← Terse

Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 2026

Quick summary

Terse stores your account details, your single-word reviews, and your social activity (follows, likes). We don't sell your data, show you ads, or track you across other apps. You can delete your account at any time and all your data goes with it. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions.

1. What we collect

Information you give us directly

  • Account details - your email address (received from Apple or Google when you sign in; we never see your password), your username, display name, biography, and profile picture.
  • Review content - the single word you submit to review a film, album, book, TV show, or game, and any personal sentiment adjustments you make.
  • Lists - names, descriptions, and privacy settings of lists you create, plus the items you add to them.
  • Social actions - who you follow, reviews you like, and users you block or report.
  • Profile favourites - one item per category you mark as a favourite.
  • Supporter customisations - your chosen profile colour and reviewer title (Supporter accounts only).
  • Support requests - the type, subject, and body of messages you send us, plus your app version and device platform.
  • Notification preferences - which push notification types you opt in to.

Information collected automatically

  • Push notification token - a device-specific token that lets us send you notifications you have opted into. Stored in our database while your account is active.
  • Error and crash data - if the app crashes, an anonymised report is sent to our error monitoring service (Sentry). It contains a one-way hash of your account ID (not reversible to your name or email), stack traces, and the app state at the time of the error. Your email, username, and review words are never included.
  • IP address (rate limiting only) - when you search, our servers apply a one-way cryptographic hash to your IP address to count requests per hour. Your raw IP address is never stored.

Derived information

  • Taste compatibility score - a percentage showing how closely your word choices overlap with another user's. Computed on demand, not stored separately.
  • Sentiment scores - each word you review is automatically given a sentiment score (positive to negative) by our database. You can override yours at any time.

What we do not collect: your precise location, device contacts, browsing history outside the app, advertising identifiers, or payment card details (those go directly to Apple or Google). Guest users (not signed in) generate no personal data beyond anonymised error reports.

2. How we use it

  • To operate the app - displaying your profile and reviews, powering social features, and enabling search.
  • To send notifications - delivering push notifications you have opted into (new followers, likes, follow requests). We do not send marketing notifications.
  • To diagnose errors - using anonymised crash reports to identify and fix bugs.
  • To process purchases - facilitating the Supporter upgrade via RevenueCat, Apple, and Google.
  • To moderate content - reviewing reports of content that may violate our Terms of Use.
  • To respond to support requests.
  • To maintain security - enforcing rate limits on API calls.

We do not use your data for advertising or sell it to any third party.

3. Legal basis (EU / GDPR)

If you are in the European Economic Area or the UK, we process your data on the following bases:

  • Performance of a contract - to provide you with the Terse service you signed up for (account, reviews, social features).
  • Legitimate interests - to maintain security and reliability of the app, and to diagnose errors using anonymised data.
  • Consent - to send you push notifications. You can withdraw consent at any time in your device settings or in Settings → Notifications.
  • Legal obligation - to comply with applicable laws, including data breach notification requirements.

4. Third-party services

We use the following third-party services. Each receives only the data it needs to do its job. We do not share your data with advertising networks.

  • Supabase (supabase.com) - database, authentication, and file storage (profile pictures). Data is stored on servers in the United States.
  • RevenueCat (revenuecat.com) - manages the Supporter purchase entitlement. RevenueCat never sees your payment card details.
  • Apple - Sign In with Apple and App Store payment processing.
  • Google - Sign In with Google and Google Play payment processing.
  • Sentry (sentry.io) - crash and error monitoring. User identifiers sent to Sentry are one-way hashed and cannot be reversed to identify you. No email or username is ever sent.
  • Expo (expo.dev) - push notification delivery infrastructure.
  • The Movie Database / TMDB (themoviedb.org) - film metadata (proxied via our servers; the provider sees our server IP, not yours).
  • TVmaze (tvmaze.com) - TV show metadata (proxied via our servers; the provider sees our server IP, not yours).
  • MusicBrainz - music metadata (proxied via our servers).
  • Open Library - book metadata (proxied via our servers).
  • IGDB / Twitch - game metadata (proxied via our servers).

We do not sell your personal data to any third party.

5. International data transfers

Terse is operated from Australia. Our primary data storage (Supabase) is on servers in the United States. Other providers may operate globally.

By using the app, you acknowledge that your information may be processed in countries other than your own.

6. Your profile and privacy settings

By default, your username, display name, bio, profile picture, and reviews are publicly visible to anyone using the app, including users who are not signed in.

You can switch your account to private in Settings → Privacy. A private account hides your reviews, follower list, and following list from users who do not follow you.

You can block specific users at any time. Blocked users cannot see your profile or reviews.

You can delete your account at any time from Settings, which permanently removes all your data.

7. Data retention

  • Account data (profile, reviews, lists, likes, follows, favourites): retained while your account is active. Deleting your account permanently removes all associated data within 30 days.
  • Support requests: retained for up to 2 years to help identify recurring issues.
  • Error logs (Sentry): automatically purged after 90 days.
  • Rate-limit hashes: not retained permanently; periodically purged from our database.
  • Push notification tokens: deleted when you delete your account.

8. Security

  • All data between the app and our servers is encrypted using TLS.
  • Our database uses Row Level Security policies so each user can only access data they are authorised to see.
  • User identifiers sent to error monitoring are anonymised using a one-way hash that cannot be reversed.
  • IP addresses used for rate limiting are hashed with a secret salt before any storage, so raw IP addresses are never retained.
  • We do not store passwords - authentication is handled by Apple and Google via OAuth.

No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure. While we take these steps, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Data breach response

If we become aware of a breach, we will:

  • Notify affected users where the breach is likely to result in a high risk to your rights.
  • Take immediate steps to contain the breach and prevent recurrence.

10. Your rights

You can update your profile at any time from within the app. You can delete your account from Settings. You can adjust notification preferences in Settings → Notifications.

To exercise your right to access, rectify, erase, restrict, and port your personal data, contact us at [email protected].

11. Children

Terse is not directed at children under 13 (or under 16 in some EEA countries). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information, contact us at [email protected] and we will delete it promptly.

12. Changes

We may update this policy from time to time. The date at the top shows when it was last revised. We will notify you of material changes through the app. Where required by law, we will seek renewed consent. Continued use of the app after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact

Questions about your privacy or data? Contact us at [email protected].