Cinetist

Privacy Policy

Last updated November 6, 2026

Cinetist is an app for rating and ranking the films and shows you watch, and sharing them with people you choose to follow. This policy explains what we collect, what is public, who helps us run the app, and how to delete everything.

What we collect

We do not use advertising SDKs or advertising identifiers, we do not track you across other apps or websites, and we do not sell or rent your data.

  • Account: your email address and password (stored only as a secure hash by our authentication provider), your username, and — if you add them — a display name, bio, profile photo, country and university. If you sign in with Apple, we receive from Apple a sign-in token, the email address Apple shares (which may be a private relay address Apple forwards for you) and, the first time only, your name if you choose to share it. If you sign in with Google, we receive from Google your name, email address and a link to your Google profile picture. The link is kept with your sign-in record; Cinetist does not show the picture or use it as your profile photo.
  • What you create: star ratings, where each title ranks in your list, the head-to-head answers that produced those ranks, notes, and — if you add them to a rating — who you watched it with, the date you watched it, the performances you loved, and photos or videos; your watchlist, custom lists and any cover photos you add to them, your yearly Cinema Challenge goal, season orders, the actors and directors you rank, the streaming services you say you subscribe to, and titles you mark “not interested”.
  • Social activity: who you follow, follow requests you send and answer, posts you like, comments you write, requests for recommendations you post, lists you save, accounts you block, and reports you file.
  • Notifications: when someone follows you, asks to follow you, accepts your request, or likes or comments on your post, we store a notification for you (who did it, what, and when) and whether you have read it. Notifications are deleted after 90 days. You choose which kinds you get in Settings → Notifications.
  • Technical: our hosting provider records standard server logs (such as IP address and the time of each request) to operate and secure the service.
  • Crash reports: when the app crashes or hits an error, a report is sent with technical details (device model, iOS and app version, and what the app was doing). It identifies your account only by a random ID — never your email or anything you wrote.
  • Achievements: which featured lists you have finished (rated every title on), and when, so you get the sticker for each one. They are worked out from your ratings on our server, and a sticker is removed if the list is no longer finished — a rating is deleted or a title is added.
  • Usage statistics: counts of key steps such as signing up, rating a title, finishing setup and following someone, tied to the same random ID, so we can see what works. Never the content of your notes, lists or anything you type. You can turn this off in Settings → Privacy.
  • Setup and privacy choices: whether you have finished the welcome setup, whether your account is private, whether people can find you by your email address, and which notifications you want.

Finding friends from your contacts

If you tap “Find friends from your contacts” and allow access, Cinetist reads the email addresses saved in your phone’s contacts. Before anything leaves your phone, each address is turned into a one-way code (a SHA-256 hash). Only those codes are sent to us, never names, phone numbers or the addresses themselves.

Our server compares the codes with the same kind of code made from the verified email address of each Cinetist account, tells your phone which accounts matched, and then discards the codes you sent. We do not store your contacts, and we do not contact anyone in them. To prevent misuse, each account can check a limited number of addresses per day.

Because accounts are matched by email, someone who has your email address in their contacts can be shown your profile. You can turn this off in Settings → Privacy → “Let people find me by email”. Your email address itself is never shown to anyone.

Importing from Letterboxd

If you import a Letterboxd export, the file is read on your phone. To find films your phone’s catalog does not already have, their titles are searched on our server, the same way Search works. The ratings and watchlist entries that match become ordinary Cinetist ratings and watchlist entries, public or private exactly as described in this policy, dated as they were on Letterboxd. Nothing else from the file is kept or sent to us. Cinetist is not affiliated with Letterboxd.

What other people can see

Cinetist accounts are public to other signed-in users unless you make yours private (Settings → Privacy → Private account). Anyone with an account can see:

  • your profile — username, display name, bio, photo, country and university if you add them, and follower and following counts;
  • how many titles you have rated and how many notes you have written (movies and TV counted separately, all time and for the current month and year), which place you on leaderboards — overall, among the people who follow you, and within your country and university;
  • a “% match” between your taste and theirs, worked out from the scores on titles you have both rated;
  • your Cinema Challenge goal and progress, only if you turn on “Show on Friends’ Challenges” — and then only to people who follow you;
  • each title you rate, with its stars, where it sits in your ranking at the time, and anything you add to it — your note, who you watched it with, when, the performances you loved, and photos or videos — so, taken together, your rankings;
  • that you watched something with someone, if a person you follow tags you on their rating: your username appears on their post. Blocking them stops any further tags, and you can report a post that tags you;
  • the achievement stickers you have earned for finishing featured lists;
  • requests for recommendations you post, lists you make public (with their cover photos), comments you post, and who you follow.

