Recycle Radio Privacy Policy
Effective date: [EFFECTIVE DATE]
This policy explains what personal information Recycle Radio handles, where it goes, why, how long it's kept, and your rights. It covers the Recycle Radio app, the Recycle Radio server software you can run yourself, and Recycle Radio Cloud (paid plans), once that's available.
Recycle Radio is made by [OWNER NAME] ("we", "us"). Person in charge of privacy: [OWNER NAME], [CONTACT EMAIL], [MAILING ADDRESS].
In short
- No ads, no analytics, no tracking, and we don't sell personal information.
- Without a Recycle Radio Cloud account, we receive nothing about you. What the app keeps stays on your phone; what it sends goes to the service it needs, listed below.
- With your own Recycle Radio server, the app talks to the server you run; you control that data.
- With Recycle Radio Cloud (paid plans), we keep your account, your stations and keywords, your alerts and your answers, so the service can work for you. Part C explains it.
A. The app
What stays on your phone
- Your favorites, recently played stations, the streams you add, your listening locations and your settings.
- Podcasts you follow, where you got to in each episode, and downloaded episodes.
- Recordings and clips you save: encrypted with a key that never leaves your phone, playable only in the app, deleted with the app (and, for clips in the Google Play version, after 30 days).
- Transcripts made on the phone, if you turn on phone transcription (not in the Google Play version), kept for the number of days you choose.
- A few minutes of the station you're playing, in the app's cache, so you can rewind and pause.
- The report of the app's last crash, which you can choose to share; nothing is sent on its own.
Android's own backup may copy your favorites, settings and followed podcasts to your Google account. The app leaves API keys, your server's address and token, transcripts, recordings and downloaded episodes out of that backup.
What the app sends, and to whom
| Where it goes | What | When |
|---|---|---|
| Radio Browser, a community station directory | Your searches, the locations you pick, and the station you play (a "click" that counts its popularity) | Browsing, searching and playing stations |
| Radio stations' servers | A normal request for their stream, which shows your IP address like any web request | While you listen or rewind |
| Apple (iTunes Search API) | A song's artist and title; podcast searches | Album art and podcast search when no Recycle Radio server is used |
| Podcast hosts | A normal request for the feed or episode | Opening, playing or downloading an episode |
| Web pages you enter | A normal request for that page | "Find streams on a website" (not in the Google Play version) |
| Groq or OpenAI, with your own API key | Short audio clips of the station you choose (radio audio, not your voice) | Phone transcription, if you turn it on (not in the Google Play version) |
| Your Recycle Radio server, or Recycle Radio Cloud | See parts B and C; also the name and address of each stream you add to Your streams, for the server's owner to add | While connected |
| Google Search | A song's artist and title | Tapping Lyrics where lyrics aren't shown in the app (opens your browser) |
| Google Firebase Cloud Messaging | A push token for this install of the app, also given to the Recycle Radio server that sends your alerts | Only with "Alerts when the app is closed" turned on |
| Google (Sign in with Google, Firebase Authentication) | Your Google account (its ID, email address and name), to sign you in; a sign-in token from it goes to the Recycle Radio server you sign in to | Only when you sign in with Google (or an email and password) instead of pairing |
| Google's code scanner (Google Play services) | Works on your phone; Google collects usage and device metrics for its service, described in ML Kit's data disclosure | Scanning a server's pairing code |
| Apple Music | Nothing until you tap "Listen on Apple Music"; the link may carry our affiliate code | When you tap it |
These services handle what they receive under their own privacy policies.
Permissions
- Internet and network state: to play radio and podcasts and reach your server.
- Notifications: what's playing, alerts, and recording.
- Foreground services: to keep playing (and, in versions that have it, recording or monitoring) with the screen off.
The app doesn't use your location, contacts, microphone, camera, phone or messages. The pairing code scanner uses Google Play services' own camera screen; calling or texting a station opens your phone's own apps.
