1. Who is responsible for your data
The controller responsible for your personal data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is:
Louis Krause
Rübenkamp 331
22337 Hamburg
Germany
Email: support@sealed-events.com
Sealed is operated by Louis Krause as an individual, not through a registered company.
2. What this policy covers
This policy explains what data we collect when you create an account, host or join an event, and use the Sealed app's features, why we process it, who it's shared with, and what rights you have over it. It applies to the Sealed mobile app and to the sealed-events.com website, including the invite pages you may open from an invite link (for example sealed-events.com/e/<code>).
3. The data we collect
3.1 Account and identity data
| Data | Collected when |
|---|---|
| Google account email address and Google account identifier | You sign in with Google as a host |
| A randomly generated anonymous account identifier | You join as a guest, before you link a Google account (if ever) |
| Display name | You join or host an event |
| A random device identifier, generated and stored on your device | You join an event as a guest, used only to enforce that event's guest limit |
| Language and date-format preference | Automatically, or if you change it in Settings |
| Timestamp of your consent to photo/recording capture at an event | You join an event |
3.2 Content you and others create
| Data | Notes |
|---|---|
| Photos, including event cover photos | Including capture time, dimensions, and file size |
| Voice memos | Up to 30 seconds; including duration and file size |
| Text notes | Up to 1,000 characters |
| Whether you chose to post a voice memo or text note anonymously | The underlying authorship is still stored, see Section 7 |
3.3 Technical data
- A push-notification token for your device, so we can notify you when an event you're part of is revealed.
- Standard technical data that is unavoidably processed by running a server, such as IP addresses in infrastructure-level connection logs kept by our hosting and push-notification providers for security and operational purposes.
- If we use a crash-and-error-reporting tool, technical diagnostic data such as device model, OS version, app version, and error details when the app crashes or errors — never the content of your photos, voice memos, or text notes.
3.4 Moderation data
- Reports you submit about a photo, voice memo, or text note, and the reason you gave.
- Who you've blocked.
- The host's moderation actions within their own event (hiding, deleting, removing a guest).
4. Why we process your data, and our legal basis
| Purpose | Legal basis (GDPR Art. 6(1)) |
|---|---|
| Operating the core Service — accounts, events, the reveal mechanism, galleries, downloads | Performance of a contract (b) |
| Enforcing the consent you give before your first photo or recording at an event, and keeping other participants' consent-based expectations about who can see what, and when | Consent (a) |
| Sending you reveal push notifications | Performance of a contract (b) |
| Reviewing reports, blocking abusive users, enforcing our Terms of Service and the guest cap | Legitimate interest (f) — keeping the Service safe and usable |
| Diagnosing crashes and bugs | Legitimate interest (f) — keeping the Service running correctly |
| Responding to lawful requests from authorities | Legal obligation (c) |
Where our processing relies on your consent — in particular, the consent you give before taking your first photo or recording at an event — you can withdraw it at any time by leaving the event or deleting your account, although this does not retroactively make past processing unlawful.
5. The reveal time-lock, and an honest note about our own access
Whether an event is "revealed" is decided entirely by our servers comparing the current server time to the event's reveal time — never by a flag your device sends, and never by your device's clock. Until that moment, no participant can read any photo, voice memo, or text note from that event, including the person who created it and the event's host.
This protects participants from each other and from the host — it is not, and cannot be, a technical barrier against us as the operator. We hold administrative credentials to our database and file storage that can technically reach stored content, including before a reveal. We only use that access where necessary — for example to maintain the Service, fix a fault, investigate a report of abuse or illegal content, or comply with a legal obligation — and not to browse or view content as a matter of routine. No person manually previews photos, voice memos, or text notes before a reveal in the ordinary course of business.
