they come from your IP address, which our server uses briefly in memory to limit abuse and doesn't store in access logs.
Show posters and episode images are loaded by the app straight from TVmaze's image servers, so TVmaze sees your IP address when they load (see section 6).
Ratings, comments, reports, export, import and Plus need an account, because they are stored with it.
3. What we collect and why
With an account, we store the following. The legal bases are those of the EU and UK GDPR: contract (we need it to provide what you asked for), legitimate interests (ours, balanced against yours; you can object, see section 9), consent and legal obligation.
| What | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Account and sign-in. Your email address, if you sign in by email or Apple or Google share it with us (with Apple's "Hide My Email" it is a relay address). The account id Apple or Google gives us for you. For Sign in with Apple, a token we use only to revoke the sign-in when you delete your account. For accounts made with a password in early versions, a one-way hash of the password. When the account was created. | To create your account, sign you in, send you sign-in links and codes, and recognise you on a new device. | Contract |
| Sessions. A one-way hash of each device's sign-in token, when it was created and last used. | To keep you signed in and let you sign out everywhere. | Contract |
| Library and watch history. The shows in your library and their status (Watching, Want to Watch, Dropped), when you added them, which episodes you marked watched and when, rewatches (Plus), and history you import from other apps. | The core of the app: progress, Watching, Upcoming, history, sync between your devices and backup. | Contract |
| Things we work out from your library. Achievements, statistics behind them, and monthly or yearly recaps (with the time zone you view them in). | To show you your achievements, statistics and recaps. | Contract |
| Settings that follow your account. Appearance, Watching layout, reminder options, Smart Lists, and whether to show your achievement or supporter badge. | So your settings are the same on every device. | Contract |
| Ratings, comments and reports. See section 4. | Episode ratings and discussions, and keeping them civil. | Contract; legitimate interests (moderation and safety) |
| TV Casually Plus. The store's id for your subscription, which plan, its status, renewal and expiry dates, whether it is a test purchase, and store notification records and their outcomes. We never receive your name, payment card or billing address: Apple and Google handle payment. | To give you Plus on every device and keep it in step with the store. | Contract; legal obligation (records of sales) |
| Reminders by push. If you turn reminders on while signed in: the device's push token, whether it is iOS or Android, its time zone, the app version, how far ahead the phone has scheduled reminders itself, and which reminders we sent. | To send new-episode reminders when your phone can't schedule them itself, and never twice. | Consent (your notification permission and the Reminders setting) |
| Technical data. The app version and platform sent with each request; your IP address, used in memory to limit abuse and not stored; server logs of errors and important events, which identify your account only by its random id. | To run the service, refuse outdated app versions, prevent abuse and fix bugs. | Legitimate interests (security and reliability) |
| Sync health counters. When a sync succeeds, the app reports a few numbers: changes it couldn't save or that the server refused, failed storage reads or writes, and how long its oldest unsent change has waited. No content. | To notice when people's changes might be getting lost. | Legitimate interests (reliability) |
| Crash reports. When the app's JavaScript or our server hits an error: the error, and where in the code it happened. Server reports may include the route pattern or job name. Reports do not contain an account id, email, request contents or what you watch. Identifiers and addresses in error text are scrubbed before logging. | To find and fix crashes. | Legitimate interests (reliability) |
| Messages to support. What you write to us and your email address. | To answer you. | Legitimate interests; contract where it's about your account |
We also count how many people track each show to build the popular list, and how many people track each pair of shows to suggest shows that fans of a show also watch ("Because you watch …"). A show appears in the popular list only once at least five people track it, and one show is suggested for another only once at least five people track both. Neither says anything about who, and your suggestions are put together on your phone from these shared lists.
On your phone, the app keeps a copy of your library, changes waiting to sync, your settings and your sign-in token (in the system's secure storage). Statistics and Smart Lists are worked out on the phone. Reminders you get while using the app are scheduled on the phone too.
4. Ratings, comments and moderation
- Ratings (1–10 per episode) are private. Others see only the average, and only once an episode has at least three ratings.
- Comments are public in the app once approved, under a random public name such as "Amber Otter 27" that isn't based on your email or account. Your achievement or supporter badge appears beside it only if you turn it on.
- Moderation. Before a comment is published, an automated moderation model reads its text, together with the show title and episode number. The model runs on our own server; comments aren't sent to any other company. We don't send your account id, email or IP address with them. A comment can be rejected only for the reasons in our community rules. The text of a rejected or removed comment is erased 90 days after the decision. We keep a history of rejections and removals for a year; repeated serious breaks within it can pause your commenting for a day, a week or a month, or end it. These decisions only affect commenting. If you think one is wrong, write to us within 90 days and a person will look at it.
- Reports. When you report a comment, we store which comment, the reason you chose and when. The author isn't told who reported it.
- Blocking. If you block someone, we store that, so their comments are hidden from you. They aren't told.
5. What we don't do
- We don't show ads, and the app contains no advertising code.
- We don't sell or rent personal data, or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.
- We don't use tracking services, advertising identifiers, or fingerprinting, and we don't track you across other companies' apps or websites.
- We don't access your location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone.
- We never share what you watch with anyone for marketing.
