Privacy Policy

Last Updated: September 4, 2026

Introduction

artclub helps you discover art exhibitions and keep a record of the ones you save and see. This policy explains what we collect through our website and our iOS app, why, and the choices you have. Where something applies to only one of them, we say so.


artclub is not intended for anyone under 13.

What We Collect

Your account:

  • Your email address, which you give us when you sign in
  • Your username. We create one from the first part of your email address when your account is made, and you can change it in Settings
  • The date your account was created, and the invite link you arrived through, if any

  • Your activity:

  • Exhibitions you save, mark as seen, or mark as missed
  • Ratings, written reviews and notes you add, and the dates you visited
  • Members you tag as having seen an exhibition with you
  • Museums, mediums and members you follow, and who follows you
  • Your email notification settings, and a record of the emails we have sent you

  • Diagnostics (website and app):

  • Crash reports and error details, including the screen you were on
  • Performance traces from a small sample of sessions
  • Device type, operating system version, app or browser version, and IP address
  • On the website only, your account identifier, so we can connect an error to the account that hit it
  • On the website only, a recording of the page interactions leading up to an error

  • Website analytics:

    Pages you visit, features you use, and cookies set by our analytics tools. The app has no advertising or analytics tracking. It collects diagnostics only.


    Sign-in security:

    When you request a sign-in code we run a bot protection check, which receives your IP address and browser or device information.


    Publication icons:

    Where we show a critic review, we load the publication's icon from a third party icon service. That service receives your IP address and the web address of the publication.


    Location:

    The map on our website can centre on your location if you press the locate button. Your browser asks permission first, the coordinates only move the map, and we never store or transmit them. The app does not request your location.

    How We Use It

  • Create and manage your account and sign you in
  • Save your exhibitions, ratings, reviews and follows, and show them back to you
  • Show your username, ratings and reviews to members who follow you
  • Send one-time sign-in codes and the emails you have chosen to receive
  • Diagnose crashes and errors, and keep the service fast and reliable
  • Protect the service against automated abuse
  • Understand which parts of the website are used, so we can improve them
  • Meet our legal obligations

  • Under UK data protection law we rely on: performing our contract with you, for your account, your activity and sign-in codes; our legitimate interests, for security, fault diagnosis and aggregate website analytics; your consent, for the newsletter, optional notification emails and location access; and legal obligation where the law requires it.

    What Other Members Can See

    artclub is social by design. Members who follow you can see your username, the exhibitions you have saved and seen, your ratings and your written reviews. Members you tag as companions can see that you tagged them. If someone follows you or tags you, we may email you and that email will include their username.


    Your email address is never shown to other members.

    Who We Share It With

    We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.


    We use a small number of service providers who process data on our instructions and may not use it for their own purposes. Each receives only what it needs:


  • A cloud hosting, database and authentication provider, which stores your account and activity
  • An error monitoring and performance provider, which receives crash reports, diagnostic device information, your IP address and your account identifier
  • A bot protection provider, which receives your IP address and device information when you request a sign-in code
  • An email delivery provider, which receives your email address and the contents of our emails to you
  • Website analytics providers, which receive the pages you view and the actions you take on the website
  • A map provider, which receives your IP address when the website loads map tiles
  • An icon service, which receives your IP address and the web addresses of publications whose reviews we show you

  • We use each of these under their standard terms, which require them to keep your information secure and to use it only to provide their service to us. Some of them store or process data outside the UK, and where they do we rely on UK adequacy regulations or standard contractual clauses.

    How Long We Keep It

    We keep your account and activity for as long as you have an account. Diagnostic and performance records are kept for a limited period by our monitoring provider and then deleted automatically. Records of emails we have sent are kept while your account exists. Website analytics records follow our analytics providers' retention settings. The deletion record described below is kept after an account is gone.

    Your Choices

  • Update your account information in Profile Settings
  • Change or turn off any notification email in Settings, or use the unsubscribe link in any email
  • Delete your account in Profile Settings, on the website or in the app

  • Withdrawing consent:

    Turn off newsletter and notification emails in Settings or through the unsubscribe link in any email, and withdraw location access in your browser settings. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing carried out beforehand.


    Your rights:

    You can ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, transfer it, or restrict or object to how we use it. Email hello@artclub.club and we will respond within one month. If you are unhappy with our response you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.


    Account deletion:

    Deletion from Profile Settings is immediate and permanent. Your account, exhibition history, ratings, reviews, notes, follows and email preferences are removed from our database.


    We keep a deletion record to verify deletions and understand why people leave. It contains the deletion date, your internal account identifier, how long the account existed, counts of your saved, seen and missed exhibitions and follows, and your optional reason for leaving. It does not include your name, email address or username, and cannot be used to contact you. If you leave an optional message we keep it alongside that record, so please do not include personal details.


    Service provider logs for authentication, error monitoring and emails already sent follow their own retention periods and are not removed immediately by account deletion.

    Cookies and On-Device Storage

    Our website uses cookies and similar storage for two things. Sign-in cookies keep you logged in and are essential, so the site cannot work without them. Analytics cookies measure how the site is used and are not essential. You can block or clear either kind in your browser settings, though signing in will not work without the essential ones.


    The app does not use cookies. It stores your sign-in session, a note that you have seen the welcome flow, and a cache of public exhibition, museum and artist information so the app works quickly and offline. Your saved and seen exhibitions are not stored on the device. Signing out or deleting the app removes this.

    Security

    We encrypt data in transit, sign you in with one-time email codes so there is no password to steal, and enforce database access rules that stop one member reading another member's private data.

    Changes and Contact

    We may update this policy as artclub changes. The date at the top shows when it was last revised, and we will tell you in the app or by email before any change that materially affects how we use your information.


    artclub is the data controller for the information described here. Email us at hello@artclub.club.