Privacy policy

Listening without an account

You can stream every playlist without signing up. When you do, the server records the same things every web server does: your IP address, the pages you request, and the browser you use. Those logs are used to keep the site running and to spot abuse, and nothing else.

If you rate a track without an account, the rating is stored against your IP address so you can change it later. If you post in the chat as a guest, the name you choose is kept in your browser session and your IP address is stored with the message, visible only to the site admin for moderation.

If you make an account

An account is a username, an email address and a password. The password is stored hashed, which means the site cannot read it back. You can add a display name and a photo; both are optional and both are public.

Things you do while signed in are stored against your account: comments, chat messages, tracks and posts you favourite, ratings you give, and, if you support the site, that you do. Comments and chat messages are public, and your favourites appear on your profile.

If you send a track

A submission stores what you enter on the form: the artist name, the track title, a link or an uploaded audio file, and anything optional you add, such as genre, release date, where you're based, a note, and links to your profiles. It is used for one thing: listening to the track and writing back to you within 48 hours.

Uploaded audio is stored privately and is never made public. A submission that is never paid for is deleted, file included, after 24 hours. If a track is passed on or refunded, the audio file is deleted. If it is accepted, the details you gave are used to write the track up on the site.

Paying

Payments are handled by Stripe. Your card details go to Stripe and never touch this site. What the site keeps is Stripe's reference for you as a customer, the reference and amount of each payment, and, for supporters, when your support started and until when it runs. Stripe's own handling of your data is covered by Stripe's privacy policy.

The mailing list

Signing up stores your email address, the page you signed up from, and your IP address at the time, the last of which is kept to deal with abuse of the form. The list is used to tell you when a new month is up and for nothing else. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing takes effect immediately.

Cookies and other people's players

The site sets two cookies of its own: one that keeps you signed in, and one that protects forms from being submitted by other sites. Cloudflare counts visits and page load times for the site; that uses no cookies and can't follow you anywhere else. There are no advertising cookies and no analytics that track you across sites.

When you play a track, it plays through the player of whichever service hosts it, usually YouTube or SoundCloud. Those players are loaded from those services, which may set their own cookies and see that you played the track. The site's fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means Google sees your IP address when a page loads. Each of these has its own privacy policy.

Where your data is kept

The site runs on a server in Germany, with Cloudflare in front of it to handle traffic. Uploaded audio, profile photos and the site's backups are stored with Amazon Web Services in the United States, and email is sent through Amazon's email service there. Payments are processed by Stripe. Each of those companies acts on the site's instructions and does not use your data for its own purposes.

Nothing about you is sold, and nothing is shared with anyone for advertising.

How long things are kept

• Chat messages: 30 days, then deleted.
• Unpaid submissions: 24 hours, then deleted.
• Submission audio: deleted when a track is passed on or refunded.
• Backups of the database: 30 days, then deleted.
• Your account, and everything stored against it: until you delete it.
• Your mailing list address: until you unsubscribe.
• Payment records: as long as tax law requires them to be kept.

What you can ask for

You can delete your own account from your profile page at any time, which removes it along with your favourites and ratings. Your comments and chat messages are removed with it.

Under the GDPR you can also ask to see what the site holds about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, or receive a copy of it, and you can object to how it is used. Email [email protected] and you will hear back within a month. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the CNIL in France or to the data protection authority where you live.

Age

BIRP.fm is not aimed at anyone under 16, and accounts are not knowingly created for them. If you believe someone under 16 has made one, email the address above and it will be removed.

Changes

If this page changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes with it. Anything that would change what the site does with your data is announced, not slipped in.