Privacy Policy

1. Who's who

Owners

People with a QIMSY account who make links and codes.

Visitors

People who open a QIMSY link or scan a QIMSY code.

Senders

Visitors who send a message, a reaction, an answer or a rating.

2. What we collect from owners

• Account: your name, email address and password. We store the password only as a hash, which can't be turned back into your password. If you sign in with Apple or Google, they send us your name and email address and, from Google, a link to your profile picture. We also keep the sign-in tokens they give us.
• Sign-ins: for each device you sign in on, its IP address and device details (the “user agent”), and a session that ends after 30 days without use.
• Your links and codes: their titles, questions, designs and settings, logos you upload, and where they lead, such as a website, a social profile, a phone number, a Wi-Fi network and its password, a location or a note.
• What people send you: messages, reactions, answers and ratings, and whether you've read them.
• Your safety actions: the senders you block (we keep their IP address with your account, but never show it to you), and your reports (the reason and any details you write).
• Notifications: your push token, your notification settings, and your in-app notifications. These can include the first 50 characters of a message and, for link opens, the visitor's country and city.
• PRO: we don't get your card details. Apple or Google takes the payment, and RevenueCat tells us whether your account has PRO.
• On your phone: the app keeps you signed in using your phone's secure storage, and keeps some settings, such as recent QR designs, on your phone only.
• Camera and photos: the app uses the camera to scan codes on your phone. When it scans a QIMSY code, we count that as an open of the link. We only get a photo if you upload it as a logo.

3. What we collect from visitors and senders

When someone opens a link or scans a code

• We count the open. Bots and link previews don't count.
• We send the IP address to IPinfo (ipinfo.io) to look up an approximate location: the country, region, city and the city's position on a map. Our database keeps the location, but not the IP address. Our server logs may contain it (see section 8).
• We keep the device type, system and browser, whether a code was scanned, which app or website sent the visitor (its name only, not the page), what the page showed, and steps on the page, such as starting to type, sending, or going on to the link's destination.
• We keep a daily visitor code. It's a scrambled code made from the IP address and browser. It changes every day and is different for every link, so we can count visitors without keeping the IP address.
• In a browser, we set a cookie named qv (see section 9).
• If the owner has PRO notifications for link opens, the notification keeps the visitor's country and city.

When someone sends something

We also keep:

• what they sent: a message of up to 500 characters, a reaction, or a rating of 1 to 5 stars with up to 120 characters of text;
• the IP address;
• the approximate location from it: the country, region, city and the city's position on a map. We never know a precise position;
• the network: the internet provider or mobile carrier;
• the device type, system, browser, language setting and time zone;
• the address of the page that linked to the link page, if the browser shares it;
• a sender ID: a short code worked out from the IP address, browser, language and time zone, so things sent from the same device look alike;
• which open it was sent from, and the scrambled form of the visitor's qv cookie.

For reactions and ratings, we also keep a scrambled code of the IP address, to allow one reaction a day and to limit new ratings from one network.

We don't ask senders for a name, email address or phone number. We don't use GPS or ask for location permission.

4. What owners see

• All owners see what was sent and when, and counts of opens, messages, reactions and ratings.
• With PRO, owners also see sender hints: the country, city and a map pin, time zone, network, device, system, browser and language. They see a made-up name and avatar, and that sender's activity on their links: how much they sent, how often they opened the links, when they were first and last seen, and where they came from.
• PRO owners also see detailed stats about opens (places on a map, devices, sources and steps on the page) and notifications with each visitor's country and city.
• Owners never see a sender's IP address or cookie.
• Hints are estimates. They don't identify anyone.
• A rating link's public page can show its average rating once it has 3 ratings, unless the owner hides it. Only the owner sees the words people write.

5. Why we use data

If you're in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, the law asks us to name a legal basis for each use. Here they are.

To run QIMSY: accounts, links and pages, delivering what senders send, and notifications

Our contract with owners. For visitors and senders: our legitimate interest, and the owner's, in delivering what the sender chose to send.

To show counts, stats and sender hints to owners

Legitimate interests: owners want to understand who responds to their links. We keep hints approximate, and never show IP addresses.

To keep people safe: blocking, reports, limits on reactions and ratings, and looking into misuse

Legitimate interests in preventing abuse, and legal obligations where they apply.

To manage PRO

Our contract with you.

To measure our ads and stop ad fraud

Your consent where the law asks for it, such as for your advertising ID (on iPhone, the tracking prompt). Otherwise, our legitimate interests in knowing which of our ads work, and in not paying for fake installs and clicks. See section 7.

To secure QIMSY and fix problems

Legitimate interests.

