Privacy notice
This notice explains what personal data the Wine Cellar service ("we") handles, why, who else sees it, how long we keep it and what you can ask us to do. It is written in plain language; if something is unclear, write to info@creathyst.com.
Who we are
The controller is Louis Strydom, a private individual established in the Netherlands, who runs this service as a closed alpha for invited testers. Contact for everything in this notice: info@creathyst.com.
The service is for adults of legal drinking age. By creating an account you confirm you are 18 or older (or the legal drinking age where you live, if higher).
What we collect and why
| What | Why | Legal basis (GDPR Art. 6) |
|---|---|---|
| Your account: email address, display name, sign-in method, the cellars you belong to and your role in each | To provide the account and the cellar service | Contract (6(1)(b)) |
| What you put in your cellars: wines, bottles, locations, purchase price and merchant, your ratings and notes, tasting and pairing notes, chats with the assistant, recipes | To provide the cellar, pairing and assistant features | Contract (6(1)(b)) |
| Usage and cost records: which AI features ran, token counts and cost, error logs | To keep the service secure, find faults and control cost | Legitimate interest (6(1)(f)) |
| Shared facts about wines (a score, the name of the critic or publication, a link to the source) | To give every user reliable facts about a bottle | Legitimate interest (6(1)(f)) |
| A record of any choice you made earlier about sharing your numeric ratings with a community (the option is switched off during the alpha, see below) | Only if you had chosen it | Consent (6(1)(a)) |
| The email address someone typed to invite you to a cellar (if you have no account). We send the invitation and do not keep the address in our database | To deliver that one invitation | Legitimate interest (6(1)(f)) |
A photo you take or choose (a bottle label, a wine list) is sent to our AI provider so it can be read, and the photo itself is not kept by us: we store only the wine details that are read from it.
We do not knowingly collect special-category data (health, beliefs and so on). Please do not enter such data in notes. Two optional preferences can hint at health or beliefs: your diet notes (for example vegan, or no sulphites) and your favourite cuisines. They are kept private to you, they are included in the copy of your data you can download, and they are deleted with your account. We do not use cookies for tracking, and we use no analytics or advertising tools. Your browser stores a sign-in session and some preferences on your own device because the service needs them to work.
Named critics and public sources
Wine information can include the name of a professional critic or publication next to a score. These are public facts about people acting in their professional capacity. We rely on legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) and give this notice instead of contacting each person (Art. 14(5)(b)). A critic who wants a name or score removed can write to info@creathyst.com.
Community ratings (not offered during the alpha)
There is no community feature in the alpha, so the option to share your ratings with the community is switched off and is not shown, and nothing about your ratings is shared or combined with anyone else's. If you chose it before it was hidden, that choice stays on record and in your download, and it has no effect. If a community feature is added later, we will tell you what it does and ask again before anything is shared.
Who else handles your data
We use the following service providers (processors). Each is bound by a data-processing agreement; where data leaves the European Economic Area, the safeguard is the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (plus the UK Addendum for UK data).
| Provider | What it does | Where | Safeguard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and file storage | European Union (Ireland, eu-west-1) | EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Module 2/3) and the UK Addendum; no reliance on the Data Privacy Framework |
| Railway | Hosts the application and its logs | European Union | EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum (the vendor entity is US-based); the Data Privacy Framework only where the vendor certifies |
| Anthropic | AI text and image analysis. Our provider does not train its models on data sent through the API. Inputs and outputs are deleted by the provider within 30 days, with exceptions for policy violations. | United States | EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Module 2/3) and the UK Addendum; not relying on the Data Privacy Framework |
| Resend | Sends invitation and account emails | United States | EU Standard Contractual Clauses, the UK Addendum, and the Data Privacy Framework with its UK Extension |
| Our email provider (info@creathyst.com) | Receives your messages and our deletion-journal records | Recorded in our processing records and available on request | Standard contractual clauses wherever the provider is outside the EEA; details on request |
Optional features send data elsewhere only when you use them: recipe sync with Paprika or Mealie (with your own credentials), and fetching a web page whose address you give us. If you add your own AI provider key, calls made with your key are governed by that provider's own terms. Google and Apple, if you choose to sign in with them, handle your sign-in under their own privacy terms.
Transfers outside the EEA
Our database is hosted in European Union (Ireland, eu-west-1) and our application in European Union. Our AI provider processes data in United States and our email sender in United States. Where data leaves the EEA we rely on the safeguards in the table above, not on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework alone. A copy of the relevant clauses is available on request.
How long we keep data
| Data | Kept |
|---|---|
| Account and cellar data | While your account exists; deleted when you delete it |
| Notes, pairing history and chats you add to a cellar you do not own | They stay with that cellar as its household record and are deleted when the cellar is deleted. Ask the cellar's owner to remove them |
| Usage and cost records | Up to 13 months, then deleted; records tied to a deleted account are deleted with it |
| Platform backups | 7 days (deleted data can still be in a backup for up to 7 days) |
| Application logs at our host | About a week |
| Records of privacy requests | Up to 12 months after the request is closed |
| Emailed confirmations that an account was deleted | Deleted after 45 days (at most 90 days, allowing for our email provider's trash) |
These periods are enforced by scheduled jobs that we operate; the periods above are the ones in force.
Your rights
You can ask us to: give you a copy of your data (access and portability), correct it, delete it, restrict its use, or stop a use that rests on legitimate interest (objection). You can do most of this yourself: Settings → Account lets you download your data and delete your account. If you own a cellar you first delete it or hand it over to another member, who has to accept; an account that owns a cellar cannot be deleted until then. For anything else, or if you cannot sign in, write to info@creathyst.com; we answer within one month. We may need to confirm it is really you before releasing or deleting data. If you ask us to restrict processing we will mark your account restricted: we keep your data but do not use your account or your private notes and preferences, apart from storing them and letting you export or delete them; data you added to a cellar shared with others stays available to those members unless you ask us to remove it.
If you are not satisfied you can complain to the supervisory authority: in the Netherlands the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens; in the United Kingdom the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO); in South Africa the Information Regulator. You can also go to a court.
Changes
When this notice changes, the version below changes and the earlier version stays available at its permanent link.
Version 2026-10-17-a7c40708d411791d - permanent link to this version