Privacy

Short version: we collect what it takes to run a musician directory with messaging, we never sell it, and there are no ads, trackers, or third-party analytics on the site.

What We Collect

• Your account: your email address and your password, which we store only as a one-way hash.
• Your profile: what you choose to add: name, handle, instruments, scenes, what you’re looking for, bio, gear, gigs, photo, and samples.
• Your location: the city or ZIP code you enter. We turn it into a map point using public US Census data so search can measure distance. The point never leaves our server; other people only see your city and a distance rounded to whole miles.
• Whether you’re under 18, which you tell us when you sign up (13 to 17, or 18 or older). We don’t ask for your birth date. It turns on the protections for younger members.
• Your age, only if you enter it. It’s shown on your profile only if you switch that on.
• Samples and photos. We re-encode them, which removes hidden details like the GPS location and device information phones add to files. We keep a copy of your whole photo so you can change its crop later; only you can see it, and it’s deleted with the photo.
• Messages you send and receive.
• Favorites: who you favorite. Only you see your list; others see just how many people favorited a profile.
• Feedback you send (ideas and bug reports), which moderators and admins read.
• Access requests: if you ask for an invite, your email address, and if you choose to tell us, your town (from the city or ZIP you give) and what you play. Admins see them so they can send you an invite, and invite people near each other. If you came from a member’s printed flyer, we note whose flyer it was. Invites: the invites you make and whether they’ve been used. Admins can see whose invite someone joined with. When you share your invite link, its preview shows your first name.
• Reports and verification requests. Voice clips sent for verification are deleted once a moderator has reviewed them, whatever the decision, and are never shown publicly.
• When you were last active, which others see as “Active 2 hours ago” and similar. It’s never faked or rounded up. We also note which weeks you used the site (the week only, not days, times, or pages), only to count how many members come back. Nobody else sees it.
• How many times each page is viewed, per day. Counted on our server with no cookie or script, and nothing about who viewed it: no account, no IP address. Signed-in areas count as one page each, so we can’t tell whose messages or settings were opened.
• Push notifications, if you turn them on for a device: the address your browser gives us to send them to. Notifications never include what someone wrote. Turning them off on that device, or deleting your account, deletes it.
• Applications to a band’s open spot: the sample you pick and the note you write. The band’s admins see them, with your profile. They’re deleted when the spot or the band is, or with your account.
• Your saved searches, if you save any: the filters and place you searched with, so we can tell you when new people match. Only you see them.
• Your answers to our one-question surveys, if you answer them: a score from 1 to 5 and any comment, asked once each (after your first conversation, and after your first week). Staff see the scores and comments without your name.
• Your journey through the site, only if you say yes to “Help improve the beta” on your dashboard, and only while the beta lasts: which pages you open (signed-in areas count as one page each) and a few things you do, like searching, playing samples, favoriting, and starting conversations. It’s kept under a code like T-7F3K9M, not your name. We never record what you write, what you type into search, or who you message or favorite.
• Technical details: to stop abuse (like repeated log-in attempts), we count requests per IP address, stored scrambled rather than as the address itself. Our server keeps short-lived logs of errors, and error reports (what broke and on which page, with no personal details) go to an error tracker that runs on our own server and keeps them 90 days.
• Stopping suspended members from coming back: when you sign up or log in, we record your IP address, scrambled so it can’t be read back. If an account is suspended, we keep its email address and recent IP addresses the same scrambled way, so a new account with that email can be refused and one from the same internet connection can be checked by a moderator.

Cookies

Only the ones the site needs: one that keeps you logged in, one that protects forms from forgery, and two that remember your light or dark setting and your time zone. No advertising or analytics cookies. Your player volume is remembered in your browser, not sent to us.

YouTube and Vimeo Videos

Members can add YouTube or Vimeo videos to their profiles. Nothing loads from YouTube or Vimeo until you press play on one. Then that video plays from YouTube (in its privacy-enhanced mode) or Vimeo (with Do Not Track), and their privacy policies apply to it.

