Privacy Policy

Effective date: August 01, 2026  ·  Last updated: October 14, 2026

1. Who We Are

SipMarked LLC ("SipMarked," "we," "our," or "us") operates the SipMarked mobile application and website, a personal beverage journal that helps users remember, organize, and enjoy the wines and other beverages they discover.

Data Controller
SipMarked LLC

Privacy Contact
support@sipmarked.com

For users located within the United Kingdom and European Economic Area (EEA), SipMarked LLC acts as the Data Controller. Where required, personal data is stored and processed within the European Union or transferred using appropriate legal safeguards.

2. Information We Collect

Account Information

When you create an account we collect:

• Your name and email address
• Authentication credentials managed securely by our authentication provider (SipMarked does not store your password)
• Age-gate confirmation, with its timestamp and the IP address it was made from (we record only your confirmation, not your date of birth)
• Your country and language, taken from your device's region settings, which decide the legal drinking age we ask you to confirm and the spelling and units the app uses
• Subscription plan and billing status
• Your privacy and notification choices

If you turn on biometric unlock, Face ID or fingerprint checks are carried out by your device. SipMarked never receives or stores biometric data.

Journal Content

You choose what information to save in your personal journal, including:

• Wine name, type, variety, vintage, and country
• Region and vineyard (Serious Hobbyist plan)
• Ratings, taste and occasion tags, and tasting notes
• Your journal entry for a wine, such as where you were and who you were with
• The date you tasted or bought it
• The place you tag (see Location)
• Whether the wine is in your cellar, and how many bottles (paid plans)
• Label photographs that you take or upload
• Journal photographs you add to a wine
• Freeform notes, which are separate from any wine

Details that a label scan fills in for you, such as the wine's name, vintage, and a short description, are stored with the entry. You can edit them.

Wish List

Your Wish List holds wines you want to try. It is separate from your collection and private to you.

A Wish List entry stores the wine details and any note you add. Where the wine came from someone else, it also records who shared it with you and which Vine it came from, so the entry can be attributed.

Vines and Shared Content

A Vine is a private, invite-only group. If you create or join one, we store:

• The Vine name, and who created it
• Your membership, your role (member or administrator), and when you joined
• Your display name as shown to other members, taken from your first and last name if you have set them, or otherwise the part of your email address before the @ symbol
• Your notification preference for that Vine
• Any members you have blocked
• Comments you write on wines shared in the Vine, and the reaction you choose on a shared wine (such as "Want to try")
• If you leave a Vine or are removed from it, a record that you were once a member, kept so that we can remove your name from what you shared there if you later delete your account

What other members can see. When you share a wine to a Vine, the other members of that Vine can see the wine details, any caption you add, your display name, and a shareable image of the wine generated at the moment you share. They can save a copy of the wine details to their own Wish List.

Comments and reactions. A comment you write on a shared wine is visible, with your display name, to every member of that Vine. So is the reaction you choose: other members can see how many people reacted each way, and who they were. You can delete your own comment at any time, take back a reaction, and administrators of the Vine can delete any comment in it.

Automatic checks. Vine names, captions, shared wine details, and comments are checked automatically against a list of blocked words before they are posted. Anything that matches is not posted. This check runs on the text alone and is not used to profile you.

Members cannot see your collection, your Wish List, your email address, or anything you have not shared.

Invitations. An invitation link, QR code, or join code is a short-lived secret. We store only a one-way cryptographic hash of it, never the code itself, together with the Vine it belongs to, how many times it may be used, and when it expires. An invitation link also has a small public web page so that messaging apps can show a preview. That page shows the Vine's name, and it stays at the link's address after the invitation has expired.

Requests to join. If you ask to join a Vine, administrators of that Vine see your display name and how you found it, so they can decide.

Wines Shared With You Before You Have an Account

If someone shares a wine with you and you do not yet have a SipMarked account, you can ask us to keep it for you. We store a one-way cryptographic hash of the email address you give us alongside the reference to that shared wine. We do not store the address itself. When you later create an account with that email address, the wine is placed in your inbox and the stored record is deleted.

If you never create an account, the record expires automatically. See Data Retention.

