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Privacy Policy

How Relyper processes and protects your data as a reference archiving service.

1. Data Controller

GP-Coding
Jonas Esser
Valweg 6
52499 Baesweiler, Deutschland
Email: [email protected]

2. What Data We Collect

Depending on how you use Relyper, we may process the following categories of data:

  • Account Data: Email address, password (stored as hash), username
  • Archived Content: Links, web snapshots, AI conversation archives, tags, categories, metadata
  • Privacy Settings: Visibility per entry (public, hidden, private, team)
  • Usage Data: Access timestamps, subscription plan, storage limits, reference counters
  • Ratings/Votes: Exactly one rating per user and link (1–5) or downrate (−1)
  • Click Analytics (deduplicated): Hashed browser fingerprint (SHA‑256), truncated fingerprint in history, user agent
  • Technical Data: IP address (abuse protection), browser information, session data

3. How We Use Your Data

We process your personal data for the following purposes:

  • Service Delivery: Archiving, reference management, citation features
  • Account Management: Managing your account, subscription, and authentication
  • Privacy Controls: Enforcing your visibility and access settings
  • Community Ratings: Showing average rating (1–5) and number of downrates (−N), one vote per user
  • Click Statistics: Deduplicated counts per fingerprint/day for fair popularity display and abuse protection
  • Abuse Prevention: Handling takedown requests, copyright and legal violation reports
  • Service Improvement: Analyzing anonymized usage data and improving features
  • Legal Compliance: Fulfilling legal obligations and legitimate requests

4a. Community Ratings and Click Analytics

For the public directory, Relyper displays ratings (average 1–5) and the number of downrates (−N). Each user can submit exactly one vote per link (1–5 or −1). Downrates contribute with reduced weight to the average. To provide fair popularity metrics and protect against abuse, outbound clicks are deduplicated per browser fingerprint and day (SHA‑256 derived from headers/hints). For click history we store only truncated fingerprint prefixes and the user agent. IP addresses are not stored in the analytics collections for this purpose.

Legal Basis: Ratings: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (contract/service delivery). Click analytics: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interests in fair metrics and abuse prevention). You may object to the analytics processing (contact below).

4. Visibility Levels and Public Content

Content visibility settings affect how your data is shared:

  • Public: Visible to everyone, listed in the directory, citable
  • Hidden: Accessible only via direct Reference Link, not listed or searchable
  • Private: Visible only to you (when logged in)
  • Team: Shared with specific team members (Enterprise)

You control the visibility level for each archived entry. Public entries can be discovered and referenced by other users. Once an entry is widely referenced, it may be marked as "locked" to preserve citation integrity.

5. Data Storage and Security

Your data is stored securely using industry-standard encryption and security practices:

  • Passwords are hashed using bcrypt with strong salt
  • Database connections use TLS/SSL encryption
  • Access to production systems is restricted and logged
  • Regular security audits and updates are performed

Data Residency: Core user and archival data is stored exclusively in German data centers. Backups and replicas remain in the same jurisdiction. No personal data leaves the EU unless you explicitly initiate an export or integration requiring cross-border transfer (future opt-in features). This supports GDPR compliance and minimizes international transfer risks.

6. Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active and for legitimate purposes:

  • Account Data: Until deletion or for as long as required by law
  • Private Content: Deleted promptly upon your request
  • Public Content: May be retained to preserve reference integrity (see Section 8)
  • Ratings: Until account deletion or withdrawal of the rating
  • Click Dedup: Deduplication entries with TTL (~25h), history limited (last ~1000 entries)
  • Abuse Reports: Retained for legal documentation (typically 6 months to 3 years)

7a. Support Chat & Optional Discord Integration

Relyper offers an AI-assisted support chat inside the application. You can contact us about technical issues, account questions, or feedback.

  • AI-Assisted Replies: By default, support replies are generated or assisted by AI based on your messages and relevant account context (such as your subscription tier and basic usage metadata). All messages are stored in our own database; we do not use Discord or other third-party chat tools as the primary storage for support history.
  • Human Escalation: If the AI cannot answer reliably or you explicitly ask for a human, the conversation can be escalated to a support agent. Agents see the same chat history as you inside our internal tools. We log decisions and replies for documentation and quality assurance.
  • Optional Discord Threads (Agents): For operational convenience, we may mirror parts of escalated chats to a private Discord channel used only by our support team. In this case, only the necessary text content and minimal context (for example, whether a message comes from you, AI, or an agent) are sent to Discord. Internal identifiers, detailed account data, and full technical metadata are not posted there. Discord is used only as an interface for our team, not as the system of record.
  • Optional Discord Messages (You): In the future, we may offer the option to link your Discord account so that selected support replies can be mirrored to you via Discord (for example, as direct messages). This feature is strictly opt-in and requires both a linked provider and your explicit consent in the settings. You can withdraw this consent at any time; from that point onward, new replies will no longer be mirrored to Discord.
  • Legal Basis & Retention: Support chat processing is based on Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (contract / service communication) and, where AI or Discord are involved, on Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interests in efficient, documented support). Where explicit consent is required (for example, optional Discord mirroring to your own account), the legal basis is Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR. Support conversations are retained for documentation and quality assurance, typically for 6 to 24 months, unless longer retention is required to assert or defend legal claims.

