Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains how VotesZ B.V. ("VotesZ", "we", "us", or "our"), a company registered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal information when you use the VotesZ mobile application, website (votesz.com), and related services (collectively, the "Service"). By using VotesZ, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

2. Information We Collect

We collect the following categories of information:

Account Information: name, email address, username, password (encrypted), country of residence, and optionally your birth year and gender.

Profile Information: profile photo, bio, and display name.

Content You Create: photos you upload, posts, votes, comments, and any text you provide.

Financial Information: for business accounts, billing details are processed by Stripe. We store your Stripe customer ID but never your credit card number, bank account, or other payment credentials directly.

Earnings Data: shop money balances, payout history, and coupon redemptions.

Device & Technical Information: device model, operating system and version, app version, unique device identifiers, IP address, browser type, language preferences, and crash/error reports.

Usage Data: pages and screens viewed, features used, voting patterns, session duration, tap and scroll interactions, referral source, and timestamps of activity.

Location Data: your country (provided at signup). We do not collect precise GPS location.

Communications: messages you send to us via email or in-app support.

Cookies & Web Tracking: on our web pages (share pages, landing pages, download page), we use cookies for analytics, referral tracking, and session management.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Provide, operate, and maintain the Service, including processing your votes, calculating earnings, and delivering content.
• Create and manage your account and authenticate your identity.
• Process transactions, including shop money payouts and business billing.
• Personalize your experience by showing relevant content based on your country, interests, and activity.
• Send you push notifications, emails, and in-app messages about your account, activity, new features, and promotional offers. You can opt out of marketing communications at any time.
• Generate aggregated and anonymized statistics for businesses about voting patterns, demographics (country, age group), and engagement metrics.
• Detect and prevent fraud, abuse, spam, and unauthorized access, including monitoring voting patterns, multi-account detection, and automated behavior.
• Conduct analytics and research to understand how users interact with the Service and to improve our products.
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.
• Communicate with you about updates, security alerts, and support inquiries.
• Facilitate referral programs and attribution tracking.

4. How We Share Your Information

We may share your information in the following circumstances:

With Businesses and Post Creators on VotesZ: when you vote on a post, the post creator (a business or another user with eligible analytics access) receives aggregated statistics about the people who voted, including a breakdown by country, age group, and gender. The demographic information used in these breakdowns (gender, birth year, and country) is information you optionally provide. Providing your gender and birth year is entirely optional — you may select "prefer not to say" or leave these fields blank, and you can change them at any time in your profile settings. Country is collected at signup for audience and eligibility matching. These statistics do NOT include your name, email, username, or which option you personally voted for. However, on polls with a small number of voters, an aggregated breakdown may be coarse, and in some cases a small group or single response could potentially be associated with you. If you prefer your demographic details not to appear in any aggregated breakdown, do not provide them, or set your gender to "prefer not to say".

Aggregated & Anonymized Data: we may share aggregated, de-identified data with third parties, including business partners, advertisers, researchers, and analytics providers, for marketing, research, and commercial purposes. This data cannot reasonably be used to identify you.

Service Providers: we share information with third-party service providers who process data on our behalf (see Section 5 for the full list).

Business Transfers: if VotesZ is involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction.

Legal Requirements: we may disclose your information if required to do so by law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request, or when we believe disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, your safety, or the safety of others, or to detect and prevent fraud.

With Your Consent: we may share your information with third parties when you have given us explicit consent to do so.

We do NOT sell your individual personal data to third parties.

5. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services to operate VotesZ. Each processes data in accordance with their own privacy policies:

• Supabase (authentication and identity management)
• MongoDB Atlas (database hosting and storage)
• DigitalOcean (cloud hosting and file storage for photos)
• Stripe (payment processing for business accounts)
• OneSignal (push notification delivery)
• AppsFlyer (mobile attribution, analytics, and deep linking)
• Google Analytics / GA4 (web analytics on votesz.com)
• Brevo (email marketing and transactional emails)
• Replicate (AI image generation for optional post creation features)
• Anthropic / Claude (AI text processing for content suggestions)
• Expo (app delivery and over-the-air updates)
• Sentry (crash reporting and error monitoring)

These services may process your data in countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA), including the United States. Where applicable, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place (such as Standard Contractual Clauses or adequacy decisions).

6. International Data Transfers

VotesZ is operated from the Netherlands, but our service providers may process your data in other countries, including the United States. When your data is transferred outside the EEA, we rely on:

• European Commission adequacy decisions.
• Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission.
• Other legally recognized transfer mechanisms.

By using VotesZ, you acknowledge and consent to the transfer of your data to countries that may have different data protection standards than your country of residence.

7. Data Retention

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you with the Service. Specifically:

• Account data: retained until you request deletion.
• Voting data: retained for the lifetime of the associated post and for statistical purposes.
• Earnings and payout records: retained for a minimum of 7 years for tax and accounting compliance.
• Technical logs (IP addresses, device info): retained for up to 12 months for security and fraud prevention.
• Anonymized and aggregated data: may be retained indefinitely as it cannot be used to identify you.

When you delete your account, we will delete or anonymize your personal data within 30 days, except where we are legally required to retain it.

8. Your Rights (GDPR & International)

If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions with applicable data protection laws, you have the following rights:

• Right of Access: request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification: request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to Erasure ("Right to Be Forgotten"): request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention requirements.
• Right to Data Portability: receive your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Right to Restriction: request that we limit the processing of your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to Object: object to the processing of your data for direct marketing or based on legitimate interests.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.
• Right to Lodge a Complaint: you may file a complaint with your local data protection authority (in the Netherlands: Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days.

9. Cookies & Tracking Technologies

The VotesZ mobile app does not use browser cookies. However, on our web pages (votesz.com, share pages, landing pages), we use:

• Analytics cookies (Google Analytics / GA4) to understand how visitors interact with our web pages.
• Referral cookies to track which user referred a new signup (stored for 30 days).
• Functional cookies for session management.

You can manage cookie preferences through your browser settings. Note that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of our web pages.

In the mobile app, we use device identifiers and analytics SDKs (AppsFlyer) for attribution and usage analytics. You can limit ad tracking through your device settings.

10. Children's Privacy

VotesZ is not intended for children under the age of 13. 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, please contact us at [email protected] and we will promptly delete the information. Users between 13 and 16 may use VotesZ with parental consent where required by local law.

11. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your personal data, including:

• Encryption of data in transit (TLS/SSL) and at rest.
• Secure password hashing (passwords are never stored in plain text).
• Access controls and authentication for our systems.
• Regular security reviews and monitoring.
• Rate limiting and fraud detection systems.

However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to protect your data, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you through the app, by email, or by posting a prominent notice on our website. Your continued use of VotesZ after such changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

13. Google Sign-In and Social Login

VotesZ lets you create and access your account using Google Sign-In (and Apple Sign-In on iOS). When you choose to sign in with Google, Google shares a limited set of your basic profile information with us — specifically your name, email address, and profile picture. We use this information solely to create and manage your VotesZ account, authenticate you, and personalize your profile. We do NOT post anything on your behalf, and we do not access your Google contacts, Gmail, Google Drive, calendar, or any other Google data. Our use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. You can use email and password instead at any time, and you can delete your account and associated data as described in Section 7 (Data Retention).

14. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

VotesZ B.V.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

KvK: 71374086

BTW: NL858690949B01

Email: [email protected]

Website: votesz.com

For data protection inquiries, you may also reach our Data Protection Officer at [email protected].