If we ever add ads or an analytics service, we will update this policy first and ask for consent where the law requires it.
6. Who processes your data
We use a few service providers. Those marked "processor" act only on our instructions, under a contract that requires them to protect the data.
| Who | What for | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services (processor) | Hosting: our server, database, backups and logs; delivering requests | Everything we store, encrypted at rest |
| Resend (processor) | Sending sign-in emails | Your email address and the sign-in message |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple, App Store purchases, push notifications on iPhone | Sign-in and purchase requests from your device; the reminder text for push notifications, which Google passes to Apple for delivery to an iPhone. Apple's own privacy policy applies to your Apple Account. |
| Google sign-in, Google Play purchases, and sending push reminders through Firebase Cloud Messaging (processor), on Android and, through Apple, on iPhone | Sign-in and purchase requests from your device; your device's push token and the reminder text when push notifications are enabled. Google's own privacy policy applies to your Google Account. | |
| TVmaze | Show and episode information, posters and images | From our server: search terms and show ids, never anything about you. From your phone: requests for images, which show your IP address. |
We may also disclose data when the law requires it, to protect people's safety or our rights, or to a company that takes over TV Casually, which would have to keep to this policy. We would tell you first.
7. Where your data is stored
Our server, database, backups and logs are in the United States (Amazon Web Services, Oregon). If you live in the EU, the UK or elsewhere, your data is transferred there. We rely on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses (and the UK addendum) in our providers' data processing terms, or on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where a provider is certified under it.
8. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept |
|---|---|
| Account, library, history, ratings, comments, settings, subscription | Until you delete your account (or the item) |
| A comment you delete | Hidden at once; its text is erased after 30 days |
| A comment that isn't published, or is taken down | Its text is erased 90 days after the decision |
| History of rejected and removed comments | 1 year |
| Sign-in links and codes | 15 minutes, or until used |
| Sessions | Until you sign out, or 180 days after the device last used it |
| Push registrations | Until you turn reminders off, sign out or delete your account |
| Records of reminders sent | 3 days |
| Records of applied changes (to avoid applying one twice) | 90 days |
| Server logs | 30 days searchable, then archived in compressed form and deleted after 400 days. Web server and database logs: 14 days. |
| Database backups | Daily backups up to 3 weeks; one backup a month for up to 13 months |
| Record that an account was deleted (its random id and when; nothing else) | About 13 months, as long as the oldest backup |
| Billing records (purchases, restores, store notifications) | Kept after you delete your account, with nothing that links them to you, for our accounts and tax records |
| Crash reports | In our operational logs: 30 days in CloudWatch, then archived to S3 and deleted after 400 days |
| Messages to support | As long as needed to resolve your request |
When you delete your account, everything in the first row is deleted at once. Copies in backups disappear as the backups expire, at most 13 months later; we don't use backups except to recover from a failure. To make sure a restored backup can't bring your account back, we keep a record of the deletion with only your account's random id and the time, and if we ever restore a backup, we delete every account deleted since then again.
9. Your choices and rights
In the app
- Export: Settings → Your data → Export as JSON gives you a copy of your data in an open format: your library and watch history (with TVmaze and IMDb ids), ratings, your comments (including ones not published, while their text is kept), rewatches, settings and Smart Lists, achievements, public name and badges, subscription status, how you sign in, the people you blocked and how many devices get reminders. Export as CSV gives your library and watch history as one table. For anything else we hold about you, write to us.
- Delete: Settings → Delete account. See Deleting your account, which also explains how to ask without the app.
- Correct: change your library and ratings in the app; delete a comment and post it again. To change your email address, write to us.
- Notifications: turn reminders off in Settings → Reminders, or in your phone's settings.
EU, EEA and UK
You have the right to access your data, to correct it, to have it deleted, to restrict or object to its use (including where we rely on legitimate interests), to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time without affecting what happened before. You can also complain to your data protection authority; in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office.
California and other US states
Under the CCPA as amended by the CPRA, and similar state laws, you have the right to know what personal information we collect, use and disclose; to have it deleted; to correct it; and not to be treated differently for using these rights. In the past 12 months we have collected the categories described in section 3: identifiers (email address, account ids, IP address), commercial information (subscription records), internet or other electronic activity (your library, watch history and app use), and content you post. We collect them for the purposes in section 3 and disclose them only to the providers in section 6. We do not sell or share personal information, and we don't use sensitive personal information to infer anything about you. You or an authorised agent can make a request at support@boringlava.com.
How to make a request
Write to support@boringlava.com from the email address on your account, so we can check the account is yours. We answer within a month (45 days under the CCPA), and tell you if we need longer. It's free.
10. Children
TV Casually is not directed at children. You must be at least 13 years old, or older where your country requires it, to use it. If we learn that we have an account belonging to a child under 13, we delete it. If you think we do, please tell us.
11. Security
Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Our database, backups and logs are encrypted at rest, and only a few people can reach them. We store only one-way hashes of sign-in tokens, links, codes and passwords. Comments are moderated without any personal details attached. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change is important, we will also tell you in the app before it applies.
13. Contact
support@boringlava.com
Boring Lava LLC, Washington, United States