Last updated: October 2026
GLASSMATES
Elmar Schrage
Email: hello@glassmates.net
No data protection officer has been appointed, as the requirements of Art. 37 GDPR are not met.
Minimum age: GLASSMATES is intended exclusively for people aged 18 and over. If you are younger, you may not use the app.
a) Sign-in data (name, email, profile picture via Google/Apple Sign-In or chosen by you — only your friends can see your profile picture)
Legal basis: performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR)
b) Location data (GPS coordinates, collected when you make a Check-in yourself or signal to your crew that you would go out tonight, and while the app is open)
Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR)
Note: No background tracking. When the app is closed or in the background, your location is not collected. While the app is open, it sends your current location to our server at most once per minute. Only the latest value is stored (it replaces the previous one); other users cannot see it. It is used to suggest bars near you (Smart Nudges, Bar des Monats (bar of the month)) and to check whether friends are nearby (going-out signal, tags).
c) Check-in data (venue, drink, timestamp, duration)
Legal basis: performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR)
Note: Your Check-ins (display name, venue, Check-in photo) are visible to the people on your friends list: active ones on the Liquid Map, and those from the last 48 hours in the friends feed. Someone gets onto your friends list when you or they use the friend link or QR code, the name search or contact sync; no confirmation is currently required, but you get a notification. You can remove or block anyone you don't know at any time. Once the duration you chose has expired, a Check-in disappears from the Liquid Map, but it is not deleted: it stays in your history, image included, until you delete your account.
d) Contact data (phone numbers as SHA-256 hashes, optional)
Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR)
Note: The app turns the numbers in your address book into non-reversible check values (SHA-256) and sends only these to our server for matching. The server counts how many of them belong to GLASSMATES accounts and does not store the check values. Plain-text numbers never leave your device.
e) Device token (FCM push token)
Legal basis: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR)
f) Device identifier (anonymised hash used to recognise the device)
Legal basis: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR)
g) Photos and camera access (taking a Check-in photo or, as a curator, a venue photo)
Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR)
Note: Access only happens when you actively trigger it. The app takes Check-in photos with the camera only. You can also choose a profile picture through the system image picker; the app only sees the one image you select. The app does not access your photo library automatically. Photos are not analysed to recognise or identify people; no facial recognition takes place. The app takes a profile picture from your sign-in (e.g. Google), or you take or choose one yourself; only your friends can see it.
h) Going-out signal (your indication that you would go out on a given evening, with time and location)
Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR)
Note: Friends near you see how many people from your circle have signalled. Only those who have signalled themselves can see names. Your exact location is never passed on to other users; it is used solely for the proximity check on our server.
i) Tags (when you state in a Check-in who you are out with)
Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR)
Note: Only people on your friends list can be tagged. In the settings you can choose never to be tagged, and you can withdraw an existing tag at any time. A withdrawal is recorded so that the same tag cannot be set again.
j) Phone number (voluntary, if you use it to secure your account or enter it in the friends area)
Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR)
Note: If you secure your account with your phone number, Google Firebase verifies it by SMS and stores it in your sign-in record; this lets you get back into your account if you lose or change your device. We also store the number in plain text in a private area of your account that only you and our server can read; the app shows it to you there. In addition, we store a non-reversible check value (SHA-256). It ensures that a number belongs to only one account, and when other users match their contacts, your number is counted if it is in their address book (as a number only, without names). Providing it is voluntary; Google, Apple and email sign-in achieve the same result. You can remove the number again in the friends area of the app; the number in your sign-in record remains as long as you use it to sign in, at the latest until the account is deleted.
k) Usage analysis (information derived from your Check-ins: regular bars and the number of your Check-ins per venue, Check-in streaks, badges, curator status; also, per venue and time of day, a short-lived mood entry with the number of Check-ins, the prevailing drink type, the share of returning guests and the identifiers of the last up to 20 guests)
Legal basis: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR)
Note: What we use this information for and how you can object is explained in section 9.
l) Crash reports and device check (Firebase Crashlytics: device model, operating system and app version, error trace, a random installation identifier, and two technical extras: how often the app has been started and whether notifications are allowed; no account identifier)
Legal basis: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) in a stable app
Note: The reports go to Google (USA, see section 4). In addition, Firebase App Check uses Play Integrity (Android) or Apple DeviceCheck (iOS) to verify that requests to our servers come from a genuine, unmodified app; no personal content is transmitted in the process.
Processors within the meaning of Art. 28 GDPR are Google (Firebase and Vertex AI) and CARTO (map tiles). Open-Meteo, Nominatim and Overpass are independent services that we query only with rounded coordinates and with no link to your account. DB-IP is merely a downloaded database; nothing is transmitted to DB-IP.
