Privacy Notice
For the Wotchd app and Wotchd.com
Effective 1 November 2026 · Last updated 24 September 2026
1. Who we are
Wotchd is operated by Beames Media Limited (company number 14797011), trading as Wotchd.com. We are the controller responsible for the personal information described in this notice.
Our registered office is Sherborne House, Grange Rd, Edwalton, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, NG12 4BT. You can contact us about privacy at privacy@wotchd.com.
2. What this notice covers
This notice explains how we collect and use personal information when you create or use a Wotchd account, connect with friends, rate or save films and programmes, share lists, send recommendations, write comments, contact us or otherwise use our app or website.
Wotchd is for people aged 18 or over. We do not knowingly allow children to create accounts.
3. Information we collect
Information you give us
- Account information: your email address and your first name and surname. If you sign up with an email address, you also choose a password. It is held in encrypted form by our sign-in system and we cannot see it.
- Your date of birth, which the app uses to check that you are 18 or over. We do not store your date of birth. The app works out an age range (for example 25–34) on your device and only that range is sent to us.
- An optional profile photograph, the streaming services you use, who you usually watch with, and any favourite titles you add.
- Your ratings, reviews, To Wotch list, lists (including lists you share and build with other members), recommendations, comments, reactions, searches and other activity in Wotchd.
- Your connections, friend requests, the people you have removed or blocked, and the people with whom you share recommendations.
- Messages and information you send when you contact support, report content or make a complaint.
Information about people you invite
- If you send a friend request to an email address, we keep that address with the request and email the person on your behalf, including if they are not yet a member. The request and the address are kept until it is accepted, declined or withdrawn, or your account is deleted.
- If you share your personal invite link, you send it from your own device using the app of your choice. We do not see who you send it to.
Your phone's contacts (optional)
If you choose to find friends from your contacts, the app reads the email addresses in your phone's contacts and sends them to us so we can tell you which belong to Wotchd members. We use them only for that check and do not keep the addresses of people who are not members. You can turn contact access off at any time in your phone's settings.
Information received when you sign in with Google or Apple
If you sign in with Google or Apple, that provider confirms your identity and may provide us with information such as a unique account identifier, your name and email address, depending on the provider and the choices you make. Google or Apple processes information under its own privacy terms. We do not receive your Google or Apple password.
Information collected when you use Wotchd
- Technical and device information, such as app version, device type, operating system, IP address, timestamps and diagnostic information.
- Internal telemetry about how features perform and are used, including events, errors and interactions needed to operate, secure and improve Wotchd.
- Push-notification tokens and delivery information where you enable notifications.
- Security and moderation information, including reports, blocks, suspected misuse and action taken on an account or content.
We do not collect precise or approximate location information.
4. How and why we use information
| Purpose | Information used | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Create and administer your account; check that you are 18 or over; authenticate sign-in. | Account information; age range; Google/Apple sign-in data; technical data. | Contract; legitimate interests in account security and age controls. |
| Provide social features, ratings, reviews, lists, comments and direct recommendations. | Profile, connections, activity and user content. | Contract. |
| Help you find people you know, by name, by email address or from your contacts if you turn that on. | Names, email addresses you enter or that are in your contacts. | Legitimate interests in helping members connect with people they know. |
| Personalise Wotchd and build a taste profile to suggest relevant films, programmes or content. | Ratings, saved titles, streaming services, who you watch with, searches, clicks, preferences, connections and activity. | Legitimate interests in making Wotchd useful and relevant. |
| Send service messages, friend-request emails and push notifications you have enabled. | Email address, account status, notification token and preferences. | Contract; legitimate interests in operating the service. |
| Keep Wotchd safe, investigate reports, enforce our Terms and prevent fraud or misuse. | Account, technical, activity, content and report data. | Legitimate interests; legal obligation where applicable. |
| Measure performance, diagnose faults and improve the service using internal telemetry. | Technical, diagnostic and usage information. | Legitimate interests in reliable and improved services; applicable storage/access exemption or consent where required. |
| Respond to enquiries and exercise legal rights. | Contact, account, support and relevant activity information. | Legitimate interests; legal obligation; establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider the benefit to Wotchd and its members, whether the use is necessary and its effect on your rights. You can ask for more information about this assessment.
5. Personalisation and taste profiles
We may analyse your ratings, saved titles, recommendations, searches, clicks and other activity to understand your entertainment preferences and make Wotchd more relevant to you. We refer to this as your taste profile.
This personalisation does not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you. You may object to processing based on our legitimate interests. Where practical, we will also provide controls for personalised suggestions as the feature develops.
6. Who can see what
Friends
Wotchd profiles are friends-only. People you have accepted as friends may see your name, profile photograph, ratings, reviews, lists, recommendations, comments, reactions and other activity made visible through Wotchd. Members who share a list with you can see that list and who added each title.
Other members
Other members can find you by name to send you a friend request. We may also suggest you to people who have friends in common with you, or who have you in their phone contacts and have chosen to find friends from them. They see your name, your photo and how many friends you share, never which friends or any of your activity. You can remove or block anyone at any time.
Things you share by link
If you share a review, a list or your invite link, anyone with that link can open a preview of it on the web without an account. A review or list preview shows your name and photo and the review or list itself; an invite preview shows your first name and photo. Only what you choose to share is shown, and a review or list you have not made shareable shows no preview.
Your email address and age range are never shown to friends or other members. Direct recommendations and their comments are visible only to the people taking part in that exchange.
