Privacy Policy

Who runs this

Secret Santa Twist is a free service run by Andrei Zaharia, who is responsible for your personal data (the "controller" under the EU General Data Protection Regulation). You can reach us at asar.innovations@gmail.com.

What we store

• From your Google sign-in: your name, e-mail address, profile photo link and a Google account identifier. We never see your Google password.
• What you enter: the groups you create or join, events (name, budget, dates, how many approvals the reveal needs), your votes, what you fill in for your Santa (such as a wishlist or a challenge), whether you approved the reveal, "never draw each other" pairs, and any idea for a new twist you send us.
• What the app creates: the secret draw (who gives to whom), drawn colours or countries, and whether a gift is marked ready.
• Technical data: our servers keep short-lived logs (such as times and error codes). These never contain draw results or what you filled in for your Santa.

How we use it

Only to run the service you ask for: to sign you in, show you your groups and events, run the draw, keep it secret until the reveal, and send service e-mails (reminders, "the draw is done" and requests to approve the reveal). None of these e-mails contains who drew whom: the "draw is done" e-mail only says that the draw is done, with the event details and a link to the app, where you see your person after signing in. A copy of each e-mail stays in the mailbox the app sends from.

We do not sell your data, show ads or send marketing. Signing in stores a session in your browser so you stay signed in.

Counting visits: only if you choose "Allow" when asked, we use Google Analytics (a service of Google) to see how many people visit and which pages they read. It sets cookies in your browser and sends Google the address of the page, your approximate location derived from your IP address, and details of your browser and device. Before an address is sent, group ids, event ids and invite codes are removed from it; your name, e-mail address, wishlists and draw results are never sent. If you choose "No, thanks", nothing is loaded or sent. You can change your choice at any time with "Cookies" at the bottom of every page.

Who can see what

• Members of a group see each other's name and photo, who takes part in an event, and whether someone has filled in their part.
• Who drew whom is hidden from everyone in the group, organisers included, until the reveal. The reveal happens only once a majority of the people taking part approve it (or the number an admin set), so no single person can reveal it alone; members see how many have approved, not who. What you fill in is shown to your Santa after the draw and to the group at the reveal.
• E-mail addresses are not shown to other members.

Services we rely on

Google Firebase (sign-in and website hosting), MongoDB Atlas (database), Render (the app's server, in Frankfurt), Gmail (sending e-mails) and, only if you allow it, Google Analytics (counting visits). They process data on our behalf under their own data processing terms; some of them may process data outside the EU, under the safeguards those terms provide.

Legal basis

We process your data to provide the service you asked for (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)) and, for security logs, on the basis of our legitimate interest in running the service safely (Art. 6(1)(f)).

How long we keep it

Your data stays while your groups and events exist. Group admins can delete events, and you can leave a group or event at any time. To delete your account and everything linked to it, e-mail us; we answer within 30 days. Server logs are kept only briefly.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to its use, or to receive it in a portable format. Write to asar.innovations@gmail.com. You can also complain to a data protection authority; in Romania that is ANSPDCP (dataprotection.ro).

Children

The service is not meant for children under 16 unless a parent or guardian is involved.

Changes

If this policy changes, we update the date at the top. For important changes we will let you know in the app.