Privacy Policy
Gibber, a Cats on Acid app
The short version
We store your account (email, nickname, city) and what you post. Your phone's position is sent to us when you report on a finding, join a city waitlist or search for an address, and at no other time. Other users see your nickname, your profile and what you post. The free version shows ads; personalised ones only with your consent. You can delete your account in Settings; findings you posted and chats stay, without your name.
1. Who is responsible
Cats on Acid UG (haftungsbeschränkt), HRB 291788, Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, Kolonnenstr. 8, 10827 Berlin, Germany, contact@catsonacid.dev, is the controller for the data described here. We have not appointed a data protection officer; we are not required to.
This policy covers the Gibber app for Android and iOS and the website gibber.online, including the pages that open shared links and invites. Gibber is for people aged 16 and older.
2. What we hold about you
An account needs an email address, a nickname and a home city; without them the app cannot be used. Everything else is optional or comes from what you do in the app. Section 7 says what deleting the account removes and what stays.
Your account
| What | Why | How long | Who else sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email address | Sign-in, sign-in links, emails about your account | While the account exists; after deletion a one-way fingerprint for 12 months, so a returning email is recognised | Resend sends the emails; Google, if you sign in with Google |
| Nickname, profile photo, bio | Your profile | While the account exists | Other users |
| Home city; Bezirk and Kiez if you set them | The app is organised by city | While the account exists | Other users |
| The Terms version you accepted, and when | Proof of agreement | While the account exists, then in the 12-month record | Nobody |
| Settings, favourites, notification preferences, language | Your preferences | While the account exists | Nobody |
Signing in and your devices
| What | Why | How long | Who else sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Login sessions, with the device platform | Keeping you signed in | Until they expire or you log out | Nobody |
| An install id the app creates, your device's identifier from Apple or Google, and the version of the app | Recognising several accounts on one phone, for abuse checks, and knowing which app versions are in use | 12 months | Nobody |
| Push token | Notifications | While the account exists | Expo delivers them, through Apple's and Google's push services |
| One-way fingerprints of your email address and your IP address, per sign-in email | Limiting sign-in emails | 24 hours | Nobody |
What you post
| What | Why | How long | Who else sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listings: photos, title, description, category, the pin you place; offers | The service | While the listing exists; a finding stays after you delete your account, without your name | Other users; the share page shows title, photo and category |
| Chat messages | Talking to the other person | With the conversation; after you delete your account, the other person keeps them, without your name | The other person; us, only to review a report that cites the chat |
| Ratings you give, and ratings the other person gives you, after a handover | Giveaway reputation | While the account exists; ratings you gave stay with the other person's reputation | Other users, as totals only |
| Translations of text you asked to translate | Not translating twice | With the original | Anthropic processes the text |
Your position
| What | Why | How long | Who else sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your position when you report on a finding | Checking you were near the item | 12 months | Nobody; us, on an abuse review |
| Your position when you join the waitlist for a city we do not cover | Finding the city, once; we keep the city's name | Not stored | ChibiGeo looks it up |
| An address you search for, and your position as a bias | Nearby results first | Not stored | ChibiGeo, and Cloudflare on the way |
| City waitlist membership | Telling you when the city opens | Until you leave it or delete your account | Nobody; we see a count per city |
Karma, friends and moderation
| What | Why | How long | Who else sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Karma, level, badges, medals, leaderboard standings, exchange records | Karma and levels | While the account exists; 12 months after deletion with no name attached | Other users |
| Friends and friend requests | The friends features | Until ended, or the account is deleted | The other person; the friend count is public |
| People you blocked | Keeping you apart | Until you unblock, or either account is deleted | Nobody; we see a count |
| Reports you make about a listing or a person, reports other users make about you, and our decisions | Moderation | As long as the moderation record exists, at least 12 months | Us only; the reported person is not told who reported them |
| Your ad consent choice, with its date and the consent string | Proof of consent | While the account exists | The ad software reads it |
Technical
| What | Why | How long | Who else sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Server logs: user ids, email addresses in a few places, no IP addresses | Running and debugging the service | 30 days | Railway hosts them |
| Website visits: IP address, time, page, browser | Serving gibber.online | 1 hour | Vercel records them |
| Crash reports: the error, app version, device model and OS version, the app's recent requests with your position and what you searched for removed; no name, email, messages or photos | Fixing crashes | 30 days | Sentry |
| Server measurements: which requests were made, how long they took, whether they failed; can include listing ids | Noticing when something is slow or broken | 30 days; counts and timings 13 months | Grafana |
| Emails you send us | Answering you | As long as your request needs | Nobody |
3. What other users see
Any signed-in user can see your nickname, profile photo, bio, home city, Bezirk and Kiez, your level, karma points and karma history, badges, medals, leaderboard position, giveaway reputation as totals, friend count, and the listings you post, each with the Bezirk and Kiez it falls in.
Two settings narrow that. Anonymous Findings shows findings you post from then on without your name; it does not change findings you already posted. Anonymous Profile hides your level, karma, badges, home region and your list of listings from other users while it is on; your friends still see them. Giveaways, requests and offers always carry your nickname, because the two of you arrange a handover.
The position of a giveaway or a request is shown to everyone but you shifted by up to about 300 metres until a pickup is arranged. A finding's position is public as placed.
Only the other person sees your chat messages and your offers. When someone joins Gibber through your invite link, the app sends them a friend request from you, unless you turn that off in Settings › Privacy.
Only we see your block list, your reports, moderation records, your position on finding reports, your install records, and a chat that a report cites. The person you report or block is not told.
4. Who else receives data, and where
Your account, posts and photos are stored in the EU. Where a provider processes data in the US, the transfer rests on its certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, as listed. You can ask us for a copy of the clauses.
| Provider | What for | What they receive | Where, and the safeguard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Railway | Servers, database, backups, photos, logs | The database, its backups, photos and logs | EU West region, Netherlands; Standard Contractual Clauses |
| Resend | Sign-in and account emails | Your email address and the email's content | US; Data Privacy Framework |
| Sign-in with Google, if you use it | Your Google account's email and id | US; Data Privacy Framework | |
| Google AdMob | Ads in the free version, see section 5 | Your advertising identifier with your consent; a coarse location from your IP address | US; Data Privacy Framework. Google is its own controller for ad serving |
| Expo | Push notifications and app update checks | Your push token and the notification text; Apple's and Google's push services receive the text on the way | US; Data Privacy Framework |
| Vercel | Hosts gibber.online | The website visit logs | US; Standard Contractual Clauses |
| ChibiGeo (ZeitFlow UG, Berlin) | Address search; the city lookup for the waitlist | The search text or position, and our server's address, not yours; nothing is stored | Germany. Cloudflare runs the network in front of it and can see the request on the way, under Standard Contractual Clauses |
| Anthropic | Translation, when you ask or have "Translate automatically" on | The text and the target language, not who wrote it. Deleted within 30 days, up to 2 years if flagged for misuse; not used for training | US and other countries; Standard Contractual Clauses in its Data Processing Addendum |
| Sentry | Crash reports | See section 2, Technical | Stored in Germany; Data Privacy Framework |
| Grafana Labs | Server measurements | See section 2, Technical | Stored in Germany; Data Privacy Framework |
| OpenFreeMap; Esri for the satellite skin | Map images and map fonts | Your IP address and the map area, like any web request; Esri also receives our app's access key | Your device requests the images directly, as a browser loads a picture |
5. Ads and your consent
The free version shows ads, served by Google AdMob and labelled as ads. Supporters see none, and the app does not contact the ad network for them.
Before the first ad, a consent dialog (Google's consent tool, following the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework) asks whether you consent to personalised ads. Without consent you see non-personalised ads. On iOS the system also asks for tracking permission. You can change or withdraw your choice in Settings › Privacy › Ad preferences; it applies to all future ads. We keep the date and the technical consent string as proof.
Google is its own controller for ad serving. How it uses data is described at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
6. On your device
The app stores your login tokens and settings on your device, and a copy of what you have already seen: your listings, profile, favourites, conversations and notifications, plus any message written offline until it is sent. This copy is deleted when you log out or delete your account.
A photo you take with the in-app camera is also saved to your phone's photo library, in a Gibber album, unless you turn that off in Settings › Photos. The ad software stores your consent choice and, with your consent, uses the device's advertising identifier. This website sets no cookies and runs no scripts.
7. Your rights, and deleting your account
You can ask us for access to your data, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict how we use it, to receive a copy you can take elsewhere, and to stop using it for a particular purpose. You can withdraw a consent at any time; section 5 says how for ads. Withdrawing does not affect what was done on the consent before.
You have the right to object to any processing we base on our legitimate interests (section 8), for reasons arising from your particular situation. Email contact@catsonacid.dev for any of these; we handle them manually.
You can complain to a data protection authority. Ours is the Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, Alt-Moabit 59–61, 10555 Berlin, mailbox@datenschutz-berlin.de, datenschutz-berlin.de.
Deleting your account. Settings › Delete account. It takes effect immediately and cannot be undone. It removes:
- the account, your email address and your profile photo
- your giveaways and requests, with their photos
- favourites, karma, level, badges and medals
- friendships and friend requests
- the ratings you received
- settings, sessions and push tokens
Your email address can be used for a new account. Your nickname is retired: nobody can register it again, and the retired name is not linked to you.
Three things stay:
- Findings you posted. Public content about things that belong to nobody; they stay under a shared "Deleted user" account.
- Chat messages, reservation records and the ratings you gave. Part of the other person's history; they stay visible to that person, with your name replaced by "Deleted user".
- An abuse-prevention record. Karma events, exchange records, leaderboard standings, install records, the reports you made and the email fingerprint, kept for 12 months with no name, email, photo, posts or position attached, visible only to us, then erased.
Backups. We keep copies of the database to restore the service after a failure: daily, weekly and monthly snapshots, the oldest up to three months old, and a continuous archive of about four weeks. Deleted data stays in those copies until they expire; the copies are used for nothing else. If we restore one, we delete again every account that was deleted after the copy was taken.
A suspended account's data is kept unchanged while the suspension lasts. If the account is then closed, by us or at your request, it is deleted as described above.
8. Legal bases
| Purpose | Basis |
|---|---|
| Providing the service you signed up for: account, posts, chats, handovers, karma, friends, notifications, the waitlist | Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR, performance of a contract |
| Keeping accounts and the service secure and preventing abuse: sessions, install records, sign-in limits, the position behind a finding report, blocks, reports, moderation, the 12-month record after deletion | Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, legitimate interest; reading the position for a finding report also § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG |
| Running and fixing the service: backups, server logs, crash reports, measurements, website logs | Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, legitimate interest |
| Translating text so that people who speak different languages can use the app together | Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, legitimate interest |
| Answering your emails | Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, legitimate interest |
| Personalised ads | Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, consent, and § 25(1) TDDDG |
| Storage on your device that the app needs to work | § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG |
No decision with a legal or similar effect on you, such as a suspension, is made automatically; a person makes it.
9. Changes, languages, contact
We update this page when what we do changes. A material change is also announced in the app.
This policy exists in English and in German, and both versions are meant to say the same thing; neither overrides the other. If you spot a difference, tell us at contact@catsonacid.dev. You can switch language at the top of this page.
Cats on Acid UG (haftungsbeschränkt) · HRB 291788, Amtsgericht Charlottenburg · Kolonnenstr. 8, 10827 Berlin, Germany · contact@catsonacid.dev · Terms of Service