Google Firebase (Firestore, Auth, Storage, Cloud Functions, FCM, Crashlytics, App Check)
Location: database (Firestore) in the EU (multi-region eur3); server functions (Cloud Functions) and file storage (Storage, including photos and AI images) in the USA; crash reports (Crashlytics) in the USA; sign-in (Auth), push delivery (FCM) and App Check run on Google's worldwide infrastructure. Basis: EU-US Data Privacy Framework
Google Vertex AI (Gemini) (AI Check-in images, backgrounds for story and award cards, enhancement of approved curator photos, venue descriptions, Smart Nudge texts, reply suggestions on notifications and caption suggestions)
Location: accessed via Google's global endpoint (region "global"). It is not fixed in which data centre a request is processed; this may also be outside the EU, in particular in the USA. Basis: EU-US Data Privacy Framework and Google's data processing terms (including EU standard contractual clauses)
Note: For AI image generation, the venue name, drink and weather data are transmitted. No photo is transmitted for the AI Check-in image; it is created solely from the venue name, drink and weather data. Images are transmitted in only two cases: the approved curator photo used for the venue description, and the template of an award card. For Smart Nudge texts, the venue, weather, time of day, a sports event and the number of your friends there are sent to Gemini; for caption suggestions, drink, city, weather and time; for reply suggestions, drink, venue, time and weekday. Your name is never transmitted: Gemini writes the reply suggestions with the placeholder "Kim", and only our server then inserts your first name. Google does not use these inputs to train its models.
Open-Meteo (Zippenfenig OpenMeteo, Switzerland) (weather data for AI images, Smart Nudges and caption suggestions)
Location: Switzerland. Basis: adequacy decision of the European Commission
Note: Only coordinates rounded to about 1 km are transmitted, with no link to your account.
Approximate location on first app launch
As long as no location is available on the very first launch, the app determines your approximate city once from your IP address, so that you immediately see bars near you. This lookup runs on our own servers (Google Firebase, see above) using the freely available DB-IP database (IP geolocation: DB-IP.com, licence CC BY 4.0). Your IP address is neither stored nor passed on to DB-IP or any other third party. App versions up to 1.0.94 still used the ipapi.co service (Kloudend, Inc., USA) for this, which received the IP address in the process.
OpenStreetMap services (city and surroundings for Check-ins and AI images)
Nominatim (OpenStreetMap Foundation, United Kingdom; basis: adequacy decision of the European Commission) and Overpass servers run by FOSSGIS e.V. (Germany), private.coffee (Austria) and Kumi Systems e.U. (overpass.kumi.systems, Austria)
Note: Queries are made from our server or directly from your device, with rounded coordinates (city: about 1 km, surroundings: about 100 m) and with no link to your account. For real venues, the position of the venue is used, not your own. App versions up to 1.0.94 still sent your exact position from the device.
CARTO (CartoDB Inc., New York, USA) (map tiles for the Liquid Map)
Location: USA. Basis: EU-US Data Privacy Framework
Note: Your device loads the map tiles directly from CARTO. CARTO receives your IP address and the map area shown, from which your approximate position can be inferred; CARTO receives no link to your account. According to CARTO, it truncates the IP address on receipt and keeps these logs for 30 days in the USA.
App updates
On start, the app checks whether a newer version is available: on iOS by querying Apple's App Store, on Android via Google Play's in-app update feature. Apple or Google receives your IP address in the process, but no link to your GLASSMATES account.
Personal data is not sold to third parties or passed on for advertising purposes. Data is transmitted only to the services named in section 4, within the purposes described.
Within the app, data becomes visible to other users:
Your exact location becomes visible in only one case: if you check in at a "Fun Location" (no real venue), your friends see the Check-in exactly where you checked in. For real venues, the venue's position is always shown.
You can delete your account at any time in the app settings. All data is then removed irreversibly.
You start the export yourself in the app under Settings → My data. You receive a file containing all stored information plus a plain-language summary. You do not need to email us for this.
Requests to: hello@glassmates.net
You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR). The competent authority is the one where you live, or:
Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen (State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of North Rhine-Westphalia)
Postfach 20 04 44, 40102 Düsseldorf
poststelle@ldi.nrw.de
There is no automated decision with legal effect or similarly significant effect within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR. AI image generation only produces decorative images that have no effect on your rights.
We do, however, analyse your usage automatically in order to make suitable suggestions and unlock features. This is profiling within the meaning of Art. 4(4) GDPR:
The legal basis is our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) in offering you an app tailored to you; where your location is involved, your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, see section 2b).
You can object at any time (Art. 21 GDPR): the switch Settings → Smart Nudges turns Smart Nudges off; the server then no longer analyses anything for them. As a curator, you can set under Settings → Photograph venues that you are no longer asked. The same switch also turns off the bar-of-the-month notice and the streak reminder. Aggregated analyses we use to develop the app continue independently of these switches. You can object to them with the switch Settings → Object to analytics; your check-ins are then no longer included in any analysis.
Providing sign-in data is required to use the app. We process location data only with your consent (section 2b). You can withdraw it at any time in your device settings. The app can then only be used to a limited extent: bars near you are found only approximately, a Check-in is only possible at a venue from the list, and features that need your location (Smart Nudges, Bar des Monats, going-out signal) work at most with the last value transmitted (see section 6). The contacts feature is optional and can be switched off at any time.
We reserve the right to amend this privacy policy. We will inform you of material changes by push notification in the app. The current version can always be viewed in the app settings and at this URL.