Privacy policy

Hopscape and your personal data

Koen Daalman operates Hopscape, a beer discovery and tasting-history service. This policy covers the Hopscape website and Android and iOS apps. Contact hallo@buddy-projects.be for privacy questions and requests. Hopscape is intended for adults aged 18 and over.

What we collect and why

You can browse the public catalog without an account. If you sign up, our authentication service processes your email address and authentication credentials; we also store your account identifier, username, display name, optional profile details or avatar, settings and consent choices. We use these to provide sign-in, your profile, account management and service messages.

We store check-ins, ratings, dates, tasting observations, optional notes and photos, lists and collection details you submit. Social features process follows, friendship requests, comments, reactions, notifications and reports. We use this data to provide the features you request, calculate your progress and your taste profile, and protect the service. Taste profiles are calculated from your recorded observations; we do not send your history, private notes or taste profile to an external AI service.

If you request nearby places, your device location is used with your permission. Beer Radar rounds coordinates before querying nearby places. Places you attach to check-ins are stored with that check-in and are shown to other people only according to your visibility and location-sharing settings. Map tile services receive the map areas requested and normal network connection information. Camera access is optional: scanning barcodes and QR codes happens on your device; selected check-in photos are uploaded when you save them.

Optional label-reading or other enabled AI tools send only the image, search text or public source material you explicitly select to the configured server-side AI gateway and model provider. They do not automatically receive your account history or taste profile. Do not include personal information in material you choose to send. Personal history-import files are parsed on your device; normalized records are sent to your account for matching and import, without uploading the original file.

When you enable push notifications, we register a device installation identifier and delivery token with your account and use Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android delivery or Apple's push notification service for iOS delivery. You can disable notifications in Hopscape or your device settings. Hosting, authentication, database, storage and email providers process data needed to run the service; Supabase provides the authentication, database and storage APIs. Requests to these services include normal network information such as IP address and technical request metadata.

Visibility, sharing and sponsored content

Public profiles and public check-ins can be viewed by other users and visitors. Friends-only and private check-ins have restricted audiences; private notes and other private check-in fields are not included in public projections. Check-in photos follow the check-in audience. Choosing to share an image or link to another app sends that selected content to the app you choose, under that service's own policy. You control your profile and list visibility and can block or report other users.

Organization memberships, claims and invitations are processed to manage access and verify claims. Claim evidence and review information are restricted to authorized reviewers. Catalog contributions and organization information may become public after review. The app can show clearly labelled sponsored content and records promotion interaction counters; optional analytics for these interactions uses the consent controls described below. We do not sell your personal tasting history or private notes to advertisers.

Protection, retention and your rights

Connections to our account and storage services use HTTPS. Access controls limit personal records and photos to their permitted audiences. Data needed to provide your account is retained while you use the account, until you remove it or request deletion. You can delete individual check-ins, photos and lists or export your account in Settings. Operational backups, security records and records required by law may remain for their necessary retention period. Claim documents are scheduled for manual removal 90 days after a decision. Public catalog records are separate from personal account data and may remain to preserve catalog history.

We process data necessary to provide the service you request, obtain consent for optional analytics and device permissions, and use security and moderation information to protect the service. Service providers may process data outside your country, including outside the EEA, under applicable transfer safeguards. You may request access, correction, erasure, restriction, objection or portability by contacting hallo@buddy-projects.be. We may need to verify that the request comes from the account owner. You may complain to the Belgian Data Protection Authority. The analytics section below gives additional details for PostHog.

Delete your Hopscape account and data

In the app, open Settings, find the account deletion section, reauthenticate with your password and confirm deletion. Transfer any last-owner organization responsibilities first. Account deletion removes the account and associated personal check-ins, photos, private lists and social records. Catalog contributions may remain as catalog data. A failed cleanup can be retried; it is not reported as completed until cleanup finishes.

You can also request deletion without installing or opening the app: email hallo@buddy-projects.be from your registered address with the subject 'Delete my Hopscape account'. Include your username if known, but never send your password. We will verify account ownership and process the request, including any organization-ownership transfer needed first. To remove only some data, describe the check-ins, photos or other data in your request, or use the corresponding controls in Settings.

External analytics data is handled separately: ask us to delete your analytics data as part of your deletion request. Removing your Hopscape account does not automatically erase PostHog events. Necessary legal or security records and operational backups may be retained for the period required for their purpose.

Optional analytics

Koen Daalman is responsible for Hopscape’s product analytics. For privacy questions or requests about your analytics data, contact hallo@buddy-projects.be.

Hopscape uses PostHog only after you accept optional analytics. We measure selected discovery, check-in, collection, social and management actions to improve the product. We use an anonymous SDK identifier before sign-in and the internal account UUID after sign-in. Account identifiers are personal data, even when they contain no name. The legal basis is your consent; declining or withdrawing it does not limit access to Hopscape. These measurements do not make automated decisions about you.

We send event names, limited counters, booleans, public catalog IDs for viewed items, platform and release environment. We exclude credentials, names, emails, messages, notes, photos, search terms, full URLs, referral parameters, coordinates and complete Taste DNA profiles. Session recording, automatic form/click capture and automatic error capture are disabled.

PostHog receives network requests and can therefore see the connection’s IP address. We disable IP enrichment and do not include IP addresses in event properties. The configured project is hosted in the EU. PostHog Inc. processes these measurements under a signed data-processing agreement. Its service providers may process data outside the EEA under the transfer safeguards in that agreement. See PostHog’s subprocessor list.

On our current free PostHog plan, events are available for analysis for one year. This query window is not a guarantee of automatic deletion. Requests to erase analytics data are handled separately by the operator using PostHog’s deletion tools; we do not export analytics events to another warehouse. See PostHog’s event retention documentation.

Your consent choice is stored locally for 180 days, independently in each browser or app. The analytics SDK uses memory storage. A small per-tab operation ledger prevents repeated completion events while consent is active. Offline events stay in memory for at most five minutes and are discarded when you switch accounts or withdraw consent. Rejecting stops new collection; it cannot recall requests already sent or delete previously collected events.

You can change your choice below or in Settings. For account export and deletion use Settings. Requests about analytics data require the operator to locate your opaque account ID in PostHog; deleting a Hopscape account does not automatically delete external analytics data.

You may request access, correction, erasure, restriction or portability of your personal analytics data by contacting the address above. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal. You may also lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority.