Privacy
Last updated: 10 November 2026
Fishfolk keeps only what it needs to look after your tanks with you. It shows no ads, sells no data and uses no trackers.
Who is responsible
Luis Varela runs Fishfolk and is responsible for your data (the controller). Write to support@fishfolk.app about anything on this page.
What we keep
- Your account: your email and first name, and how you sign in: a code we email you, a passkey or Google. There is no password. For a passkey we keep its public key and a name for it; the private key never leaves your device, and nothing about your fingerprint or face reaches us.
- Your tanks: what you enter about them. Their name, water type, size, country and set-up date; the species you keep, how many and why the numbers changed; equipment; water tests, of the tank and of your tap water, and water changes.
- Your record with us: an id for your account, when you joined and last signed in, when you last signed out on every other device, and, if you delete your account, when you did.
- Reminders: each tank's reminder settings, and, for every browser where you turn notifications on, the address its push service gave it.
- Data reports: what you write in a report about a species, sent with your account's id and the language of the page, and your email only if you tick the box that lets us reply.
- Sign-in codes: when you ask for one, a fingerprint of the code (never the code itself), when it stops working, and when the last codes went to your address.
- Emails you write to us: your message and your address, so we can answer you.
Why we use it
- To run Fishfolk for you: show and check your tanks, and send the reminders you ask for. The basis is our agreement with you (GDPR, article 6(1)(b)).
- To keep Fishfolk safe and working, from error logs and protection against misuse. The basis is our legitimate interest (article 6(1)(f)).
- For statistics about the hobby, from records that carry no name (below). The basis is our legitimate interest.
- To reply to a data report, only if you agree. The basis is your consent (article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time.
- To answer what you write to us. The basis is our legitimate interest, or, for a request about your rights, our legal obligation (article 6(1)(c)).
Records without your name
Each change to a tank (a species added, a test, a water change) is also written to a separate record for statistics. It names the tank by a random code, never you or the tank's name.
We use these records only in summaries of many tanks, such as which species are kept together. We will ask for your agreement before using your tanks' history for research into what keeps animals healthy.
When you delete a tank or your account, its history is left out of all analysis, and once your account is deleted nothing links the code to you.
We also count how Fishfolk is used (sign-ups, tanks, tests, page views and shop links) as totals that say nothing of who: no count holds an account, a tank, an address or anything else that points to a person.
Where it is kept, and who helps us
- Amazon Web Services hosts Fishfolk and sends and receives its emails (Amazon SES), in its Ireland region, in the EU.
- When you turn notifications on, your browser's push service (Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft) carries the reminders to your device. They are encrypted, so it cannot read them. These services may work outside the EU.
- If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your email, that it has checked it, and your first name, and knows you signed in to Fishfolk with it. Google's own privacy policy covers what it does, and it may work outside the EU.
We do not sell your data, show ads, or use advertising or analytics trackers.
How long we keep it
- Your account and tanks: until you delete them. Deleting your account removes your data at once, with your passkeys and the email you sign in with.
- Backups of our database: up to 35 days, after which deleted data is gone from them too.
- Error logs, which may include your account's id: one month.
- The record that an account was deleted, with its id and dates but no name or email: kept, so a deleted account cannot come back to life.
- A sign-in code: an hour at most.
- An address our email could not reach, or whose owner marked it as spam: kept by Amazon SES so that we stop writing to it, until you ask us to remove it.
- The counts of how Fishfolk is used, which hold no one's data: two years.
- An email you write to us: the copy Amazon SES receives for us, 30 days; your message and our reply, for as long as we need them to deal with what you asked.
Cookies
Fishfolk sets only the cookies it needs to work: SESSION keeps you signed in, for up to 30 days on each device, and lang remembers the language you chose, for a year. There are no tracking cookies, so there is nothing to agree to. If you sign in with Google, Google's pages set their own cookies.
Your rights
You can ask to see your data, correct it, have it deleted or take a copy with you, object to or restrict how we use it, and withdraw a consent at any time. In Your account you can download everything you recorded, and delete your account yourself; for anything else, write to support@fishfolk.app.
You can also complain to the Portuguese data protection authority, the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (www.cnpd.pt).
Children
Fishfolk is not meant for children under 13. Younger children may use it only with a parent's consent.
Changes
We update this page when what we do changes, with the date of the change at the top. A change takes effect on that date.