Privacy Policy

Last updated: 23 October 2026

1. Who is responsible

The controller responsible for your data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is:

Tamer Abushaar
c/o GAM
Pappelallee 64
10437 Berlin, Germany
Email: [email protected]
Contact form: fretfire.app/contact

More details are in the Impressum. We have not appointed a data protection officer, as the law doesn't require one for us.

This policy covers the Fretfire app for iPhone and iPad, its beta versions on TestFlight, and the website fretfire.app.

2. What we use, and why

Your account

You don't need an account to use Fretfire, and until you sign in our server has none for you. When you sign in, we store:

• Sign in with Apple: Apple's ID for you, and the email address Apple shares (it may be a private relay address). Apple only shares your name if you choose to.
• Sign in with Google: Google's ID for you, your email address and your name.
• Email and password: your email address and a securely hashed version of your password (we never store the password itself). We send you an email to confirm the address.

We also note when the account was created and when it was last used.

Legal basis: providing the app you asked to use (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

Your Trainer progress

Before you sign in, your Trainer progress is stored only on your phone and we never receive it. Once you sign in, we keep a copy on your account so it comes back after a reinstall or on a new phone. It contains:

• the exercises and lessons you've practised, with the tempo, your own rating, the score and the date of each (up to your last 500);
• how well you know each part of the neck, your daily streak and today's practice plan;
• your answers to the Trainer's setup questions (your skill level, how well you know the fretboard, your goal and how long you want to practise each day).

When you create an account, the progress already on your phone is saved to it. After that, the app saves it again each time you practise. When you sign in to an account you already have, the progress saved to it replaces what was on the phone; if it has none yet, the phone's progress is saved to it. When you sign out, the progress is removed from the phone and stays on your account.

Your Trainer settings (such as the metronome and drill length), loops and backing tracks are not part of it; they stay on your phone.

Legal basis: providing the app you asked to use (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

Purchases

Pro and the Weekend Jam Pass are sold by Apple through the App Store. Apple handles payment, and we never see your card or bank details. Apple tells us about each purchase, renewal, cancellation and refund. We store the transaction IDs, the product, the dates, Apple's signed confirmation of the transaction, and a random token that ties the purchase to your Fretfire account.

During the beta on TestFlight, purchases are Apple's free test purchases, and no money is charged.

Legal basis: providing what you bought (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR); keeping payment records that tax and accounting law requires (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR).

The AI coach

When you chat with the coach, we receive and store:

• your messages (up to 1,000 characters each) and the coach's replies, plus a running summary of longer chats;
• a short practice summary the app sends with your chat: your skill level, your daily streak, how far along you are in each exercise category, your weakest areas, and your last six exercises with their scores;
• the practice sessions the coach builds for you, if you choose to save them;
• for each answer: which AI model replied, how much text it processed, what it cost us and how long it took. We use this to apply the coach's daily and weekly limits.

Your messages and the practice summary are sent to the AI service that writes the reply (see section 3). Please don't share sensitive personal information with the coach; it doesn't need any.

We don't read coach chats as a matter of course. We only look at one if you ask us for help with it, or to investigate abuse.

Legal basis: providing the coach you use (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

Backing tracks

When you ask for a backing track, the words you type are sent to an AI service that turns them into a short description for you to confirm. The confirmed description (or your own words, if you choose "My words") is then sent to Google, whose Lyria model creates the music. The finished track is sent straight to your phone and saved there. We don't keep a copy.

We do keep a record of each generation: whether it worked, how long it took and what the AI service answered. We use this to apply your monthly track allowance and to answer support questions.

Legal basis: providing the feature you use (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

Usage data

To learn which features help people practise and where the app gets in the way, the app records what you do in it. For example: opening the app, going through the tour, starting and finishing exercises and lessons, playing backing tracks, opening the coach, and viewing or completing a purchase.

Each record holds the action and a few fixed details: a random ID for that app session, your plan, how you signed in, the app and iOS version, whether it's an iPhone or iPad, your App Store country, your language setting, and how many days ago you started. It never includes your name, your email address or anything you type.

Before you sign in, the records are tied to a random Usage data ID the app makes on your phone (you'll find it in Settings → Privacy). When you sign up or sign in, the records made under that ID join your account, so we can see how practice develops over time. Signing out starts a new ID, so the next person using the phone isn't linked to you, and deleting the app removes the ID.

This is on by default. You can turn it off at any time in Settings → Privacy → Share usage data. The app then stops recording and deletes anything it hadn't sent yet.

Our server separately records a few things it needs to run the service whatever this setting is: when an account is created or signs in, coach answers and limits reached, track generations, and plan changes.

We don't use any third-party analytics or advertising service, we don't use Apple's advertising identifier, and we don't track you across other apps or websites.

Legal basis: our legitimate interest in understanding and improving the app (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You can object at any time with the switch above, or by writing to us.

Our anonymous reporting copy

To see long-term trends (how many players keep practising, what the coach costs us, which kinds of sessions people ask for), we keep a separate reporting copy of some data, with your name, email and everything you've written left out. It contains:

• the usage records described above, without your language setting or iOS version;
• the cost and timing of coach answers and track generations;
• the structure of coach sessions (level, scales, tempo, number of exercises), without their names or the coach's notes;
• purchases (product and dates), without Apple's transaction IDs.