To follow the law, answer valid legal requests, and set up or defend legal claims

Legal obligations, and legitimate interests.

Push notifications

Your choice: you allow them, or not, in your phone's settings, and you can turn each kind off in the app.

We don't sell personal data, and the QIMSY app doesn't show ads. To measure our own ads, the app uses a measurement tool, and ad networks learn which of their ads led to an install (see section 7). We don't make decisions about anyone by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.

6. Who we share data with

Service providers who work for us

• [Hosting provider]: runs our servers and database, in [Server location].
• IPinfo (ipinfo.io): receives visitors' IP addresses to look up an approximate location and network.
• Expo (650 Industries): sends push notifications. It receives your push token and the notification text. Notifications never include what was sent or where the sender is. A notification about a link open names your link.
• Apple Push Notification service and Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging: deliver notifications to your phone.
• RevenueCat: manages PRO. It receives your QIMSY account ID, your purchases and subscription status from the store, which screen opened the paywall, and basic details about your phone and the app.
• Google Maps and Apple Maps: draw maps in the app. To do that, your phone sends the map position of a sender's or visitor's city to Google (map previews, and maps on Android) or to Apple (maps on iPhone).
• [Attribution provider]: measures which of our ads led to an install (see section 7).

Others

• Apple and Google, under their own privacy policies, when you download the app, buy PRO or sign in with them.
• Ad networks our ads run on: whether one of their ads led to an install, a sign-up or a purchase (see section 7).
• Owners: what a sender sends goes to the link's owner, with the hints in section 4.
• Anyone who opens a link sees what the owner put on its page.
• Authorities: when the law requires it, or when we believe in good faith that it's needed to prevent serious harm.
• A buyer: if QIMSY is sold or merged, data moves to the new owner under this policy.

7. Measuring our ads

We advertise QIMSY in other apps and on other websites, such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, TikTok and the App Store. The QIMSY apps for iPhone and Android include a measurement tool from [Attribution provider] that tells us which ad, if any, led to an install. This is called “attribution”. Link pages on qimsy.link and this website don't use it.

What the app collects for this

• Advertising ID: your phone's advertising identifier (the IDFA on iPhone, the advertising ID on Android), only where you allow it. On iPhone, the app gets it only if you tap Allow when it asks to track you. On Android, it gets it unless you've deleted it (see “Your choices” below).
• App IDs: codes your phone gives the app that aren't for advertising: the identifier for vendor (IDFV) on iPhone and the app set ID on Android. Apps from other companies get different ones.
• Device details: the IP address, the device model, the system and its version, the language setting, the time zone and the app version.
• What happens in the app: the install, each time the app opens, signing up, and buying or renewing PRO, with the time, the price and the currency. [If used: your QIMSY account ID, to match a purchase to an install]
• The ad: if you got here from an ad, the ad network, the campaign and the ad, when you saw or tapped it, and the click ID the network added to the link.

The tool never gets your name, email address or password, your links and codes, or anything sent to them.

Help from Apple and Google

• iPhone: Apple's SKAdNetwork and AdAttributionKit tell an ad network that one of its ads led to an install, without saying who installed the app. For our ads on the App Store (Apple Search Ads), Apple gives the app a one-time token, and tells us which of those ads, if any, led to the install.
• Android: Google Play's Install Referrer tells the app which link or ad sent you to Google Play, including the campaign tags in the store links on this website.

Why

• to learn which ads and campaigns bring people to QIMSY;
• to measure and improve our campaigns, and to tell ad networks which of their ads led to installs, sign-ups and purchases, so they show our ads to people who are more likely to want QIMSY;
• to spot fake installs and clicks (ad fraud), so we don't pay for them.

Who gets it

• [Attribution provider]: works for us as a service provider (in legal terms, a “processor”). It matches installs to ads and gives us reports. It uses the data only to do this for us and to detect fraud.
• The ad networks our campaigns run on, such as Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google (including YouTube), TikTok, Apple and [Other ad networks]: whether one of their ads led to an install, a sign-up or a purchase, with the click ID or, where you allowed it, the advertising ID. They use it under their own privacy policies.

What we don't do

• We don't sell personal data.
• The QIMSY app doesn't show ads. Ad networks get nothing about your links, your messages or the people who send them.
• Link pages can show a card for one of our own other apps before a link opens its destination, in a phone's browser. It's our own ad, not an ad network's: a plain link to the App Store or Google Play. It doesn't use the measurement tool, and nothing about it goes to advertisers. Its picture can load from another website, which then sees the visitor's IP address, as with any picture on the web.

