Privacy policy
Last updated: 23 OCT 2026
This policy explains what personal data HabeshaBeats collects when you listen, upload music or pay, why we collect it, who helps us process it, and the choices and rights you have. We’ve kept it as plain as we can.
Who we are
HabeshaBeats is run by Hermari Limited, a company registered in England and Wales (company no. 16912810), registered office 97 Boyds Walk, Dukinfield, SK16 4AX, United Kingdom. We decide how and why your personal data is used, which makes us the “data controller” under UK and EU data-protection law.
For anything about your privacy or your data, write to hello@habeshabeats.com. We reply within one month.
What we collect
We only collect what we need to run the service:
- Account: your email address, display name and a securely hashed password (or the Google or Apple sign-in you used), and when you signed up and last signed in.
- Preferences: your language, theme, currency and time zone.
- Your library: the songs you like, albums you save, artists you follow, your playlists and the releases you pre-save.
- Listening history: which songs you played and when, and your place in the queue so you can carry on from another device.
- Approximate location: the country and city of each play, worked out from your internet connection by our network provider, Cloudflare. We don’t store your IP address with your plays, and we never collect your precise location.
- Notifications: new-release notices for artists you follow and releases you pre-saved.
- Playback quality: how long songs take to start, buffering, and how quickly the controls respond, so we can keep streaming smooth.
- Premium: your plan, the currency and amount, and the status of your payments. Card details are entered on Stripe’s secure page and never reach us.
- Ads: on the free plan, which of our own audio ads were played to you. We don’t use advertising networks.
- If you’re an artist: your artist profile and photo, the music, cover art and lyrics you upload, release details, the results of our automatic checks, your confirmation that you hold the rights, and your royalty statements.
- Messages: what you send us by email.
- Technical data: our web server briefly records requests (IP address, page, browser) to keep the service secure and working. Error reports contain the error itself, not who you are.
We don’t access your contacts, precise location, microphone or camera, and we don’t buy data about you from anyone.
How we use it, and why we’re allowed to
We use your data for these purposes, each with a legal basis:
- To provide HabeshaBeats: your account, streaming, library, playlists, picking up where you left off on another device, notifications and lyrics. This is needed to perform our contract with you.
- To take payments for Premium and keep accounting records: our contract with you and our legal obligations.
- To give artists statistics: plays, listeners, and the cities and countries they listen from, always as totals. This is our legitimate interest in supporting artists; cities with fewer than 5 listeners are left out so no one can be singled out.
- To recommend music: personal rows on your Home page and radio, based on what you and other listeners play. This is our legitimate interest in a useful service.
- To keep the service safe and working: preventing abuse, fixing errors and measuring playback quality. This is our legitimate interest.
- To meet legal obligations, such as tax records and responding to lawful requests.
We don’t sell your personal data, and we don’t use it to show you ads from other companies.
International transfers
Our main database is in Ireland and our servers are in the United Kingdom. Some providers, such as Stripe, Cloudflare and Resend, may process data in other countries, including the United States. Where that happens, the transfer is protected by an adequacy decision or by standard contractual clauses approved for the UK and the EU.
How long we keep it
- Your account and everything in it (library, playlists, listening history and locations): until you delete your account.
- Backups: nightly copies of the database are kept for 14 days, then deleted.
- Web server logs: kept for a few days, until they are rotated out.
- Payment records: kept for 6 years for tax and accounting, without your name once your account is deleted.
- Released music: if an artist deletes their account, their released songs stay available so listeners’ libraries keep working, and royalty records are kept; unreleased uploads are deleted. Write to us if you want released music taken down.
Your rights
You can:
- get a copy of your data;
- correct anything that’s wrong;
- delete your account and data;
- object to, or ask us to restrict, uses based on our legitimate interests (such as recommendations or artist statistics);
- take your data to another service, in a machine-readable format;
- withdraw consent wherever we rely on it.
Most of this you can do yourself in Account settings: download all your data, edit your profile and email, or delete your account. For anything else, write to hello@habeshabeats.com.
If you’re unhappy with how we handle your data, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) in the UK, or to the data-protection authority where you live.
Children
HabeshaBeats is for people aged 16 and over. We don’t knowingly collect data from younger children. If you believe a child has an account, write to us and we’ll delete it.
Security
All connections are encrypted (HTTPS), passwords are stored hashed, access to data is limited by strict database rules and to the people who need it, and we test our backups. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we’ll tell you and the regulator as the law requires.
Changes and contact
If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top, and tell you in the app or by email before important changes take effect.
Questions about this policy: hello@habeshabeats.com.