Cookie policy

A cookie is a small file a website stores in your browser so it can remember something, such as that you are signed in. Session cookies end when you close the browser; persistent cookies last until they expire or you delete them. First party cookies are set by the site you are visiting; third party cookies are set by another service.

Sites and apps can also keep information in your browser's local storage, session storage and database storage, or, in a desktop or mobile app, on the device itself. Local storage stays until it is removed; session storage ends when the tab or app closes. In this policy we call all of these storage, and we list them alongside cookies.

We group what we use into five kinds:

• Essential: needed for something you asked for, such as signing in, remembering your cookie choice or keeping your work available offline.
• Preferences: remember settings such as your theme and layout.
• On request: set only when you use a particular feature.
• Analytics: help us understand how the service is used.
• Advertising: tell us which of our ads led someone to sign up. Used on the website only if you allow it.

We do not use cookies to show you personalised ads on other sites, and we do not sell information about you.

On cineflow.cloud nothing optional runs until you have made a choice in the cookie banner. Until you choose, the only things stored in your browser are the plan prices and the Ask Flowly entries described below.

Essential: your cookie choice

One cookie, cineflow_consent_v2, records the choice you made so you are not asked on every page. Its value is the word essential, or the optional categories you allowed (analytics, advertising, or both, as analytics.advertising) and nothing else, so it holds no identifier. It is set on cineflow.cloud and its subdomains, so the CineFlow app and Backlot can read the same choice. It lasts six months, after which you are asked again. The number in its name is a version number: if we make a change that needs your choice again, the name changes and you are asked again.

Essential: plan prices

The plans page keeps a copy of the current plans and prices in session storage for ten minutes, so prices do not reload on every visit. It holds nothing about you and ends when you close the tab.

On request: Ask Flowly

If you ask Ask Flowly a question, the questions you asked on that page and Flowly's answers are kept in local storage, in one entry per page whose name begins with cineflow_flowly_v1, so they are still there when you come back. Nothing is stored until you send a question, and nothing in it identifies you. Each question and answer is kept for 30 days, after which it is removed the next time you open that page.

Optional: analytics

Only if you choose to allow analytics, our analytics provider counts page views and page exits, how far down a page people read, where they click and scroll, and clicks through to the CineFlow app, so we can see which pages help people get started. It receives the page address, including any campaign details in it, the page you came from, your browser and screen size, a random device identifier and, as part of each request, your IP address. Session recording and automatic click capture are switched off on the website.

It stores one cookie whose name begins with ph_, set on cineflow.cloud and its subdomains for one year, and entries with the same prefix in local storage and session storage. They hold the random device identifier and session details. Because the cookie is shared with the CineFlow app and Backlot, a visit to the website can be connected with your later use of the app.

Optional: advertising

Only if you choose to allow advertising, the website loads the Google tag for Google Ads, provided by Google Ireland Limited and Google LLC. We use it for conversion measurement only: when you arrive from one of our ads, it remembers that ad click so we can learn whether it led to a CineFlow account being created. It is not used to show you ads. Google receives the page address, including the ad click identifier in it, the page you came from, your browser and device details and, as part of each request, your IP address. Nothing is requested from Google until you allow advertising.

It stores cookies whose names begin with _gcl_ (such as _gcl_au and _gcl_aw), set on cineflow.cloud and its subdomains for 90 days, so the CineFlow app can read the ad click when you sign up. When you arrive from one of our ads, the website also adds the ad click identifier (gclid, gbraid or wbraid) to its links to the CineFlow app, without storing it, and the app reports the sign up to Google Ads only under the same advertising choice. Google handles this information under its own privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy.

Our hosting provider's page measurement

Our hosting provider adds a small page measurement script to the website's pages. It sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. It is part of how the website is delivered, so it is not affected by your choice in Cookie settings.

The support form

Sending a message from the support form sends what you typed to us by email. It sets no cookie and stores nothing in your browser.

The CineFlow app at app.cineflow.cloud uses no cookies of its own apart from the analytics cookie described below. It uses browser storage as follows.

Essential

• Your sign in session, in local storage, removed when you sign out. If you sign in without Remember me, it is removed when you close the tab.
• Short lived entries in session storage while you sign in, sign up, reset a password, accept an invitation or return from checkout, and markers that load a new version of the app when one is released.
• Offline copies of your projects, documents, scripts and any edits not yet sent, in the browser's database storage, so your work opens quickly and survives a lost connection. They are erased when you sign out, or when a different account signs in on the same browser.
• If you open a shared document as a guest, a random guest credential for that link, and the name and colour you choose, in local storage.

