What we keep, and why

What we collect

Your account. An email address and a password, which is stored hashed by Firebase Authentication, never in a form we can read. A username, and if you add them, a profile picture, a short bio and a location.

What you save. Kits, with their audio files and pad settings; beats; effect presets. These are stored so you can open them again on any device.

Billing, on Pro. Stripe’s identifiers for your customer record and subscription, and whether the subscription is active. Not your card number, expiry or address: those are entered on Stripe’s page and held by Stripe.

Messages you send us. What you put in the contact form, and if you include it, the diagnostics line it offers.

Usage. Page views, counted by Vercel Analytics without cookies and without following you to other sites. Our servers keep ordinary request logs for a short time to keep the site working and secure.

What stays in your browser

The sampler works on your machine. When you record from the microphone, the audio is captured and processed in the browser and goes nowhere unless you save a kit. We ask for the microphone only when you press record.

Your browser also holds: whether you are signed in; a snapshot of pads you have not saved, so a refresh does not lose them, which is cleared when the tab closes; and preferences such as the theme and pad key assignments. None of it is sent to us, and none of it is used for advertising. We set no advertising or tracking cookies.

What is public

Your profile page, at sampler.fm followed by your username, shows your username, picture, bio, location, when you joined and the kits you have published. A published kit can be opened by anyone with its link. Your email address is never shown. Nothing is public until you publish it, and you can unpublish a kit at any time.

Who handles it with us

We run sampler.fm on services that process data on our behalf, each under its own privacy terms:

Google Firebase holds accounts, kits and audio files. Vercel hosts the site and counts page views. Stripe takes payments for Pro. Stripe is the seller of record for Pro, so for your payment details it is responsible in its own right, under its privacy policy. Resend sends our email: sign-up verification, password resets and replies to the contact form.

We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with anyone else except where the law requires it.

Why we are allowed to

For people in the UK and the European Economic Area: we process your account and saved kits because that is what providing sampler.fm to you requires; usage counts and security logs on our legitimate interest in keeping the site working; and your card, through Stripe, to take the payment you asked for. We do no marketing and ask for no consent to.

How long, and how to get it deleted

We keep your account and what you have saved for as long as the account exists. To delete the account and everything on it, email support@sampler.fm from the address on the account; we delete it within 30 days. Stripe keeps records of payments for as long as the law requires it to.

You can also ask us for a copy of the data we hold on you, or to correct it, at the same address. Where you live gives you rights under data protection law, we honour them, and if you think we have not, you can complain to your local data protection authority.

Children

sampler.fm is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly keep an account for one. If you believe a child has made one, write to us and we will remove it.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version appears here with a new date at the top. For a change that affects how we use what we already hold, we will email account holders first.