Reports and Blocks

If you report a shared wine, a comment, or another member, we store your report, which member or content it concerns, a copy of what was reported and who wrote it (so we can review it even if it is later deleted), the reason you selected, any detail you provide, and the outcome once it has been reviewed. Reports are visible to our moderation team, not to other members. The member you report is not told who reported them.

If you block another member, we store that on your membership record so we can hide their shares from you and yours from them. Blocking is mutual and is not disclosed to the person blocked.

Location

Location is optional. When you tag where you tried a wine, the app asks for permission to use your device's precise location so that it can suggest nearby restaurants, bars, and shops. You can decline and type a place name instead, or leave the place out.

• What we save. Only the place you choose for that wine: its name, address, and map coordinates. We do not track your location in the background or keep a history of where you have been.
• If you decline. The app can still suggest places near the city your internet connection appears to come from. This approximate location is worked out by our content delivery network, is not precise, and is not stored.
• Place search. To find places, we send the search text and an approximate area to a mapping provider (Google Maps Platform or OpenStreetMap). We do not send your name, email address, or account details with it.
• Local area statistics. We may calculate anonymous, aggregated statistics for a broad area roughly 150 km across, such as the most popular wine types there. You can leave your activity out under Profile (“Exclude my activity from local area statistics”).

You can withdraw location permission at any time in your device settings.

Voice Search and Dictation

If you use voice search or dictate a note, the app asks for access to your microphone and, on iPhone, speech recognition. Your speech is turned into text on your device, or by your browser's speech recognition service if you use the web app. SipMarked does not receive or store the audio. We receive only the resulting text, which is used to run your search or is inserted into your note.

On paid plans, the text of a voice search may be passed to our AI service together with wine names from your own collection, so that mis-heard names can be corrected.

Tasting Corner

If you submit a question for our sommelier (paid plans), we store the question against your account so that we can review it. If it is published, other users see the question, not your name. We also store which community questions you have voted for.

Referral Codes

If you arrive through a partner's link, code, or QR code, we record that code against your account and use your subscription status to work out what we owe that partner. We do not give partners your name, email address, or journal. A visit to a partner's landing page is counted before you have an account, without identifying you.

Usage Information

To improve the service we collect:

• Screens viewed
• Features used
• Crash reports
• Performance diagnostics
• Device type
• Operating system version
• App version

In the app, usage analytics are provided by Google Firebase.

Payment Information

Subscriptions bought in the app are processed by the Apple App Store or Google Play. Where we offer subscriptions on the web, they are processed by Stripe.

SipMarked does not receive or store your full payment card information.

We receive only:

• Purchase and renewal confirmations
• Subscription plan, status, and renewal or expiry date
• A transaction identifier or payment token from the store
• Last four digits of your payment card (web purchases through Stripe only)

Notifications

If you choose to enable push notifications, we store your device notification token and notification preferences so we can send reminders, account notifications, and important service updates.

Notifications are grouped so that you can choose which you receive, under Profile → Notifications:

• Vine activity: a member of one of your Vines shares a wine
• Comments on your shares: someone comments on a wine you shared
• Vine join requests: someone asks to join a Vine you administer
• Wish List shares: someone sends you a wine
• Tasting Corner: new content from our sommelier
• Account: billing and security messages, which are always on

You can also mute an individual Vine while staying a member of it.

You may disable notifications entirely at any time through your device settings.

Advertising Information (Free Tier)

If you use the Free tier, our advertising partner, Google AdMob, may collect advertising identifiers and limited interaction information to display relevant advertising. The app asks for your consent before personalized ads are shown and, on iPhone, asks permission before any tracking across other companies' apps.

You may opt out of personalized advertising through your device settings.

You can report any advertisement from the “Report” link beside it, or under Profile → Privacy → Report an ad.

AI Features

When you use the label scanning feature, the image you submit is transmitted securely to our AI image recognition service solely for the purpose of identifying and extracting beverage information.

Images are processed only for the time necessary to complete your request.

We may also use our AI service to:

• Describe journal photos you add (paid plans), so that a search can find them
• Understand a search you type or speak in your own words (paid plans), and match it against your own wines. To make this work we store a numerical representation of each wine entry, which is deleted with the entry
• Correct the text of a voice search (paid plans), as described above

Our AI service is run by our cloud infrastructure provider and processes this content on our behalf.

SipMarked does not use your journal content or uploaded images to train generative AI models.

3. How We Use Your Information

SipMarked does not use automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.

Marketing emails will only be sent where you have opted in. You may unsubscribe from marketing communications at any time.

4. Sharing Your Information

We do not sell your personal information.

Sharing With Other Users Is Your Choice

SipMarked never shares your journal with another user on its own. Content becomes visible to another person only when you take a deliberate action on a single wine: sharing it to a Vine, or creating a link or QR code for it.

When you do, the recipient sees the wine details, any caption you wrote, your display name in that Vine, and a generated image of the wine. They can keep a copy on their own Wish List.

Three things to know before you share:

• A copy someone else has saved is their own record. It may remain on their Wish List after you delete the original wine, and after you leave the Vine or delete your account.
• We cannot recall content once another person can see it. Treat sharing as permanent.
• A link or QR code opens a small public web page so that messaging apps can show a preview. It shows the wine's name, vintage, type, region, and your rating, together with the share image, and never your name. Anyone with the address can open it. The page and the image stay at that address after the link expires, and after you delete the wine or your account, because copies saved to other people's Wish Lists use the same image. Share images for wines shared to a Vine are kept the same way, at an unlisted address.

If you delete your account, your name is removed from wines you shared and comments you wrote in Vines, including Vines you had already left, which are shown as coming from a former member, and your reactions are removed. See Deleting Your Account.

Service Providers

We share information only where necessary to operate the service.

Our service providers may include:

• Cloud hosting and infrastructure providers
• Authentication providers
• App stores and payment processors (Apple, Google, and Stripe)
• Analytics providers (Google Firebase in the app, Google Analytics on this website)
• Advertising partners (Google AdMob, Free tier only)
• AI processing providers used for label recognition, search, and the other AI features described above
• Mapping and place search providers
• Push notification services (Expo, which delivers notifications through Apple and Google)
• Email delivery providers

These providers process personal information on our behalf under appropriate contractual and data protection obligations.

We may also disclose information:

• To comply with legal obligations
• To protect the safety, rights, or property of SipMarked or others
• In response to lawful government requests
• During legal proceedings

We may publish or share anonymous, aggregated statistics that cannot identify individual users.

5. Business Transfers

If SipMarked is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, investment, restructuring, or sale of assets, your personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction.

If this occurs, users will be notified of any material changes affecting the handling of their personal information.

6. International Data Transfers

We use trusted cloud infrastructure providers operating data centres in both the United States and the European Union.

Where personal information is transferred outside the UK or EEA, we rely on appropriate legal safeguards, including Standard Contractual Clauses or other approved transfer mechanisms.

You may contact us for further information regarding these safeguards.

7. Data Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary to provide the SipMarked service and comply with legal obligations.

Some sharing-related records expire automatically, whether or not you delete your account:

When an account is deleted:

• Account information and journal content are deleted within approximately 30 days.
• Your Vine memberships are removed, and wines you shared and comments you wrote in Vines are stripped of your name and identifier. Your reactions are removed.
• Copies of a wine that other members already saved to their own Wish Lists remain theirs.
• Billing and financial records are retained for up to seven years where required by law.
• Anonymous aggregated statistics may be retained indefinitely.
• Encrypted backup copies may remain for a limited period before automatic deletion.

Reports of content or conduct are retained after resolution so that we can evidence our moderation decisions and identify repeat behaviour.

Certain information may be retained where necessary to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.

8. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Strictly Necessary

Where you sign in to SipMarked on the web, we store a session token on your device to keep you signed in and to protect your account against abuse. This storage is essential to a service you have asked for, so it does not require consent and cannot be switched off.

Analytics Cookies — optional, off by default

We use Google Analytics to understand how our website is used, for example which pages people visit and which links they follow. These cookies are optional. They are not set until you accept them, and the website works exactly the same if you decline.

When you first visit the site we ask you to accept or reject analytics cookies. Until you accept, Google Analytics runs in a consent-restricted mode that stores nothing on your device. If you accept, the following cookies are set:

Changing or withdrawing your choice

You can change your mind at any time, and withdrawing is as easy as giving consent. Select Cookie settings in the footer of any page to review your choice. If you withdraw consent, we stop using analytics cookies and delete the ones listed above from your browser.