In the reporting copy you appear only as a random reporting ID. The only link between that ID and you is stored on your account (before you sign in, with your Usage data ID). While your account exists, the copy still counts as your personal data, and the same legal basis and rights apply as for usage data. When you delete your account, or the record of your Usage data ID is deleted, that link is deleted with it. From then on, nothing connects the copy to you, so it becomes anonymous data and we keep it.

Security and abuse prevention

To stop automated abuse, such as scripts creating thousands of accounts, our server counts requests per IP address (and, for usage data, per Usage data ID) for a short time. When a request is refused for being too frequent, we log the IP address, the time and what was requested.

Legal basis: our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and affordable (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Emails we send you

If you register with an email address, we send you a confirmation link. If someone tries to register with an address that already has an account, we send that address a short warning. We don't send newsletters or marketing from the app.

When you contact us

If you email us or use the contact form, we receive your email address, your name if you give it, and your message. Contact-form messages are delivered to our inbox by email and aren't stored on our servers. Our inbox is a Gmail account, so Google stores our correspondence.

We keep correspondence as long as we need it to answer you, and delete it within 12 months after the conversation ends, unless we need it to handle a legal claim.

Legal basis: answering your request (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR where it concerns your use of Fretfire, otherwise our legitimate interest in replying, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

When you call us

Our phone number is run by easybell, a German telephone provider. Calls to it go to a voicemail. If you leave a message, easybell sends it to our inbox as an audio file by email, together with the number you called from, the time of the call and the length of the message. easybell doesn't keep a copy of the recording. As your telephone provider for this call, easybell processes the call's connection data under its own responsibility, as telecommunications law requires.

We treat a voicemail like any other message: we keep it as long as we need it to answer you, and delete it within 12 months after the conversation ends, unless we need it to handle a legal claim. The legal basis is the same as for emails.

Beta testing on TestFlight

If you test a beta version through Apple's TestFlight, Apple shares with us the email address you were invited with, and the feedback, screenshots and crash reports you choose to send through TestFlight. Apple handles TestFlight under its own TestFlight privacy notice. We use this information only to improve the beta.

What stays on your phone

The following are stored only on your device, and we never receive them:

• Microphone audio. The tuner, note detection and the looper listen through the microphone, with your permission, and process the sound on your phone.
• Your loops, backing tracks, imported songs, the chord analysis of your songs and your settings.
• Your Trainer progress, until you sign in (see Your Trainer progress above).

They're removed when you delete the app. Your saved coach sessions, and your Trainer progress once you've signed in, are kept both on your phone and on our server, so they come back on a new phone.

The website

fretfire.app is hosted by Cloudflare. To deliver the pages and protect them from attacks, Cloudflare processes your IP address and technical request data. We count visits from the numbers Cloudflare records on its own servers when it delivers the pages. No script runs in your browser for this, and nothing is stored on your device.

The website sets no cookies for visitors and runs nothing optional, so we don't ask for your consent. The only cookie is a login cookie for our own admin area. The Privacy choices link at the bottom of every page shows what the site needs to work, at any time.

Legal basis: our legitimate interest in running a secure website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

3. Who processes data for us

We use these services to run Fretfire. Each one processes data on our behalf under a data processing agreement, or, where it acts on its own account (as Apple does as the seller), under its own privacy policy.

We never sell your data, and we don't share it with anyone else unless the law requires it.

Transfers outside the EU

Some of these services are based in the United States or process data there. Where that happens, the transfer is protected by the European Commission's adequacy decision for the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework, where the company is certified under it, or by the EU's Standard Contractual Clauses.

4. How long we keep data

Clean-ups run automatically once a day.

5. Deleting your account

In the app, go to Settings → Account → Delete account. Your account and everything linked to it are deleted at once: sign-in details, Trainer progress, coach chats and sessions, usage data, and your plans' allowances. If you used Sign in with Apple, we also ask Apple to remove Fretfire's access.

What remains is what the law requires us to keep (purchase records, no longer linked to you) and the reporting copy, which becomes anonymous at that moment. Data stored only on your phone stays there until you delete the app.

Deleting your account doesn't cancel a subscription. Cancel it in your iPhone's Settings → Apple Account → Subscriptions.

6. Your rights

You have the right to:

• access the data we hold about you and get a copy of it (Art. 15 GDPR);
• have it corrected (Art. 16) or deleted (Art. 17);
• restrict how we use it (Art. 18);
• receive it in a portable, machine-readable format (Art. 20);
• object to uses based on our legitimate interest, such as usage data (Art. 21);
• withdraw consent at any time, where you gave it, without affecting what happened before.

To use any of these rights, write to [email protected] or use the contact form. Please write from the email address you signed in with, so we can find your account. If you never signed in, we have no account for you: send us the Usage data ID from Settings → Privacy and we'll find or delete the usage data your phone shared. We answer within one month.

You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority. Ours is the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit), Alt-Moabit 59–61, 10555 Berlin. You can also contact the authority where you live.

7. Automated decisions

The AI coach suggests practice sessions and the app adjusts exercise difficulty to how you play. These are suggestions you can ignore. Fretfire makes no automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

8. Children

Fretfire isn't directed at children under 16, and we don't knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has given us data, contact us and we'll delete it.

9. Changes to this policy

We'll update this policy when Fretfire changes how it uses data, and change the date at the top. For important changes, we'll also tell you in the app.