6. Who we share data with
We use the following service providers to run Sealed. Where they act on our instructions and only process data to provide their service to us, they do so as our processors under a data processing agreement.
| Provider | What they do | Data location |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase, Inc. | Database, authentication, file storage, and server-side functions that run Sealed | EU (Frankfurt, Germany) |
| Google LLC | Google Sign-In, used by hosts to create an account; Firebase Cloud Messaging, used to deliver push notifications to Android devices | May involve data transfer outside the EU, see Section 8 |
| Expo (650 Industries, Inc.) | Relays our push notifications to Apple's and Google's push services | May involve data transfer outside the EU, see Section 8 |
| Apple Inc. | Delivers push notifications to iOS devices (Apple Push Notification service); operates the App Store through which you installed Sealed | May involve data transfer outside the EU, see Section 8 |
| Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.) | Crash and error reporting, to help us find and fix bugs | May involve data transfer outside the EU, see Section 8 |
We also share data with other people using Sealed, as the Service is designed to do: after an event's reveal, its participants can see each other's photos, voice memos, and text notes, and the display names (or "Anonymous") attached to them. The host of an event can see the real identity behind content marked anonymous, solely for moderation purposes (reports and blocking).
We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with advertisers. We do not currently process any payments; if we introduce in-app purchases in the future, we will update this policy to name the payment processor involved (for example, Apple's, Google's, or a service like RevenueCat) and what data that involves.
We may also disclose data where required by law, to enforce our Terms of Service, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of our users or the public.
7. Anonymous posting and account deletion
Choosing to post a voice memo or text note "Anonymous" only hides your display name from other guests. We and the event's host always retain the actual link between that content and your account, because we need it to act on reports and enforce our Terms.
If you delete your account, events you host — and all photos, voice memos, and text notes in them — are permanently deleted. Content you contributed to other people's events is not deleted, so the rest of that event's gallery stays intact for its other participants, but it is disassociated from your name, the same way anonymous content is shown. Your account itself is permanently disabled; it cannot sign in again, and your email address is removed from it.
8. International data transfers
Your event content is stored on Supabase's infrastructure in the EU (Frankfurt). Some of our other service providers — Google, Apple, Expo/650 Industries, and Sentry — are based in, or may process data in, the United States. Where that happens, we rely on the providers' Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent legal safeguard recognized under GDPR Art. 44 et seq. to ensure your data is protected to an equivalent standard. You can ask us for more detail at the contact address in Section 1.
9. How long we keep your data
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Photos, voice memos, text notes, event cover photo | Automatically and permanently deleted a set number of days after the event's reveal (currently 7 days) |
| Event metadata (name, times, code, membership list) without any media | Kept indefinitely after that, so hosts and guests can still see that an event happened |
| Account data (profile, display name, push token) | Kept until you delete your account |
| Reports and moderation records | Kept as long as needed for safety, abuse-prevention, and legal purposes |
| Crash and error diagnostics | Kept only as long as needed to find and fix the underlying bug |
10. Your rights
Under the GDPR, you have the right to:
- ask us what personal data we hold about you, and get a copy of it (access);
- ask us to correct inaccurate data (rectification);
- ask us to delete your data (erasure) — the easiest way is deleting your account in the app;
- ask us to restrict how we process your data, or object to processing based on our legitimate interest;
- receive the data you provided to us in a portable format (data portability); and
- withdraw consent you previously gave us, at any time, for the future.
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@sealed-events.com. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority — in particular the one in your home country, or the authority responsible for us:
Der Hamburgische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit
Ludwig-Erhard-Str. 22, 20459 Hamburg, Germany
11. Children
Sealed is not intended for anyone under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16. If we learn that we have, we will delete it.
12. Security
Content is stored in a private file storage bucket that nobody can read directly; the app only ever receives short-lived, signed links to individual files, and only after an event's reveal. Access to event data is enforced in our database through row-level security tied to server time, not to anything the app itself decides. Data in transit between the app and our servers is encrypted. No system is perfectly secure, and we can't guarantee absolute security, but we take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data.
13. Cookies and local storage on sealed-events.com
The sealed-events.com website does not use cookies, and it does not run any analytics,
advertising, or tracking scripts of any kind. The only thing it stores in your browser is plain
localStorage, strictly to remember a choice you made:
- which language (German or English) you selected using the toggle in the navigation; and
- that you've already seen the short privacy notice shown at the bottom of the page.
Neither value is sent to our servers or to any third party, and both can be cleared at any time from your browser's own settings. Fonts used on the website are self-hosted, not loaded from Google Fonts or any other third-party font service.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as Sealed's features change or as the law requires. If we make a material change, we'll let you know in the app or by email before it takes effect.
15. Contact
Questions about this policy or your data? Reach us at support@sealed-events.com.