How long it's kept

• [Attribution provider]: [How long it keeps attribution data]
• Our reports: [How long we keep attribution reports]
• Ad networks: under their own policies.

Your choices

• iPhone: the app asks before it tracks you. If you tap Ask App Not to Track, it doesn't get your advertising ID. You can change your answer at any time in Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking, or stop all apps from asking. SKAdNetwork, AdAttributionKit and Apple Search Ads still count installs, without saying who you are. To turn off Apple's personalized ads, go to Settings › Privacy & Security › Apple Advertising.
• Android: in Settings › Privacy › Ads (on some phones, Settings › Google › Ads), tap Delete advertising ID. On older versions, turn on Opt out of Ads Personalization. Google Play's Install Referrer still tells the app which link brought you, without your advertising ID.
• Deleting it: write to [Contact email] and tell us roughly when you installed QIMSY and, if you have an account, its email address. We'll delete what we hold and ask [Attribution provider] to delete it too.
• You can also choose which ads you see in your Meta, Google or TikTok settings.

8. How long we keep data

Nothing is deleted on a timer today. Data stays until it's deleted as described here.

• Your account: until it's deleted.
• Links, and what was sent to them, with its technical data (including senders' IP addresses): until the owner deletes the message or the link, or the account is deleted. [Maximum time we keep senders' IP addresses]
• Opens and stats: until the link is deleted. Deleting a link also deletes its messages, reactions, ratings and stats.
• Notifications: until the owner deletes them. A notification can keep the start of a message after the message itself is deleted.
• Blocks: until the owner unblocks the sender.
• Reports: [How long we keep reports]. A report stays even after the message is deleted.
• Sign-in sessions: they end after 30 days without use. [How long we keep ended sessions]
• The qv cookie: one year in the visitor's browser, unless they clear it sooner.
• Location lookups and rate limits: only in our server's memory, never in the database. A lookup is reused for up to 10 minutes. Both are cleared when newer ones replace them or the server restarts.
• Server logs: [How long we keep server logs]
• Backups: [How long we keep backups]
• Purchase records: Apple, Google and RevenueCat keep them under their own policies.
• Ad measurement: see section 7.

9. Cookies

• Link pages on qimsy.link set one cookie, qv. It holds a random value and lasts one year. It lets us recognize a browser that comes back. We use it to count returning visitors for the owner's stats and sender history, to allow one reaction a day, to keep one rating per visitor, and to show visitors the rating they gave.
• We store the qv cookie only as a scrambled code that's different for every link, so it can't be matched across links.
• The app keeps you signed in with a session token stored on your phone.
• This website, qimsy.com, doesn't set cookies of its own.
• Our link pages and this website don't use cookies for advertising or third-party cookies.

10. Security

• Connections to QIMSY are encrypted (HTTPS).
• Passwords are stored only as hashes.
• Owners never see IP addresses. Cookies, and some codes made from IP addresses, are stored only in scrambled form.
• No system is completely secure. If a breach puts your data at risk, we'll tell you, and the authorities, when the law requires it.

11. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you can ask us to:

• give you a copy of your data;
• correct it;
• delete it;
• stop or limit using it, or object to how we use it, including for stats, sender hints and measuring our ads;
• send it to you or to another service in a common format.

You can also withdraw any consent you gave, at any time, and complain to your local data protection authority.

How to ask

• Owners can delete messages, links and notifications in the app. Reactions and ratings are deleted with their link.
• For anything else, including deleting your whole account, write to [Contact email] from the email address on your account.
• If you sent something, tell us the link, roughly when you sent it, and what it said, so we can find it. Senders don't have accounts, so we may not be able to find it or confirm it was you.
• We'll answer within the time the law sets, usually one month. It's free.
• We don't sell personal information for money. But telling ad networks which of our ads led to an install can count as a “sale” or “sharing” for targeted advertising, as some US state privacy laws, such as California's, define those terms. To opt out, use your phone's settings in section 7, or write to [Contact email].

12. Children

• QIMSY is only for people 18 and over, owners and senders alike.
• We don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 18.
• If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we delete it.
• If you think a child is using QIMSY, tell us at [Contact email].

13. Data sent to other countries

• We're based in [Company country]. Our servers are in [Server location]. Some of our providers, including IPinfo, Expo, RevenueCat, Apple and Google, are in the United States. [Attribution provider] is in [Attribution provider's country]. Ad networks, such as Meta, Google and TikTok, may handle data in the United States and other countries.
• When data leaves the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, we protect it with [Transfer safeguard, such as Standard Contractual Clauses].

14. Changes to this policy

• We'll post any update on this page with a new effective date.
• If a change is important, we'll tell you before it takes effect, for example in the app.

15. Contact