Legal Notice

Operator

Questions, takedown requests, or anything else: contact matthias.machold@gmx.at.

Data Protection

Movie Swiper is designed to work without accounts. The site collects only what is needed to make group swiping function:

  • Nickname. The display name you type when you create or join a group. Visible to other members of your group.
  • Session token. A random identifier stored both in our database and in a cookie called ms_session. The cookie lasts 30 days, and each visit extends it by another 30 days, so that returning to a group keeps your existing swipes instead of signing you in as a new member. It is used solely to keep you signed in to your group on the same device, never for analytics or tracking.
  • Group code, join time, last-seen time. Used to assemble the group and show who is currently active.
  • Swipe decisions. For each movie shown to you, whether you picked like or pass, with a timestamp. This is the whole point of the app — your swipes are compared with your group's to find matches.
  • Feedback. When you report a bug or suggest an improvement, we store your message, whether it is a bug report or a suggestion, the page you sent it from, and the time. You can optionally add your email address. It is used only to tell you when that bug is fixed or that suggestion is added, is seen only by the operator, and is never used for newsletters or marketing or passed to anyone. Leave the field empty and we have no way to contact you.
  • IP address. When you create or join a group, your IP address is used to count recent attempts and block abuse (spam and automated flooding). It is stored as part of a rate-limit counter and is never tied to your nickname or swipes. The counter stops being used once its time window passes, but the row itself is retained — see Retention below. Your IP address is also used — but never stored — to derive the daily visitor code described under Analytics. Beyond those two uses we keep no general access or IP logs of our own.

We do not collect your real name, we have your email address only if you choose to leave it with feedback, and we run no advertising, marketing or conversion-tracking tags at all.

Analytics

To understand overall traffic — how many people visit and which pages they use — we measure it in two ways. Neither sets a cookie, and neither can follow you to another website.

Our own measurement. A small script served from this site (/a.js) reports each page view back to this domain. It is self-hosted: nothing is sent to a third party, and no advertising or analytics company is involved. It records the page address, the page that linked you here, your browser's identification string and language, your screen size, and the time. When you send feedback, it also notes that you did and whether it was a bug report or a suggestion — never what you wrote. What it deliberately does not do:

  • No cookies and no local storage. The script reads and writes nothing at all on your device.
  • Your IP address is never stored. It is used only to compute a short one-way code that tells one visitor apart from another. That code is built from a secret plus the current date, so it changes every day and cannot be turned back into an IP address.
  • No cross-site tracking and no profiles. The code is specific to this site and to a single day, so it cannot follow you elsewhere or link your visits together over time.
  • No country or location is recorded.
  • Raw records are kept on this webspace for at most 14 days and are then deleted automatically. Before that they are copied to a reporting system we run ourselves, which holds them as traffic figures; they are not shared with anyone.

Umami. To understand which countries our visitors come from we additionally use Umami, a privacy-focused analytics tool, hosted by its provider. Umami is cookieless too: it sets no cookies, does not track you across other websites, and does not store data that identifies you personally. It collects only aggregate, anonymous figures such as page views, approximate country, referring site, browser, and device type. We do not use Google Analytics. We rely on our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) in understanding and improving the service.

Cookies and local storage

We set at most two cookies, both strictly necessary for something you asked for: ms_session (described above) keeps you in your group, and ms_lang remembers the interface language — English or German — once you pick one with the language switch or open the German version of the site. It holds only en or de, lasts one year, and is never used for analytics or tracking. Until you pick a language, we follow the language preference your browser sends with every request; it is used for that page only and not stored. Both analytics systems described above are cookieless, and there is no advertising cookie. Separately, your browser's local storage keeps a few preferences on your own device — your list of recent groups, your chosen streaming country, and (if you set one) your Jellyseerr address. This data stays in your browser, is never sent to us, and you can clear it at any time through your browser settings.

Why we are allowed to process this (legal basis)

Under the GDPR, we rely on:

  • Performance of a service you requested (Art. 6(1)(b)). Nicknames, session tokens, group data, and swipes are processed so the group-swiping feature can work at all, and your language choice so the site appears in the language you picked.
  • Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)). The temporary IP-based rate limiting is used to keep the service available and protect it from abuse, the feedback you send so we can fix and improve the site, and the two cookieless analytics systems described above — our own first-party measurement and Umami.
  • Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)). The optional email address you leave with feedback. You can withdraw that consent at any time by asking us to delete the address.

Is swipe history personal data?

Possibly. Under the GDPR (Art. 4(1)), data is “personal” whenever it can be linked to an identifiable person. Because nicknames are user-chosen and may include real names or recognizable handles, the combination of nickname + swipe history could allow someone to be identified by people who already know them. We therefore treat this combination as potentially personal data. If you do not want your swipes to be associated with you in any way, pick a nickname that does not identify you.

Retention

We currently keep group data until it is deleted on request. A group and everything attached to it — members, nicknames, swipes, and matches — stays in the database after you stop using it. There is at present no automatic deletion, so a group you created weeks ago is still stored.

The rate-limit counters described above, which contain an IP address, are also kept rather than expiring on their own.

Feedback messages, and any email address left with them, are likewise kept until deleted. Ask at any time and we will remove your address, or the whole message.

The one exception is our own analytics: those raw records are deleted from this webspace automatically after at most 14 days, as described under Analytics.

To have a group and its swipes erased, email the address above with your group code and nickname and we will delete it.

Your rights

Where the GDPR applies, you have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to ask us to correct or delete it, and to object to processing based on legitimate interests. Because we hold no account or email for you, the practical way to exercise these rights is to email us with your group code and nickname so we can identify the relevant data. Because nothing is deleted automatically at the moment, a request is the way to have your data removed.

Third parties

Movie metadata and poster images are loaded from The Movie Database (TMDB). When those assets load, your browser contacts TMDB directly; their privacy terms apply to that connection. Movie Swiper is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

The only other third party your browser contacts is Umami, for the cookieless analytics described above. There are no others — our own measurement adds none, because it talks only to this domain.