Who Can See What

• Anyone can see a listed profile: name, handle, instruments, scenes, what you’re looking for, city, samples, photo, last-active time, and badges (Early Adopter, ampliteam). Your email address is never shown.
• Bands: a band’s page shows its members (with their role in the band), the samples they chose to share to it, and the photos and samples its admins added to it, and your profile lists the bands you’re in. Members under 18 are only shown on a band’s page to logged-in members. Photos and samples added to a band belong to the band: they stay if the person who added them leaves, and are deleted 30 days after everyone has left it.
• Studios: a studio’s page shows its details, samples its admins chose to share, and the first name of whoever receives its messages. Verification works the same way as for venues.
• Venues: a venue’s page shows its details and the first name of whoever receives its messages. To verify a venue, we keep the link to the page where its admin put our code and what our check found, for moderators.
• Only the two people in a conversation can read it. If someone reports a conversation, the moderator reviewing the report sees the reported message.
• People you block can’t see your profile or message you.
• Under 18, your profile is only shown to members who are logged in, never to logged-out visitors or search engines, and your age and last-active time are never shown.
• Who can message you is up to you: everyone, message requests, or no one new. Change it on your dashboard.

Why We Use Your Data (the Legal Basis)

• To give you the service you signed up for: your account, profile, location, samples and photos, messages, favorites, and a membership once they open.
• To keep amplifriends safe (our legitimate interest, and yours): limits on repeated attempts, reports, moderation and its records, verification, stopping suspended members from coming back, security logs, and backups.
• Because you chose to: showing your age, message notification emails, and beta journey tracking. Switch any of them off any time.
• Because the law requires it: keeping payment records for tax, and reporting child sexual abuse material to the authorities.

We don’t use your data for advertising, we don’t build profiles of you for anyone, and no decision about you is made by a computer alone: people make every moderation decision.

How Long We Keep It

• Your account, profile, samples, photo, favorites, saved searches, and settings: until you delete them or your account.
• Messages: until you or the person you talked with deletes their account. A message a moderator removes is emptied straight away.
• Samples a moderator takes down: kept hidden for 6 months in case the decision is reversed, then deleted.
• Reports, verification requests, feedback, and the record of moderators’ decisions: 2 years after the decision.
• Access requests: until you make an account, or ask us ([email protected]) to remove it.
• Log-in sessions: up to 30 days after you were last on the site. Email links (confirm, reset): until they expire, plus a day. Counts for repeated attempts: 2 days. Which weeks you used the site: 6 months. Survey answers: a year. Beta journeys: 90 days, and all of it is deleted when you say no in Account or delete your account.
• Sign-ups never confirmed: 30 days. Your data download: 7 days. Read notifications: a year.
• Server logs, which can include IP addresses: up to 30 days.
• Your IP address from signing up and logging in (scrambled): 30 days. If an account is suspended, its email address (scrambled) for as long as the suspension stands, even if the account is deleted, and its IP addresses (scrambled) for 90 days.
• Backups: 14 days on our server and 90 days in off-site storage.
• Payment records, once membership opens: as long as tax law requires (usually 7 years).

Who Helps Us Run the Site

• Cloudflare, for our domain and for storing samples and photos.
• Postmark, for sending email.
• Stripe, for card payments, once membership opens. Card details go straight to Stripe; we never see them.

They only process data to provide their service to us, under contracts that say so. We don’t sell or rent data to anyone. Our server and these services store data in the United States. If you use amplifriends from outside the US, your data is transferred there, under the safeguards those services provide for international transfers.

Emails

We always send emails about your account: confirming your email, password resets, security warnings, decisions about your reports or your account, and receipts. Message notifications are optional: turn them off on your dashboard or with the link at the bottom of each one.

Your Rights

Wherever you live, you can:

• See and download your data: download it from your dashboard, or email us for anything the download doesn’t include.
• Correct it: edit your profile and settings any time, or ask us.
• Delete it: remove anything from your profile, or delete your account (below).
• Object to or limit how we use it, and withdraw consent for anything you switched on.
• Complain to a data-protection regulator where you live. We’d like the chance to sort it out first: email [email protected].

We answer requests within a month, free.

Your Choices

• Edit your profile any time, or hide it from your dashboard: nobody else can find or open it and you’re off band pages, while your samples and everything else are kept. Show it again whenever you like.
• Download everything (profile, samples, and messages) from your dashboard. The link works for 7 days.
• Say yes or no to beta journey tracking in your dashboard (Account). Saying no, even later, deletes everything it recorded.
• Delete your account from your dashboard. Your profile is hidden and you’re logged out right away, and after 7 days (unless you log in and keep it) your profile, photo, samples, and conversations are deleted (the people you talked with lose those conversations too), and a membership ends with no further charges and no refund. Your handle is held for 30 days so nobody can pass as you. We keep reports made by or about the account, without your email or password, for 2 years after each decision, so moderators still have the history. Database backups can hold a copy for up to 90 days before they’re deleted.

Questions

Email [email protected].