Private accounts

If you make your account private, your ratings, notes, achievement stickers, recommendation requests, the comments and likes on them, and who you follow and who follows you are shown only to followers you approve. To follow you, people send a request, which you can accept or decline. Your profile — username, display name, bio, photo, follower and following counts — stays visible so people can find you and ask, as do the leaderboard counts described above.

Making your account private also makes all your lists private. You can then make any list public again, and a list you make public is visible to everyone. People who already followed you before you went private stay approved; you can remove a follower at any time. Making your account public again approves every pending request.

What stays private

Your watchlist, private lists, Cinema Challenge goal (unless you share it), season orders, ranked actors and directors, the head-to-head answers behind your rankings, platform choices, “not interested” marks and your setup and privacy choices are visible only to you. Your email address is never shown to anyone.

If you turn on Sunday streak reminders, your phone schedules them itself as local notifications: nothing about them is sent to us or to any notification service, and you can turn them off on the streak screen, in Settings → Notifications, or in your phone’s Settings. Your weekly “lab report” in the notification inbox is worked out on your phone from your ratings, too.

Your notifications are visible only to you.

The list of things you recently opened from Search is kept only on your phone. It is never sent to us, and it is erased when a different account signs in on that phone.

How we use it

  • To run the app: store your library, sync it across your devices, and show your activity to people who follow you.
  • To recommend titles. Most recommendation work runs on your phone. We may also compute which titles tend to be rated similarly across many users; those statistics only include a pair of titles once at least three people have rated both, and never identify anyone.
  • To keep the community safe: review reports, remove content that breaks our guidelines, and act on abusive accounts.
  • To send account emails you ask for, such as sign-up and password-reset codes. We do not send marketing email.

Who helps us run Cinetist

These providers process data only to provide their service to us. Your information may be processed in countries other than your own, including the United States.

  • Supabase — database, sign-in, file storage and servers.
  • Apple — Sign in with Apple, if you use it. Apple confirms who you are and tells us only what is described above; see Apple’s privacy policy for what Apple keeps.
  • Google — Sign in with Google, if you use it. Google confirms who you are and tells us only what is described above; see Google’s privacy policy for what Google keeps.
  • Resend — delivers sign-up and password-reset emails.
  • Sentry — crash and error reports.
  • PostHog — usage statistics, if you leave them on.
  • hCaptcha — checks that sign-ups and sign-ins come from a person rather than a bot; it receives information about your device and connection when the check runs.
  • The Movie Database (TMDB) — film and TV information and artwork. When you browse, your device loads posters directly from TMDB’s image servers, which receive your IP address. Other TMDB lookups are made by our server for you, and do not include your identity.

Keeping and deleting your data

We keep your data while your account exists. You can delete your account at any time in Settings → Delete account. That permanently removes your profile, ratings, notes, achievements, recommendation requests, lists, comments, likes, follows, follow requests, notifications, photos and videos from our live systems straight away. Copies in our providers’ routine backups expire on their normal schedule. Crash reports and usage statistics carry only a random ID and expire under those providers’ retention periods; email us to have them deleted sooner.

Reports you filed about others are kept without your identity, so that action on abusive accounts isn’t undone. Reports others filed about you are deleted with your account.

Your choices and rights

You can view and edit your profile and content in the app at any time, and delete any of it. Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to access, correct, export, restrict or object to the use of your data. To ask about any of these, email us at the address below — we answer within 30 days.

Children

Cinetist is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, contact us and we will delete it.

Security

All traffic is encrypted in transit, and access rules on our database ensure each account can reach only its own private data. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect yours and will notify you of any breach that affects you as the law requires.

Changes

If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect.

Contact

Questions or requests: support@cinetist.com