At PictaCast ("we," "us," or "our"), we believe that your personal memories should stay personal. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your information when you use our website, web application, and related services (collectively, the "Service").
1. The Short Version: Your Photos Stay Yours
PictaCast is fundamentally designed to protect your privacy. We do not upload, store, or transmit your photos, videos, or local audio files to our servers. When you cast media to your TV using PictaCast, the files are processed locally on your device and transmitted directly to your casting receiver (e.g., your Chromecast) over your secure local Wi-Fi network using WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) technology. Your personal media never touches our cloud infrastructure.
2. Information We Collect
While we don't touch your media, we do need to collect a minimal amount of information to provide you with a functioning account and premium services:
- Account Information (Google OAuth): When you sign in to PictaCast, we use Google as our secure authentication provider. The basic profile information provided by Google (Name, Email Address, and Profile Picture) is stored only in a secure, signed session cookie on your browser. We do not store this raw personal information in our database. We only store an anonymized, irreversible cryptographic hash of your email address and a unique Google ID to manage your subscription status.
- Payment Information (Stripe): If you choose to upgrade to our premium version, your payment is processed securely by our third-party payment processor, Stripe. We do not collect or store your raw credit card numbers. Stripe provides us with a billing token and subscription status so we can unlock premium features on your account.
- Technical & Usage Data: We collect limited information about page visits, browser and device characteristics, traffic sources, and how features are used. Feature analytics can include actions such as adding or scanning a folder, starting or controlling a slideshow, changing a setting, reaching the daily trial limit, viewing plans, and beginning or completing a purchase. It may include aggregate counts and timings, selected app options, normalized plan identifiers, and purchase totals. We do not send local folder names, file names, paths, timeline dates, media, Cast device names, account names, email addresses, order IDs, Stripe session IDs, or raw error messages to analytics.
3. How We Use Your Information
We use the minimal data we collect to:
- Create and manage your PictaCast account.
- Enforce daily casting limits for free-tier users.
- Process premium subscription upgrades and provide customer support.
- Communicate with you regarding critical updates to the Service or changes to our terms.
4. Third-Party Services We Use
We rely on a few trusted third-party services to keep PictaCast running. These providers have their own privacy policies governing how they handle data:
- Google (Authentication & Casting): We use Google for authentication (OAuth) and rely on the Google Cast SDK/Presentation API to facilitate the connection between your browser and your TV.
- Stripe: We use Stripe exclusively for secure payment processing and subscription management.
- Google Analytics 4: Our marketing website (pictacast.com) and web application (app.pictacast.com) use Google Analytics 4 to understand page visits, sign-ins, feature usage, casting and slideshow activity, trial-limit prompts, plan and checkout activity, and purchases. Google Analytics uses cookies (
_ga, _ga_*) to measure visits across both sites and may process standard browser, device, traffic-source, and approximate-location information. Purchase analytics include the normalized plan, currency, and amount paid together with an opaque analytics transaction identifier; they do not include the Stripe Checkout Session ID. We do not send your email address, name, local media, local file or folder names, order IDs, or raw error messages to Analytics. You can opt out using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
5. Data Security
We implement standard industry security measures to protect the basic account data we hold. Furthermore, because your media files are never uploaded to our servers, they are inherently protected from data breaches on our end. The security of your media transmission relies on the security of your own local Wi-Fi network.
6. Your Data Rights
Depending on your location (such as the EU/UK under GDPR, or California under CCPA), you have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you (your account profile).
- Request Deletion of your account and associated personal data.
- Opt-out of non-essential communications.
To exercise any of these rights, or to completely delete your PictaCast account, please contact us at the email address below.
7. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our technology, business practices, or legal requirements. We will notify you of any significant changes by updating the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page or by sending a notice to the email address associated with your account.
8. Contact Us
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy, please reach out to us: