Privacy Policy

Bonding Tunes is a music app for groups: everyone answers a question with a song, and the group listens together. This policy explains what the Bonding Tunes app and the websites bondingtunes.com and go.bondingtunes.com do with your data, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and what your rights are under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

1. Who we are

Bonding Tunes is made by SmartID Technologies B.V. (“SmartID”, “we”, “us”), Leliegracht 32, 1015 DG Amsterdam, the Netherlands, registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KvK) under number 74371908. We are the controller of the personal data described in this policy.

Questions about privacy, or a request about your data: hello@smartidtechnologies.com. Your use of Bonding Tunes is also governed by our Terms of Use.

2. What we collect, and what for

Your account ID

The first time you open the app, it signs in to Google Firebase anonymously and receives a random account ID. That ID keeps your rooms, your library and your purchases together. It is not linked to your name, email address or phone number. You can find it under Settings → App Details → User ID. Firebase also gives each installation of the app a random installation ID, which it uses to deliver the app’s settings (Firebase Remote Config).

Sign in with Apple (optional)

If you choose to sign in with Apple, we receive the email address Apple shares with us and link it to your account ID, so you can get your library back on another phone. If you choose Apple’s “Hide My Email”, we only receive a private relay address.

The name you play under

You choose a display name when you first open the app. It is stored on your phone and shown to the people in every room you join. It doesn’t have to be your real name.

Rooms

When you host or join a room, we store in Google Cloud Firestore: your display name, the music service you use, the questions dealt to you, the songs you pick (title, artist, album, artwork and the song’s links), how long you took to answer and to search, the questions you skipped and, in the guessing mode, your guesses and points. Everyone in the room can see this while the room is open.

Your library

The songs you keep as favourites and the sessions you have played are saved under your account ID in Firestore, so they survive a reinstall. A saved session lists the people who were there, what everyone picked and, in the guessing mode, the standings. Every player’s phone saves the session this way, so a copy that includes your name and your picks is also kept in the libraries of the other people in the room. If someone shares a session from their library, the text they share includes the players’ names and picks.

Question and song statistics

When a room ends, our servers copy its answers into a statistics log before the room is deleted: which question was asked, which song was picked for it, how long the answer took, how many people played and in which mode. These records contain no names and no account IDs; they carry a random reference to the session instead. We use them to learn which questions work well and which songs people choose, so we can improve the question packs.

Usage analytics (Google Analytics)

The app uses Google Analytics for Firebase to measure how Bonding Tunes is used: which modes and packs are played and for how long, how many people play together, which screens are opened, and whether the subscription screen was shown and a purchase completed. Google Analytics also receives device details (model, operating system, language, app version), an approximate country derived from your IP address, and your account ID as its user ID, so that one person’s sessions are counted as one person. It does not receive your name, your songs, the questions or room codes.

Advertising features are switched off: no advertising IDs are collected, and the advertising consent signals are always set to “denied”. You can stop analytics at any time under Settings → Privacy → Share usage statistics. When you switch it off, collection stops and the analytics identifiers on your phone are reset.

Purchases

If you buy Bonding Tunes+, Apple or Google handles the payment. RevenueCat, our subscription provider, receives the purchase details (product, price, currency, dates and renewal status), your account ID and the app’s analytics instance ID. We use this to unlock Bonding Tunes+, restore it on another phone and count our sales. We never receive your payment card details or billing address.

Music search, previews and playback

When you search for a song, your phone sends the words you type and your App Store country to Apple’s music catalogue (the Apple Music API) to find matching songs. 30-second previews are streamed directly from Apple. Neither needs an Apple Music subscription.

If you play full songs inside the app on iPhone, the app uses Apple’s MusicKit and your own Apple Music subscription, with your permission. We do not read your listening history or your music library, and nothing is added to your library.

To open a pick in Spotify, YouTube Music or another service, our servers look up that song’s links on MusicLink, a link-matching service, using the song’s industry code (ISRC) or its Apple Music link. The same happens with a music link you paste or share into the app. Only the song identifier is sent, nothing about you. Opening a link takes you to that service, and its own privacy policy then applies.

Camera, microphone and clipboard

The camera is used only to scan QR codes, to join a room or to read a printed question card. The picture is processed on your phone and is never stored or sent anywhere.

On iPhone, the app asks for microphone access only because iOS lets an app play sound through the earpiece only when it has that permission. Bonding Tunes never records or listens to anything.

The app reads your clipboard only when you tap Paste.

Settings on your phone

Your display name, language, preferred music service, preview autoplay, the analytics switch and similar settings are stored only on your phone.

Our websites

bondingtunes.com is hosted by Webflow. go.bondingtunes.com, which opens join links and printed card codes, is hosted by Google Firebase Hosting. Both hosts log technical request data (IP address, page address, time and browser) to deliver the sites and protect them against abuse. A go.bondingtunes.com page address can contain a room code or a card number. Neither site uses analytics or advertising cookies. Webflow’s network may set one strictly necessary security cookie (_cfuvid) that helps it block abusive traffic.

When you contact us

If you email us, we use your email address and your message to answer you.

3. Our legal bases

• To provide the app you asked to use (performance of a contract, Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR): your account ID, rooms, your library, Sign in with Apple, music search and links, and Bonding Tunes+.
• Our legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR): question and song statistics and usage analytics, to understand and improve Bonding Tunes; website logs, to keep our services secure; and answering your messages. We keep this data limited and pseudonymous, and never use it for advertising. You can object at any time, and you can switch analytics off in Settings yourself.
• Legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR): keeping transaction records for tax and accounting.
• Your permission: the camera, the microphone and Apple Music are only used after you allow them on your phone, and you can withdraw that at any time in your phone’s settings.

4. Who we share it with

• The other people in your room, as described above.
• Google (Google Ireland Ltd and Google LLC): Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions, Remote Config, Hosting and Google Analytics, Google BigQuery (where we export analytics data for our own reports), and Google Play for purchases on Android.
• Apple: App Store purchases, Sign in with Apple, the Apple Music catalogue, previews and MusicKit playback.
• RevenueCat, Inc. (United States): subscription management.
• MusicLink: matching a song to its links on other music services. It receives song identifiers only.
• Webflow, Inc. (United States): hosting of bondingtunes.com.
• Our email provider, and professional advisers such as accountants and lawyers where needed.

Our service providers may use your data only to provide their service to us. We do not sell personal data and do not share it for advertising. We may disclose data where the law requires it, or to a successor in a merger or acquisition, in which case this policy continues to apply to your data.

5. Where your data is stored

Our Firebase database and servers run on Google Cloud in the United States. Google, RevenueCat and Webflow may also process data outside the European Economic Area. For these transfers we rely on the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it, and otherwise on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. Contact us if you would like more detail on the safeguards for a particular provider.

6. How long we keep it

• Rooms are deleted when the evening ends or the host leaves, and after 12 hours at the latest.
• Your account ID and your library are kept until you delete them in the app or ask us to. Removing the app from your phone does not delete them, because they are stored on our servers.
• Question and song statistics are kept for as long as they help us improve the question packs. They contain no names or account IDs.
• Usage analytics are kept at event level for at most 14 months, in Google Analytics and in our export of it, and after that only in aggregated form.
• Purchase records are kept for as long as you need them to use Bonding Tunes+, and transaction records for 7 years, as Dutch tax law requires.
• Website logs are kept for the short periods our hosting providers set.
• Support emails are kept for up to 2 years after your question has been answered.

We may keep data longer where we need it to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.

7. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to access your personal data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to its processing, to receive it in a portable format, and to withdraw consent you have given, without affecting what happened before.

Deleting your data in the app. Settings → Delete my data removes your favourites, your saved sessions and your account in one step. A session saved by another player belongs to their library and stays there. To also remove your analytics and purchase records, email us with your User ID (Settings → App Details). Please do this before you remove the app: without your User ID or the email you signed in with, we may not be able to tell which data is yours (Art. 11 GDPR).

Step-by-step instructions, including how to ask without the app, are on our Delete your account page.

To exercise any of your rights, email hello@smartidtechnologies.com. We may ask you to confirm it is your data. It is free, and we answer within one month; if a request is complex we may extend that by two further months, and we will tell you if we do.

8. Children

Bonding Tunes is not meant for children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. Some question packs touch on dating, romance and alcohol. If you believe a child has used the app, contact us and we will delete their data.

9. Security

All traffic between the app, our websites and our servers is encrypted (TLS). Our database rules let only people signed in to the app who have a room’s code read that room, let only you read your library, and let only our own administrators read the statistics. We build on established infrastructure providers. No system is perfectly secure, but we have procedures for handling a suspected data breach, and will inform you and the Dutch Data Protection Authority where the law requires it.

10. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, please contact us first; we would like the chance to put it right. You can also complain to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl), or to the authority in the EU country where you live.

11. Changes to this policy

We update this policy when Bonding Tunes or the law changes. The date at the top shows the current version. If a change matters to how your data is used, we will also tell you in the app before it takes effect.