B. Your own Recycle Radio server
If you run the Recycle Radio server software (on your computer, for example), the app sends it: the station you're playing (for captions and switching), your answers to alerts and "Ad break?" questions, songs you mark, your favorite songs, podcast searches, and requests for lyrics and album art. Your server keeps its data on your computer and contacts the services you set it up with (stations, Groq, OpenAI, Apple, LRCLIB, Radio Browser, Podcast Index, Brave Search or DuckDuckGo, Discord, Firebase). We don't receive any of it. You're responsible for that data and its use. A server that lets people sign in with Google keeps, for each account its owner invited, the email address, name and when it was last used, and that account's stations, keywords, alerts, answers and settings.
C. Recycle Radio Cloud (paid plans)
This part applies once Recycle Radio Cloud is available. Until then nothing in it is collected.
What we collect and why
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your Google account's ID, email address and name (through Google sign-in) | To identify your account and contact you about it |
| Your subscription status from Google Play (plan, renewal date, a purchase token). Never your card or bank details: Google handles payment. | To give you what you paid for |
| Your stations, keywords and settings | To monitor the stations you follow and alert you |
| Your alerts, and your answers (Correct / False alarm, "Ad break?"), "not a song" and thumbs-down titles, favorite songs | To show your history and improve detection |
| The station you're playing, while captions or automatic switching are on | Captions and switch suggestions |
| Push tokens for your devices | To send you alerts |
| Streams you submit | To check them and, after review, offer them to others (without your name) |
| Technical logs: IP address, app version, times and errors | Security, preventing abuse, fixing problems |
| Messages you send us | To answer you |
What stations broadcast (their audio and the text made from it) isn't personal information about you. It's processed for everyone who follows a station: audio is deleted as soon as it's turned into text, and the text of talk is kept for a short time (below). Songs aren't transcribed.
Your answers to alerts help the service learn what a contest or ad break sounds like. What it learns is shared by everyone, without anything that identifies you.
Who processes it for us
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| [Hosting provider, e.g. OVHcloud] | Running the service and storing its data | [Canada] |
| Google (Firebase Authentication, Firebase Cloud Messaging, Google Play) | Sign-in, push notifications, subscriptions | United States and other countries |
| Groq (and OpenAI, if used) | Turning station audio into text, and checks of the text | United States |
| Podcast Index | Podcast search: the words searched, not who searched them | United States |
These providers may only use the information to provide their service to us. Information processed outside your province or Canada is subject to the laws there, which may let authorities access it.
How long we keep it
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Account, stations, keywords, settings, favorites, labels | While your account exists; deleted within 30 days of deleting your account (backups within a further 30 days) |
| Alerts and your answers | 90 days, or until you delete your account |
| Text of what stations said | 7 days |
| Technical logs | 30 days |
| Records of purchases | As long as tax and accounting law requires (in Canada, generally 6 years) |
Consent and choices
By creating an account you agree to the uses above. You can stop at any time by deleting your account (see Delete your data); some services won't work without the information they need. Push notifications and switching can be turned off in the app.
Your rights
You can ask us to:
- tell you what personal information we hold about you and give you a copy (including in a structured, commonly used format);
- correct it;
- delete it, or stop using it;
- tell you how it's used and who it's been shared with.
Write to the person in charge of privacy above. We'll answer within 30 days. If you're not satisfied, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, or in Quebec to the Commission d'accès à l'information. If you're in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you can also complain to your local data protection authority.
Security
Connections to Recycle Radio Cloud are encrypted (HTTPS). Data is kept on servers with restricted access, and recordings on your phone are encrypted. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we'll tell you and the Privacy Commissioner as the law requires.
Children
Recycle Radio is for adults (see the Terms of Use). It isn't directed at children and we don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you think a child has given us information, contact us and we'll delete it.
Changes
We'll update this policy and its effective date when what Recycle Radio collects changes, and tell you in the app before important changes apply to information we already hold.
Contact
[OWNER NAME], person in charge of privacy\ [MAILING ADDRESS]\ [CONTACT EMAIL]