7. Who receives information
We share information only where needed to operate Wotchd, comply with law, protect rights or complete something you ask for. Recipients may include:
- Amazon Web Services, which hosts and processes Wotchd user data in its Dublin, Ireland (eu-west-1) region, runs our sign-in system, stores profile photos and sends system email through AWS SES.
- Apple and Google, where you use their sign-in services, and to deliver push notifications through Apple Push Notification Service and Firebase Cloud Messaging.
- Expo (650 Industries, Inc., in the United States), which passes our push notifications on to Apple and Google. It receives your device's push token and the notification's content.
- Professional advisers, insurers, auditors, prospective investors or purchasers, subject to appropriate confidentiality and only where reasonably necessary.
- Courts, regulators, law-enforcement bodies or other parties where disclosure is required by law or necessary to protect legal rights.
We use Watchmode and The Movie Database (TMDB) to obtain film, television and streaming information. Wotchd does not send personally identifiable member information to either.
We do not sell information that identifies individual members.
8. International transfers
Our principal user-data hosting region is Dublin, Ireland. Some suppliers, including Expo in the United States and other global technology providers, may process or access information from other countries. Where UK data-protection law requires safeguards for an international transfer, we use an adequacy regulation, approved contractual protections or another lawful safeguard. You may contact us for information about the safeguard relevant to your information.
9. How long we keep information
We keep personal information only for as long as it is needed for the purposes described in this notice, including to provide your account, maintain security, meet legal obligations and resolve disputes.
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Account, profile, connections, preferences and taste-profile data | While your account is open. Deleted from our live systems when you delete your account, and from rolling backups within 90 days, unless a legal or safety reason requires longer. |
| Date of birth | Not stored. Only your age range is kept, as part of your account. |
| Ratings, reviews, lists, recommendations and comments | While your account is open. When you delete your account, we delete it or remove your name from it within 30 days, subject to safety records, legal holds and copies another member may have made. |
| Friend requests sent to an email address | Until the request is accepted, declined or withdrawn, or the sender's account is deleted. |
| Internal product telemetry | While your account is open. When you delete your account, it is unlinked from you and kept only in de-identified form. |
| Security and access logs | Up to 12 months, unless needed for an investigation or legal claim. |
| Push-notification tokens | Until you turn notifications off, the token stops working, or you delete your account, when it is deleted straight away. |
| System-email delivery records | Up to 12 months. |
| Support enquiries | Up to 2 years after the enquiry is closed. |
| Moderation reports and enforcement records | Normally 3 years after closure; longer where necessary for safeguarding, repeat-abuse prevention or legal claims. |
| Truly anonymous statistical information | May be kept indefinitely because it no longer identifies anyone. |
We may retain information for longer where required by law, where a dispute or investigation is ongoing, or where deletion would undermine the security of Wotchd. We may retain information for a shorter period where it is no longer needed.
10. Account deletion
You can delete your account in the app, from your profile, without contacting us. Your account, profile, photo and sign-in are removed from our live systems straight away, and remaining information is deleted or de-identified in line with the periods above. Some limited information may be retained where required by law, to investigate misuse or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
Deleting Wotchd does not delete information held independently by Google, Apple or another service, and cannot remove copies of content another person has made outside Wotchd.
11. Emails and notifications
Service emails, such as sign-in, security, password-reset and friend-request messages, are part of providing your account and cannot always be switched off while the account remains open.
We do not send marketing emails. If we ever want to, we will ask you first, separately, and you will be able to unsubscribe at any time.
You can manage app notifications in Wotchd, where available, and in your device settings. A notification about activity you have chosen to take part in, such as a friend request or a reaction to your review, is a service notification.
12. Your rights
Depending on the circumstances, you may have the right to:
- ask for access to your personal information and a copy of it;
- ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information;
- ask us to delete information;
- ask us to restrict how information is used;
- object to processing based on legitimate interests;
- receive certain information in a portable format;
- withdraw consent at any time where processing relies on consent; and
- complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
To exercise a right, email privacy@wotchd.com. We may need to verify your identity. You can contact the ICO through ico.org.uk, although we would appreciate the opportunity to address your concern first.
13. Security
We use technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal information, including access controls and secure hosting. No online service is completely secure, so you should use a secure device, keep your password or your Google or Apple account safe, and tell us promptly if you suspect misuse.
14. Under-18s
You must be at least 18 to create or use a Wotchd account. We use the date of birth entered during registration to check eligibility, and keep only an age range. If we reasonably believe that an account belongs to someone under 18, we may suspend or delete it and take proportionate steps to investigate. If you believe an under-18 is using Wotchd, contact privacy@wotchd.com.
15. Future features
We may introduce advertising, affiliate links, additional analytics, marketing emails or aggregated audience insights in the future. We do not currently use member information for targeted advertising or provide commercial audience-insight products.
Before introducing a new use, we will assess its privacy impact, update this notice and implement consent or choice controls where required. Any audience insights supplied to third parties are intended to be aggregated and effectively anonymised so that individual members cannot reasonably be identified. Pseudonymised or linkable data will continue to be treated as personal information.
16. Changes to this notice
We may update this notice as Wotchd develops or the law changes. We will publish the updated version and its date. If a change materially affects how we use personal information, we will provide an appropriate notice and seek consent where required.
17. Contact us
Beames Media Limited (company number 14797011), trading as Wotchd.com, Sherborne House, Grange Rd, Edwalton, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England, NG12 4BT. Email: privacy@wotchd.com