You can also block or delete cookies through your browser settings.

Advertising

We do not serve advertising on this website, and we set no advertising cookies here.

Advertising appears only in the Free tier of the SipMarked mobile app. It is handled separately and shown only with your consent, which we ask for inside the app the first time ads would appear. The app does not use browser cookies; it may use mobile advertising identifiers where you have permitted this, and you can withdraw that permission at any time in your device settings.

9. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

Several choices are available directly in the app, under Profile: correcting your name, “Do not sell or share my personal info”, “Exclude my activity from local area statistics”, your notification choices, and deleting your account.

To exercise any of these rights, contact:

support@sipmarked.com

We may ask you to verify your identity before processing your request.

We will respond within the timeframes required by applicable law.

UK and EEA Users

If you are located within the United Kingdom or European Economic Area and believe we have not handled your personal information appropriately, you may lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.

UK residents may contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

10. California Privacy Rights (CCPA / CPRA)

California residents have additional rights including:

• Right to Know
• Right to Delete
• Right to Correct
• Right to Opt Out of Sale or Sharing
• Right to Limit Sensitive Personal Information (where applicable)
• Right to Non-Discrimination

SipMarked does not sell your personal information.

Requests may be submitted by contacting support@sipmarked.com.

We respond within the timeframes required by California law.

Categories of Information Collected

11. Children's Privacy

SipMarked is intended only for individuals who are of legal drinking age in their country or jurisdiction.

The service is not directed toward children or minors.

If we become aware that personal information has been collected from someone below the legal drinking age, we will delete the information promptly.

Please contact us if you believe this has occurred.

12. Security

We take the security of your information seriously.

Our safeguards include:

• Encryption in transit (TLS)
• Encryption at rest where appropriate
• Secure cloud infrastructure
• Role-based access controls
• Authentication managed by dedicated identity providers
• Security monitoring and audit logging

No method of electronic storage or transmission is completely secure. While we work to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

We encourage users to choose a strong, unique password and enable biometric authentication where available.

13. Device Permissions

SipMarked asks for a device permission only when you use the feature that needs it, and every one of them is optional:

• Camera and photo library: to capture or choose label and journal photographs, and to scan a QR code for a Vine invitation
• Location: to suggest nearby places when you tag where you tried a wine
• Microphone and speech recognition: for voice search and dictating notes
• Notifications: to send the notifications you have switched on
• Face ID or fingerprint: to unlock the app, if you turn that on
• Tracking (iPhone, Free tier): to allow personalized advertising

You can change any of these at any time in your device settings. The app keeps working without them.

14. Deleting Your Account

You may delete your SipMarked account at any time from within the app, under Profile → Privacy → Delete my account, or by contacting support@sipmarked.com.

Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription billed through the App Store or Google Play. Cancel it in that store's subscription settings first, or it will keep renewing.

Deleting your account will permanently remove your journal, your photographs, your freeform notes, your Wish List, and associated personal information in accordance with our data retention policy.

Because Vines involve other people, deletion also does the following:

• Your membership of every Vine is removed.
• Wines you shared into a Vine stay in that Vine's history but are stripped of your name and identifier, and shown as coming from a former member. This includes Vines you had already left. We do this rather than delete them so the record does not develop gaps for the people still in the Vine.
• Comments you wrote on shared wines stay in the conversation for the same reason, shown as coming from a former member. Your reactions are removed.
• If you were the only administrator of a Vine, that role passes to its longest-standing remaining member so the Vine stays usable. If you were its only member, the Vine is deleted.
• Copies of a wine that other members already saved to their own Wish Lists are their records and remain with them.

You can request a copy of your information, including your Wish List, your inbox, and your Vine memberships, before deleting your account. Contact support@sipmarked.com.

15. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time.

When material changes are made, we will notify users by email or through an in-app notification before the changes take effect where required by law.

The "Last Updated" date at the top of this document indicates the most recent revision.

16. Contact Us

For privacy questions, requests, or concerns, please contact:

SipMarked LLC
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Email: support@sipmarked.com

We aim to acknowledge privacy enquiries within five business days.