The short version: Seients has no accounts, no ads, no analytics and no trackers. Your location never leaves your phone. The only thing ever sent to our server is a random notification token — and only if you choose to turn on a seat alert.
This policy explains what the Seients mobile app ("Seients", "the app", "we") does with information when you use it. Seients helps you find available seats in Barcelona's municipal study halls and public libraries.
Information the app uses
| Data | Why | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Approximate / precise location (optional) | To show how far each room is and to sort by "closest". You can decline it and sort by name instead. | Stays on your device. It is used only on the phone to calculate distance and is never transmitted to us or anyone else. |
| Notification token (a random Firebase identifier) | To deliver the seat-availability alert for a room you star, and to send opening reminders for it. | Sent to our server only when you enable an alert, stored with the room and threshold you chose so the alert can fire. Deleted when you turn the alert off or uninstall. |
| Favourites & settings | To remember the rooms you starred, your alert threshold and your language. | Stored locally on your device. |
What we do not collect
- No name, email, phone number or account — Seients does not ask you to sign in.
- No advertising identifiers, no analytics or usage tracking, no third-party ad SDKs.
- No contacts, photos, files or any data unrelated to finding a study seat.
- We do not sell or share data with data brokers — there is nothing to sell.
Third-party services
To work, the app talks to a small number of services. None of them receive your identity or your location.
- Google Firebase Cloud Messaging — delivers the push notifications for your seat alerts. It processes the random notification token described above. See Firebase's privacy information.
- Google Maps Static API — renders the small map image on a room's detail screen. The request contains the venue's public coordinates, not yours.
- Our proxy server (hosted in the EU) — caches the public city data and runs the alert reminders. It receives ordinary network requests (e.g. your IP address, as any website does) and your notification token if you enabled alerts; it keeps no profile of you.
Where the seat data comes from
Availability and opening hours are public open data published by the Ajuntament de Barcelona and the city's study-hall service, plus Open Data BCN for libraries. Seients relays this public information; it does not generate or alter it.
Data retention
Local data (favourites, settings) lives on your device until you clear it or uninstall the app. A notification token on our server is removed when you disable the alert, when the token becomes invalid (for example after uninstalling), or on request.
Security
All communication between the app and our server uses encrypted HTTPS. Because we store no personal profile and no account, there is very little about you to expose.
Children
Seients is suitable for all ages and is not directed at children under 13. It collects no personal information from anyone.
Your choices
- Location: grant or deny it in the app's onboarding or your system settings at any time; denying it simply removes distance sorting.
- Notifications: turning off a room's alert removes its token from our server; you can also revoke notifications in system settings.
- Everything else: uninstalling the app removes all local data.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes we will update the date above and post the new version here. Material changes will be reflected in an app update.
Contact
Questions about privacy or this policy? Email cafonsomota@gmail.com.