Privacy policy

Version 1.8 · Last updated 2026-09-25

This explains what Topnote collects, why, who else sees it, and what you can do about it. It is written to be read, not to be survived.

The controller is Sterling Goods Limited (company number 14253296), registered in England and Wales, whose registered office is at 71–75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom. Contact us about anything in this policy at privacy@topnoteshelf.app.

The short version

Topnote holds your email address, a handle you choose, and the things you do in the app: the bottles on your shelf, the recipes you publish, what you rate and save. If you turn notifications on, it also holds a push token for your device. There is no advertising and no tracking across other apps or websites. We measure how the app is used, and receive a report when it crashes, both in the EU and without ever sending what you wrote. We do not sell your data. You can export everything and delete your account from inside the app, at any time.

1. What we collect

When you sign in

• Your email address. Needed to identify your account and to send you a sign-in code or link. Those emails are delivered by Resend — see section 3.
• A password, if you choose that method. Stored only as a bcrypt hash. We never see it and cannot recover it.
• An identifier from Apple or Google, if you use one of those. If you use Apple's Hide My Email, we only ever see the relay address, which is fine — we do not need your real one.
• Your name, only if Apple or Google passes it to us. It is used to suggest a handle and is not displayed anywhere.

If you turn notifications on

• A push token for your device, given to us by Apple or Google when you allow notifications. It identifies the device to send to — not you, and not you across other apps. We hold one per device you use, and we delete it when you sign out on that device, when the account goes, or when Apple or Google tell us it is dead.
• Which of the four notification categories you want, and whether a notification has been read.

Notifications are the only device permission Topnote asks for, and it asks after you have done something a notification would be about — never on first launch. Say no and everything still works: the notifications you would have been sent are in the app, under the bell.

Your profile

• Your handle. Public. It appears on everything you publish.
• Whether your shelf is public, which you control in Settings.
• When you accepted the community guidelines, which we have to be able to show.

We do not ask for your real name, date of birth, gender, address, phone number or photograph. There is no profile picture and no bio.

What you do in the app

What we do not collect

No location. No contacts. No photos or camera access. No advertising identifier. No cookies — Topnote is an app, not a website. We do not track you across other apps or services, and we do not build a profile of you for advertising.

Notifications are the one device permission we ask for, and only when you have done something a notification would be about. Nothing else: no camera, no photos, no location, no contacts, no microphone.

We do measure how the app is used — which screens are opened, whether the notification prompt was accepted, that sort of thing — through PostHog, in the EU. It never receives what you wrote: no recipe titles, no comments, no handles. See section 3.

When the app crashes, it sends us a crash report through Sentry, in the EU: the error, where in our code it happened, and your device model and operating-system version. A crash report is not tied to your account and does not include your IP address, what you wrote, or what was on the screen.

If you turn on “From your shelf”

“From your shelf” suggests which of the bottles you own to layer with the one you are looking at, written by AI. It is off unless you turn it on, and you are asked first. If you do:

• When you tap it, the names and notes of the fragrances you own, and of the one you are viewing, are sent to Anthropic, which runs the model — see section 3. Nothing else of yours goes with them: not your name, handle, email, wishlist, recipes or comments. Nothing is sent unless you tap.
• We keep a record that you agreed or declined, when, and which version of this policy you had seen, so we can show it. Changing your mind in Settings adds a new record; it does not erase the old one.
• We keep the time of each request for no more than 49 hours, to enforce a daily limit. The suggestions themselves are never stored — they exist only on your screen.

Content we have removed

If a moderator removes one of your recipes or comments, we hide it rather than delete it, and we keep the reason. That is so a person can put it back if we got it wrong — an appeal you cannot reverse is not an appeal. You can still see your own removed content, and the reason, in the app. Nobody else can.

2. Why, and on what legal basis

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights and you can object — see section 6.

3. Who else sees it

These are our processors. Each receives only what is listed.

That is the complete list of who receives your data. There is no advertising network, because Topnote does not use one. Sentry receives crash reports and nothing else. Resend delivers email and nothing else: it does not receive anything else from section 1, and we do not use it for marketing. PostHog receives events, never content: no recipe, no comment, no handle, no fragrance list. We do not sell any of it, and none of it is used for advertising.

