Privacy

This notice covers the Circlists website and app, operated by Harness Intent Ltd.

On the website

We use PostHog to count visits and see which parts of the page get used. We don't learn who you are from it: no names, no emails, and no third-party advertising or tracking. Instead of a cookie, visitors are counted from a temporary code worked out on PostHog's servers. The data is stored on servers in the EU, and we keep it only as long as it's useful for understanding how the site is used.

PostHog also works out roughly where a visit came from — country, region and city — from the network address the request arrives with. It's approximate, and it tells us which countries our readers are in, nothing about who you are or where you live.

Our lawful basis is legitimate interest — understanding how the site's used so we can make it better. You can object any time: email support@circlists.com.

When you email support@circlists.com, we receive your email address and whatever you write to us. We use it only to reply.

In the app

Your account

Sign-in is handled by Clerk, our authentication provider. Clerk holds your email address, your name if you give one, and your sign-in credentials — whether that's a password, a Google account, or two-factor codes. The emails the app sends you — verification codes, password resets, circle invitations — come through Clerk too. When you invite someone to a circle, we pass Clerk their email address, and only that, so it can deliver the invitation.

What you share

Your circles live in our database: the circles you belong to, the links you add, your reactions — including when you choose to skip reacting to something — and what you've marked as read. When you add a link, our server visits that page once to pick up its title, site name and preview image — nothing more than what the page itself declares.

Preview images are loaded by your browser directly from the sites that were shared. So when you view a circle, those sites can see an ordinary page request from you — the same as if you'd visited them. We don't route this through any third-party service.

Payments

Payments are handled by Paddle, our merchant of record — when you subscribe, you buy from Paddle, and your card details go to Paddle, never to us. To set up the purchase we send Paddle the name of the circle you're subscribing and our internal reference numbers for it and for you. What we keep is Paddle's references for your subscription, its status, and the last four digits of the card, so we can show you which card is in use. Paddle's own privacy policy covers what it does with your payment data.

App analytics

We use PostHog in the app as well — it records which screens you visit and what you click, so we can see which features get used. It's tied to your account number — an internal id, never your name or email — stores nothing on your device, and records no sessions. As on the website, it works out an approximate country, region and city from your network address. The lawful basis is legitimate interest, and you can object any time via support@circlists.com.

Server logs

Our server keeps a short-term log of the requests it handles. Each entry records the address requested, the time and the response — but not the network address the request came from. We don't log IP addresses, on the server or on the proxy that sits in front of it. Passwords, session cookies and authentication headers are stripped before anything is written down. We use the logs to work out what went wrong when something breaks, they stay on our own server, and we don't send them to any third party.

Where your data lives

Analytics data is stored on PostHog's servers in the EU. Your circles — the links, reactions and read states — are stored in our database on servers in Germany. Your account identity — email, name, sign-in — is held by Clerk, our authentication provider, which processes it in the United States.

So your account details leave the UK, while your circles and our analytics stay in Europe. Our agreement with Clerk carries the data protection terms UK law requires for transfers outside the UK, so that data keeps the same protection there as it has here.

We process your account, circle and payment data because it's needed to provide the service you signed up for; analytics, as above, rests on legitimate interest.

Cookies and storage

The website's analytics stores nothing on your device — no cookies. The interactive demo on the home page does save its own state on your device — which screen you're on, which circle you opened — so it doesn't reset while you look around. It never leaves your device, and clearing your browser's site data removes it.

In the app, Clerk sets a cookie that keeps you signed in — that's what a session is. Paddle's checkout runs in its own frame and is governed by Paddle. Our analytics sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device, in the app or on the site.

Children

Circlists isn't for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, tell us at support@circlists.com and we'll remove it.

Keeping and deleting your data

We keep your account and your circles while they are in use. Where something ends, it ends on a clock rather than being kept indefinitely.

A circle nobody funds goes to sleep, and we delete it 24 months after that — or 30 days after its last member leaves, whichever comes first. Deleting a circle takes the links in it, the reactions and skips on them, everyone's reading history, the memberships and the subscription record together.

You can delete your account yourself, from your account settings in the app. Doing so ends your memberships, clears your reading history, and takes your name off what you added: the links you shared and the reactions you left — including the ones where you skipped reacting — read former member from then on, in every circle. Your name is erased and your email address is replaced with one that goes nowhere, so nothing identifying you is left in the app and the account can no longer be signed in to. Leaving a single circle is a smaller act — it ends that membership and clears what you had read there, and what you added stays in the circle under your name.

Two things carry on regardless of what you or a circle deletes. When a circle is eventually cleared out for being unused, we keep a stripped record of each funded period as tax evidence — identifiers and dates only, with no name, no content and no amount — for as long as tax law requires us to. And Paddle, as merchant of record for every purchase, keeps its own transaction record under its own privacy policy.

Contact

Questions, deletion requests, or anything else: write to support@circlists.com. We respond within five working days. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can also complain to the UK's Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Updates

If this notice changes materially, the revised date above will move and we will note the change here.