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Privacy Policy
In short
- We use your data only to run Boxaday: your account, your calendars and what you put in the boxes.
- No advertising unless you choose to watch an ad, no analytics tools, and we never sell your data.
- Your data is stored by Amazon Web Services in Paris, France.
- You can delete your account at any time in the app: Profile → Delete account.
1. Who is responsible for your data
The data controller is Samuel Lager, an independent developer (“Boxaday”, “we”). For any question about your data or to exercise your rights, write to hello@boxaday.app.
This policy explains what we collect, why, who receives it, how long we keep it and what your rights are, as required by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, articles 12 to 14) and the French Data Protection Act (loi Informatique et Libertés).
2. What we collect and why
| Data | Why | Legal basis (GDPR art. 6) |
|---|---|---|
| Account: e-mail address, a technical user id, and the identifier given by Sign in with Apple or Google if you use them | Create your account, sign you in, send your sign-in codes | Performance of our contract with you (the Terms) |
| Profile: display name, optional profile photo, app language, notification settings, the people you chose to hide | Show who you are to the members of your calendars, adapt the app to you | Contract |
| Calendars: name, occasion, dates, time zone and settings; members and their role (creator, participant, recipient); invite and gift codes; themes picked for each day; which boxes you have to fill; the opening animation you chose | Create and run calendars, plan the boxes, open one box a day | Contract |
| What you put in boxes: texts, photos, voice recordings, videos, links and captions | Show them to the people who can open the box | Contract |
| Notifications: your device's push token | Tell you when a box opens, when a box is due, or when someone joins | Contract. Notifications only start if you allow them on your phone, and you can turn them off at any time |
| Removal log: when someone removes another person's item, the ids of the item, calendar, author and remover, and the date (never the content) | Detect abuse and answer lawful requests from authorities | Our legitimate interest in keeping Boxaday safe |
| Technical logs: server requests and errors, which may include your user id and the IP address your phone connects from, and error reports sent by the app when something goes wrong (what failed, the screen, the app version, the phone model and iOS version) | Keep the service secure and fix problems | Our legitimate interest in a secure, working service |
| Purchases: the animations you bought (App Store product and transaction ids, date). Apple handles the payment: we never see your payment details | Give you what you bought and restore it on your devices | Contract |
| Rewarded ads: when you choose to watch an ad to unlock an animation, Google (AdMob) confirms it to us with your user id, the box it unlocks and a transaction id | Unlock the animation for that box, once | Contract |
| Advertising data processed by Google while you watch an ad: device and app information, IP address, ad interactions and, if you allow tracking on your iPhone, its advertising identifier | Show and measure the ad and, if you agree, personalise it | Your consent (asked in the app where the law requires it, and by iOS for tracking) |
We do not collect your location, contacts or browsing history, and the app contains no analytics tools. Ads only appear when you tap to watch one. Your name and e-mail are never taken from Apple or Google to fill your profile without you: the app may only suggest them in the sign-up form.
Please only add content about other people that they would be happy to share, and avoid sensitive information (health, religion, political opinions…) about yourself or others. What you add is visible to the members of the calendar.
3. Who can see your data
- Members of your calendars see your display name and profile photo, and the items you added once their box is open. Boxes unlock one a day; until then our servers don't release their content to anyone, the recipient included. In “Guess who” boxes, your name isn't shown next to your item.
- The recipient of a calendar made for someone sees the boxes as they open, and only how many people prepared it before the first box opens.
- Our service providers, only to run Boxaday for us and under contract (section 4).
- Authorities, when the law requires it.
We don't look at your calendars or their content, except when you ask us for help, to handle a report of illegal content, or when the law requires it.
4. Service providers
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL (Luxembourg) | Servers, database, file storage, sign-in (Amazon Cognito), sign-in e-mails (Amazon SES), file delivery (Amazon CloudFront) | Paris region (France). Files are delivered through CloudFront servers in Europe and North America |
| Expo (650 Industries, Inc., USA) | Sending push notifications: your push token and the text of the notification (for example a calendar name or a member's name) | United States |
| Apple (APNs) and Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) | Delivering notifications to your phone | Their own infrastructure |
| Google Ireland Limited (AdMob) | Showing rewarded ads and confirming them. For personalised ads Google is an independent controller under its own privacy policy | European Union and United States |
| Apple Distribution International (App Store) | Selling the animations: payment, refunds, and the signed proof of purchase we check | Apple’s infrastructure |
If you use Sign in with Apple or Google, they confirm your identity and give us your e-mail address (Apple may give a private relay address). Their own privacy policies apply to that sign-in.
5. Transfers outside the European Union
Some providers above may process data in the United States. Expo and Google are certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, which the European Commission recognises as providing adequate protection (GDPR art. 45). Other transfers rely on the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses (GDPR art. 46). You can ask us for details of these safeguards.
6. How long we keep your data
| Data | Kept |
|---|---|
| Account and profile | Until you delete your account, or after 3 years without using Boxaday. We warn you at least 30 days before deleting an inactive account; opening the app keeps it. Your items then stay in their calendars as “Former member”, as when you delete your account and keep your items |
| Items you added | Until they are removed (by you, or by a member who can see them), or until you leave the calendar or delete your account choosing “remove my items”. If you choose to keep them, they stay in the calendar for the other members; after your account is deleted they show as “Former member”, without your name or photo |
| Calendars | Calendars stay available to their members after they end, so they can look back at them. Their files move to archive storage after the season |
| Previous profile photo | Deleted as soon as you set a new one |
| Removal log | 90 days, then deleted automatically |
| Technical logs | 90 days |
| Database backups | 35 days: deleted data disappears from backups within 35 days |
| Purchases | Until you delete your account (a refund removes the purchase). After that, the purchase can be restored on a new account with the same Apple ID |
| Rewarded ad confirmations | 30 days (against replays); the animation stays unlocked for that box |
Removing an item deletes it and its files at once, for everyone. Deleting your account removes you from every calendar, deletes your profile, profile photo and sign-in account, and applies your choice to your items.
On your phone, the app keeps your sign-in session in the system's secure storage and a cache of what you viewed; uninstalling the app removes them.
7. Your rights
You have the right to access your data, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to its use (for processing based on our legitimate interest), and receive the data you gave us in a portable format (GDPR art. 15 to 21). In France, you can also give instructions about what happens to your data after your death.
- Edit your name, photo, language and notifications in the app (Profile).
- Delete your account in the app (Profile → Delete account).
- For anything else, write to hello@boxaday.app from the address of your account. We answer within one month (up to three months for complex requests, in which case we tell you why).
You can change your ad consent at any time in the app (Profile → Ad privacy choices, shown where the law requires it) and refuse tracking in iOS (Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking). Withdrawing consent doesn’t affect what was done before.
If you think we don't respect your rights, you can complain to the French data protection authority, the CNIL, or to the authority of the EU country where you live.
8. Minimum age
Boxaday is for people aged 15 and over. We don't knowingly collect data from younger children. If you think a child under 15 has an account, tell us and we will delete it.
9. Security
Data travels encrypted (HTTPS) and is encrypted at rest. Files are stored privately and are only reachable through short-lived signed links, boxes unlock on our servers (changing your phone's clock reveals nothing), and our own systems only get the access they need. No system is perfectly secure: if a breach puts your rights at risk, we will inform you and the CNIL as the law requires.
10. Automated decisions
Boxaday plans calendars automatically (which themes and boxes each participant gets), using the calendar's settings and chance. This has no legal or similarly significant effect on you, and we don't profile you.
11. Changes
If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we will tell you in the app before the change applies. The date at the top shows the latest version.