We build software for private, careful work: notes, prompts, documents and, in some of our tools, health information. Software like that only deserves your trust if the company behind it is open about what it does with data. So this policy is written to be read, not skimmed past. It explains in plain words what wielder.de processes, why, for how long, and what you can ask of us.
We follow the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the German rules that sit beside it, and we try to go further than they ask: we collect as little as we can, keep it no longer than needed, and prefer designs where your data never reaches us at all.
This policy covers wielder.de and the parts served under it: the main page, product pages and field notes, /startle, and the Wielder header that appears on every page. Each app has its own privacy page for what the app itself does; they are all listed in the trust center. glimmer.wielder.de, /harper and the PIN-protected /playbook are separate services with their own terms where they hold accounts. Deutsche Fassung.
The controller under the GDPR is Ralph Theodori, Bergisch Gladbacher Str. 135–137, 51065 Köln, Germany. Email: support@wielder.de. Write to that address about anything in this policy; a person reads every message.
wielder.de is hosted by Vercel Inc., 440 N Barranca Ave #4133, Covina, CA 91723, USA, which processes data on our behalf. When you open a page, Vercel's servers receive the technical data every browser sends: IP address, date and time, the page requested, referrer, browser and operating system. Vercel uses it to deliver the page, protect the service against abuse and keep short-lived logs. Vercel is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, and our contract with Vercel includes the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, our legitimate interest in a secure, working website.
The site keeps your own choices in your browser's local and session storage so they survive a reload: theme, wallpaper, accessibility settings, display and look settings, the answers and widgets you keep, the last actions you picked, and short-lived markers for page animations. None of this is sent to us, and it stays until you clear your browser data. This storage is strictly necessary for the features you use (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG), which is why you see no consent banner here: there is nothing to consent to.
The only cookie is set when you unlock the Playbook with its PIN: __Host-library-access, a signed session marker valid for 8 hours that holds no personal data.
What you type or say in the prompt goes to our own server on Vercel together with the page you are on, the page title, your browser's time zone and language, and up to four earlier turns of the conversation. Attachments never leave your device; only their name, type and size are sent. The assistant currently answers with its own built-in logic and does not send your question to an external AI model. If we ever add one, we will update this policy before it goes live.
For some answers our server looks up public data and sends only the search term, never your IP address: weather and air quality (Open-Meteo), encyclopedia facts and web answers (Wikipedia, DuckDuckGo), exchange rates (Frankfurter), public holidays (Nager.Date) and artworks (Art Institute of Chicago, Cleveland Museum of Art). When an answer shows an artwork or a fact image, your browser loads that image directly from the museum's or Wikimedia's servers, which then see your IP address.
We do not store or log your prompts. To prevent abuse we count requests per visitor with a one-way hash of the IP address, discarded within two hours. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (answering your request) and Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (preventing abuse).
The microphone button uses your browser's own speech recognition. Depending on your browser, the audio is processed by its vendor (Google in Chrome, Apple in Safari, Microsoft in Edge) under that vendor's terms; we never receive the audio, only the text it produces. The camera (the island's mirror and the prompt's camera) runs entirely in your browser: photos are never uploaded or stored by us.
When you send a letter from "Request an app" in the Wielder header, we receive your message, your email address (so we can reply), the category you chose, the page you wrote from, your country (from the network) and your browser family. It is kept in a private Vercel Blob store that only we can read, and used only to read and answer your letter. We delete letters once they are dealt with, at the latest 12 months after they arrive. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR.
On /startle/preview you can ask for a control that does not exist yet. We receive the request text, a random identifier for that browser visit (so repeated requests count once), the nearest existing control, your country and your browser family, kept in a private Vercel Blob store and used to decide what to build next. The Startle page's early-access form keeps the address you type in your own browser only; nothing is sent while sign-ups are closed. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.
If you ask for access to the Playbook, we receive your email address and your note. They are recorded in our hosting logs at Vercel, read by us to grant access, and removed with those logs. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.
If you write to us from the accessibility menu ("I still need help") or by email, we use your message and your address only to answer you and to improve the site, and delete them when they are no longer needed for that, at the latest 12 months later. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR.
Links to other sites (the Unsplash credits for the wallpapers, the Chrome Web Store, GitHub, download hosts) open those sites only when you click them. Their own privacy policies apply there.
You have the right to access your data (Art. 15 GDPR), to have it corrected (Art. 16), deleted (Art. 17) or restricted (Art. 18), to receive it in a portable format (Art. 20), and to object to processing based on our legitimate interests (Art. 21). Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. Write to support@wielder.de; we answer within a month, usually much sooner. You can also complain to a data protection supervisory authority, in particular in the EU member state where you live or work (Art. 77 GDPR); for us, that is the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of North Rhine-Westphalia (LDI NRW).
We do not sell personal data, never use it for advertising and do not make automated decisions about you.
We update this policy whenever the site changes what it processes, before the change goes live. The date at the top shows the current version.