Privacy Policy

Who we are

Bert Knows is operated by Hover Digital Inc., a Canadian company. Hover Digital Inc. is the organisation accountable for the personal information described here under Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and is the sender of the text messages described below.

If you are in Quebec, Quebec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Law 25) applies as well. The contact below is the person responsible for the protection of personal information at Hover Digital Inc.

Privacy questions, access requests, and complaints: hello@hovergrp.com.

What we collect

Account: your email address and sign-in details, including your name and profile image if you sign in with Google.

Shelf: the titles you add, whether you're watching, want, or have watched them, your ratings, and the streaming services you tell us you subscribe to. We also store your region so availability is accurate.

Messaging: your mobile phone number, once you activate text messages; the messages we send you and the replies you send back, including their content and timestamps; your notification preferences, quiet hours, and per-title mutes.

Consent: when you turn on text messages we store a record of it — the exact wording you agreed to, the version of that wording, the number it applied to, and when you agreed. This record is our evidence of your express consent and is kept for that purpose.

Device and usage: information about your device and how you use our website and app, collected through cookies and similar technologies. See Cookies and similar technologies below.

Text messages (Bert)

We send no text messages until you give express consent and confirm the number is yours with a one-time verification code. The wording you agree to is stored verbatim with your consent record.

What Bert sends: alerts when a new episode of something you're watching is out, alerts when a title becomes available on a service you have, recommendations, occasional reminders about titles sitting on your list, and short confirmations when you reply. Message frequency varies with what's happening on your shelf; we also apply an internal ceiling per week so a fault can't send you a flood.

Reply STOP at any time and all messages stop, and HELP for help. You can also turn the channel off, set quiet hours, or mute individual titles in the app. Message and data rates from your carrier may apply.

We read your replies so we can act on them — marking something seen, adding a title, or muting a show. A language model is used to classify what a reply means. It receives your reply, the message it answers, and the title that message was about. It does not receive your name, email address, or phone number.

How we use it

To show your shelf, to work out what to recommend, to decide which alerts are worth sending you and when, and to interpret and act on your replies.

Sponsored recommendations. Some suggestions may be paid for by a streaming service, studio, distributor or other partner. When a recommendation is sponsored, we will say so in the message or on the page where it appears. Sponsored recommendations may be chosen using your activity on Bert Knows, such as the titles on your shelf and the services you use.

Advertising. We may show advertising in the app and on our website. Ads may be chosen using your activity on Bert Knows, such as the titles on your shelf and the services you use.

Aggregated and de-identified information. We may create aggregated or de-identified information about viewing trends, for example which titles are being added across many users. This information does not identify you. We may use, share or sell it.

Improving the service, including testing and developing new features.

Who we share it with

We do not sell information that identifies you. If we ever want to sell or share information that identifies you with a partner for their own use, we will ask for your permission first, and you can say no without losing your account.

We may sell or share aggregated or de-identified information that does not identify you.

We use service providers who process information on our behalf: our hosting and database provider (account, shelf, and messaging data), Twilio for message delivery (your phone number and the content of messages), The Movie Database for title metadata and availability (title queries only — never your identity), our AI provider for recommendation ranking and reply classification, and advertising and analytics providers where we use them.

Some of these providers operate outside Canada, so your information may be stored or processed in other countries and may be accessible to authorities there under their laws. Where Law 25 applies, this is the disclosure of communication of personal information outside Quebec, and we assess each provider before relying on it.

Cookies and similar technologies

Our website and app may use cookies and similar technologies, including tools from advertising and analytics providers. These can collect information about your device and how you use Bert Knows, and may be used to measure how the service is used and to choose which ads you see. Where the law requires your consent for this, we will ask for it.

How long we keep it

Account and shelf data are kept while your account exists. Your phone number is kept while text messaging is active on your account.

Consent records and opt-out records are kept after you stop messaging, because we are required to be able to show that consent was given and that a withdrawal was honoured. Message logs are kept for a limited operational window and then removed.

Deleting your account removes your account, shelf, phone number, and message history.

Your choices and your rights

You can stop text messages at any time by replying STOP or turning the channel off in the app, mute individual titles, set quiet hours, and withdraw your consent to messaging without losing your account.

You may ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. If you are in Quebec, you may also ask for a copy of the information you gave us in a structured, commonly used technical format. Write to hello@hovergrp.com and we will respond within the time the law allows.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca, and if you are in Quebec, to the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec at cai.gouv.qc.ca.

Security

Access to your data is restricted to your own account through database-level row security. Verification codes are stored hashed, never in the clear, and expire quickly.

Changes

If we make a material change to how we use or share your information, we will update this page, change the date at the top, and tell you by email or text before the change takes effect. If a change affects the messages you agreed to receive, we will ask for your consent again.

Contact

Hover Digital Inc. — hello@hovergrp.com. Reach us there for privacy questions, access or deletion requests, and complaints.

Data sources

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.Streaming availability data provided by JustWatch.