Browser Extension

The Relyper browser extension is optional. It can show your existing Relyper favorites in the popup or Chromium Side Panel and can create a snapshot from the page state you are viewing.

  • User-initiated snapshots: page URL, title, canonical URL, metadata, DOM HTML, visible text and an optional visible screenshot are sent only after you click the snapshot action.
  • Favorites: favorites and folders are loaded from Relyper. A local extension cache may be stored for faster display, but Relyper remains the source of truth.
  • Authentication: the extension uses your existing Relyper session when available and never stores your Relyper password.
  • No automatic page-content transfer: browsing alone does not upload page content to Relyper and the extension does not run a background browsing monitor. While the sidebar is open and visible, it may send the current tab URL to Relyper for the saved/reference status check and relevant-favorites matching.
  • Anonymous extension statistics: Relyper may count API requests as browser-extension requests in aggregate. The extension can also optionally send aggregated feature counters such as Side Panel opened, Add Reference, Add Favorite, rating or snapshot outcome. These statistics do not include visited URLs, domains, page titles, page content, favorite names, reference IDs, user IDs, browsing history or installation IDs.

Details are available in the Browser Extension documentation.

7. Third-Party Services

Relyper may integrate with third-party services for specific features:

  • Payment Processing: Stripe (Supporter/Pro)
  • Email Delivery: Transactional emails
  • Hosting Provider: Cloud infrastructure

Third-party processors are carefully selected and bound by data processing agreements compliant with GDPR requirements.

8. Your Rights (GDPR)

Under GDPR, you have the following rights:

  • Right to Access: Obtain a copy of your personal data
  • Right to Rectification: Correct inaccurate or incomplete data
  • Right to Erasure: Delete your data (subject to limitations below)
  • Right to Restriction: Restrict processing of your data
  • Right to Data Portability: Export in machine-readable format (JSON/CSV)
  • Right to Object: Object to certain types of processing
  • Right to Withdraw Consent: Withdraw consent at any time (where applicable)

Important Limitation: Public Reference Content

If your public content has been extensively referenced and cited by other users or publications, complete deletion may not be possible under Article 17(3) GDPR (balancing of rights). In such cases, we may:

  • Anonymize the content (remove personal identifiers)
  • Mark the entry as "deleted by author" while preserving the snapshot
  • Block access to the content while maintaining reference integrity

This ensures that existing citations and academic references remain valid, which is a core purpose of Relyper and serves legitimate interests of the scientific community.

9. Use by Students and Minors

Relyper welcomes students using our service for school projects, research papers, and educational purposes. For users under 16 years of age, we recommend obtaining consent from a parent or guardian before creating an account, as required by GDPR Article 8.

Teachers and educational institutions can use Relyper Team accounts to manage student access in a supervised environment. We do not collect more data from minors than necessary for providing the archiving service.

10. International Data Transfers

Your data may be processed in countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). In such cases, we ensure adequate protection through:

  • EU Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs)
  • Adequacy decisions by the European Commission
  • Other legally recognized transfer mechanisms

11. Cookies and Tracking

Relyper uses minimal cookies for essential functionality:

  • Session Cookie: Required for login (deleted after logout)
  • Preference Cookie: Stores UI preferences (optional)
  • Cloudflare Cookie (cf_clearance): Provider: Cloudflare. Purpose: bot/abuse protection and challenge verification. Category: strictly necessary (technically required). Retention: depends on Cloudflare configuration, usually time-limited. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interests) and technical necessity for secure website operation.

We do not use third-party advertising cookies or analytics trackers. You can disable non-essential cookies in your browser settings.

11a. Analytics Consent

Relyper offers an optional, privacy-friendly analytics feature called "Open Insights". It is entirely opt-in and disabled by default.

  • views.privacy.analyticsConsentPageViews
  • views.privacy.analyticsConsentSearchCount
  • views.privacy.analyticsConsentFeatureUsage
  • views.privacy.analyticsConsentNoIp
  • views.privacy.analyticsConsentNoCookie
  • views.privacy.analyticsConsentNoPii

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12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Significant changes will be communicated via email or prominent notice in the application. The effective date is shown at the top of this document.

13. Contact and Complaints

For privacy-related inquiries, data requests, or complaints:

Email: privacy (at) relyper.de — Subject: "GDPR Request" or "Privacy Inquiry"

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Last updated: December 1, 2025

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