Preferences

Your theme, density and motion settings, sidebar and panel layout, view modes, zoom levels, recent searches, saved templates and presets, in local storage. Some of these include an account, project or document identifier so they apply to the right place.

On request

• Flowly: your recent Flowly conversations, in local storage. They are also kept with your account, as the privacy policy describes.
• Locations: addresses you have looked up and their map positions, in local storage.
• Referral links: if you open a CineFlow referral link, its code is kept in local storage for 30 days so it can be applied when you sign up.
• Notifications: if you turn on browser notifications, a small background script is registered so notifications can reach you. It stores nothing else.

Analytics

In the app, analytics runs unless you have refused it. It uses the same cookie whose name begins with ph_, set on cineflow.cloud and its subdomains for one year, and the same kind of local storage and session storage entries, holding a random identifier that is linked to your account when you sign in. The app also keeps a few small entries of its own in local storage that record which one time events, such as signing up, have already been sent, and that tell a new sign in apart from a page reload. You can refuse analytics by choosing Essential only in Cookie settings, at the bottom of every page on cineflow.cloud. The app then stops analytics and deletes the analytics cookie and storage entries in that browser. Analytics does not run on shared document pages. The privacy policy explains what analytics and session recordings capture.

Error reports

The app sends technical reports when something goes wrong. This stores nothing on your device.

Backlot at backlot.cineflow.cloud uses browser storage as follows.

• Essential: your Backlot sign in session, in local storage, removed when you sign out.
• Essential: short lived entries in session storage while you sign in, including the page to return to and, when you join, the time you confirmed you are 18 or older, which is kept for 30 minutes.
• On request: your onboarding answers, in session storage, until you finish setting up your profile; and a single use code while you connect a calendar, kept for 10 minutes.
• Preferences: your theme, in local storage.
• On request: the same background script as the app if you turn on browser notifications.
• Analytics: the same cookie and storage as the app, under the same rule. It runs unless you have refused it in Cookie settings on cineflow.cloud in the same browser.

The desktop and mobile apps show the CineFlow app in their own window, so they keep the same kinds of storage described above, on your device. In addition:

• Desktop: copies of your project data for offline work, kept as files in the app's own folder and erased when you sign out; a log file of technical errors that stays on your computer, is never uploaded, and has sign in tokens, email addresses and other secrets removed; and the size and position of the window.
• iPhone: your sign in session in the device keychain, kept on that device only and not synced to iCloud, so Siri and Shortcuts can use it; a copy of your project data that Siri uses to answer your questions; an index of your projects, shots, shoot days and collaborators so they appear in iPhone search; and your app settings. Signing out removes the session.

Analytics runs in the desktop and mobile apps as part of the app. The privacy policy explains what is collected and how to contact us about it.

Some content in the service comes from other services, which may set their own cookies and storage under their own policies:

• Videos, maps and design files that you or your collaborators embed in documents and canvases, and the map on a call sheet's locations, load when they are shown.
• On Backlot, videos load only after you press play, using the video service's privacy enhanced mode where it has one.
• If you open Feedback or What's new in the app, the feedback board's own script loads.
• When the app shows a link, the site's small icon may be fetched from an icon service.

When your browser loads content from another service, that service receives your IP address and similar technical information.

• Cookie settings, at the bottom of every page on cineflow.cloud, reopens the same choices as the banner. Withdrawing is as easy as agreeing: turn analytics off and save, and we stop analytics and delete the analytics cookie and storage entries in that browser.
• The same applies to advertising: turn advertising off in Cookie settings and save, and we tell the Google tag your consent is withdrawn, delete the _gcl_ cookies in that browser and reload the page without the Google tag. You can also manage how Google uses information for ads at myadcenter.google.com.
• Your browser lets you block or delete cookies and site data. If you block essential storage, signing in and offline work will not work.
• Signing out of the app erases its offline copies of your work on that device.
• You can turn browser notifications off at any time in your browser's settings.
• To ask us to delete analytics information already collected about you, write to support@cineflow.cloud.

We will update this policy when what we use changes, and change the date at the top. If we add a new optional category or use an existing one for a new purpose, we will ask for your choice again. The privacy policy explains how we tell you about other changes.

Questions about cookies and storage: support@cineflow.cloud.