We also use AI, through Anthropic, to help write part of our catalogue — the "Also worth trying" suggestions on a fragrance page. That work uses none of your data: it is given fragrance names, notes and accords from our catalogue and runs when we prepare the catalogue. Anthropic receives anything of yours only through “From your shelf”, as the table says. See section 7 of the terms.

Supabase also keeps operational server logs, which include IP addresses, for its own security and reliability purposes. Supabase keeps them for 7 days on our current plan, then deletes them.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising — as those terms are defined under California law.

4. International transfers

Topnote is offered in the United Kingdom and the United States, and your data is stored in the United Kingdom. If you use it from the US, your data is transferred there.

Where a processor handles data outside the UK or the EEA, we rely on the UK's adequacy regulations, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, as applicable. For our processors in the United States, that means the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the processor is certified under it, and otherwise the Standard Contractual Clauses, with the UK Addendum, in that processor's data processing agreement. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards that apply at privacy@topnoteshelf.app.

5. How long we keep it

• While you have an account, we keep what section 1 describes.
• When you delete your account — which you can do yourself in Settings — your profile, shelf, wishlist, saved recipes, ratings, comments and fragrance requests are deleted immediately.
• One exception, and you should know about it before you publish. A recipe that other people have rated or saved is not deleted with your account. It stays published, reattributed to "[deleted]", with nothing that identifies you. This is so other users do not lose combinations they had saved. Recipes nobody has rated or saved are deleted outright.
• When you delete one recipe, the same rule applies, and a comment or a comment vote from someone else counts as well as a rating or a save: nobody else has engaged with it and it is deleted; somebody has and it stays under "[deleted]", together with your own comments under it.
• Moderation records about reported content are kept for 12 months after the report is resolved, so we can meet our online-safety obligations, and are then deleted. A report still waiting for a moderator is kept until it is resolved. That includes the title of a reported recipe, or the text of a reported comment, after it has been deleted — and a recipe cannot be deleted while a report on it is still open.
• Push tokens go when you sign out on that device, when Apple or Google tell us the token is dead, or with the account — whichever is first. Notifications are deleted with the account and are not kept afterwards.
• Server logs as in section 3.
• Crash reports are kept by Sentry for up to 90 days, then deleted.
• “From your shelf”: your record of agreeing or declining is kept while you have an account and deleted with it; the time of each request is kept for no more than 49 hours. The suggestions are never stored.

6. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can export everything we hold about you and delete your account from inside the app: Settings → Download my data, and Settings → Delete account.

Under the UK GDPR you also have the right to access your data, correct it, restrict or object to how we use it, and to data portability. Where another country's law gives you equivalent rights, we honour them the same way.

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what we collect, to delete it, to correct it, and not to be discriminated against for asking. We do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of.

To exercise anything we do not offer in the app, email privacy@topnoteshelf.app. We will respond within one month.

You can complain to a regulator. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). In the US it is your state attorney general or the Federal Trade Commission.

Topnote is not offered in the European Union, so we have not appointed an EU representative under GDPR Art. 27. We will before that changes.

7. Children

Topnote is not intended for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has an account, email privacy@topnoteshelf.app and we will delete it.

We do not profile users, serve advertising, or use engagement techniques designed to extend use — which are the risks the UK's Age Appropriate Design Code is most concerned with.

8. Two things we want to be straight about

Your individual ratings are private. Everyone sees a recipe's average rating and how many people rated it. Which recipes you rated, and the stars you gave, can be read only by you. Earlier versions of this policy said the individual ratings were readable by anyone signed in, and that we were changing it; that change is made.

Anything you publish is public and may outlive your account, as section 5 explains. Please write with that in mind.

9. Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app and ask you to accept the new version before you carry on publishing. The version and date are at the top.

10. Contact

Sterling Goods Limited, 71–75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom Privacy: privacy@topnoteshelf.app · Support: support@topnoteshelf.app

This is the same text the app shows.