Your information
Privacy Policy
Last updated: November 1, 2026
Written in Real Stars lets you write a name into a sky of real, catalogued stars, to keep on your own device, to send as a link, or to have printed. This page explains what is collected to do that, why, who else sees it, how long it is kept, and what you can ask us to do about it.
The short version
Building a sky and exploring it is free and happens on your device. The only thing sent while you do is an anonymous visit count to our own server, described below, which uses no cookies and cannot identify you. Nothing else leaves your device unless you add a song link, you pay for a link or a plate, or you say yes when the site asks whether we may use TikTok's pixel to measure our ads (below). If you say no, or never answer, there are no cookies, no advertising trackers and no tracking of you across other sites. We have never sold personal information and will not.
Who is responsible for your information
Written in Real Stars is a sole proprietorship operated by Safowan Mostaque in Scarborough, Ontario. As the operator, he is the individual accountable for personal information under PIPEDA and is the person who answers access requests, corrections and complaints. There is no separate privacy department to route you through.
Written in Real Stars · 581 Meadowvale Road, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada · writteninrealstars@gmail.com · (647) 491-2051
Why we collect anything at all
We collect only what is needed to do the specific thing you asked for: to find you a song, to show a sky above your actual location, to let a recipient open a link you paid to send, to produce a file, or to get a printed object to an address, and, only if you say yes, to measure our TikTok ads. We do not collect information for any purpose beyond those, and we do not collect it speculatively in case it is useful later. If we ever wanted to use something for a new purpose, we would ask you first.
What is collected, and when
| When | What | Why | Kept for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any visit to the site | Which page of this site you are on, as a plain label (gift codes and order numbers are never included), and the name of the website that linked you here, if any. It goes to our own server and is added to that day's tally. No IP address, cookie, browser details or anything else that could identify you is recorded. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, nothing is counted at all. | To know how many people visit and which pages they use | Daily totals only, which contain no personal information |
| You say yes to ad measurement | Only then, TikTok's pixel loads. It tells TikTok which page you are on, and when you open the
print preview, start a checkout or finish a purchase, with the item's size and price. TikTok's
script also sends what any web script reveals, your IP address and browser and device details,
and sets its own cookie (named _ttp) so it can tell visits apart and connect them to
our TikTok ads. We never pass TikTok your name, email, phone number, address, the name you wrote
in the stars, your photo or your order number. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control, the
pixel never loads and you are not asked. |
To see which of our TikTok ads lead to a purchase, and to show our ads to people likely to want them, including people who visited and did not buy | Your choice is kept on your device for a year. TikTok keeps what it receives under its own privacy policy; its cookie lasts up to 13 months. Change your mind at any time with "Ad choices" at the foot of any page, which turns the pixel off and removes its cookie. |
| You type a name, or build a sky | The name, and nothing else you typed, goes to our order server, which draws it in real stars and sends back that one constellation. The front page's preview does the same once you pause typing, never key by key. The name is not saved to disk or logged: recently drawn names are kept only in the server's memory, so the same name comes back instantly, and are gone when it restarts. Your IP address is held in memory for up to an hour to limit how often one person can ask, and is not stored. | To draw the name; the drawing happens on our server so it cannot be copied off the page | Memory only: until the server restarts (names), up to an hour (IP address) |
| You fill in the setup form | What you type is kept in this browser tab's own session storage, so moving between screens does not lose it. Only the name is sent to us, to be drawn (above). The rest stays on your device unless you send a gift link or order a plate (below). | So the form survives going back and forth | Until you close the tab |
| You paste a Spotify link | The link and your IP address go to Spotify, so we can show its title and artwork, and later so Spotify can play it. | To identify and play the song | Not stored by us; subject to Spotify's own policy |
| You allow location access | Your device's location, used inside your browser to orient the sky above you. Making and watching a sky never sends it to us. If you send a gift link, the place name and the location rounded to about 11 km go with the link (below), so their sky matches yours. | To show the sky where you are | Not sent to us, unless you send a gift link |
| You add a photo | Checked and processed on your device. Models that run in your browser first make sure it shows a real face and is not explicit (a photo that fails is not used), then cut the person out of the background, and the result becomes a 256×256 black-and-white brightness mask. The original photo is never uploaded, including for the check. The mask is still a recognisable picture of a face, so we treat it as personal information. | To write the face into the stars | Only reaches us if you send a gift link; a plate of their face carries the stars instead (below) |
| You send a gift link (CAD $5) | The name, caption, your name and message, the date if you gave one, the photo mask if you added one, the place name and location rounded to about 11 km, your chosen Spotify song, and a short code made from your IP address with a key that is replaced every day and never stored. Links made the same day from the same address share a code; once the day is over, nobody, us included, can turn the code back into the address. The recipient's browser receives everything here except that code. | So the recipient's device can load the same sky, and to slow down abuse | 12 months, or until you delete it with your management link and code |
| You order a digital or printed plate (CAD $7–$158) | The name, caption, message and star data drawn on the plate, plus for a printed plate the shipping name, address, phone number and email you give Stripe at checkout. A plate showing their face carries no photo and no mask: only the list of real stars the face lights, by catalogue number, each with how brightly it is lit. Drawn together those stars are still a recognisable likeness, so we treat the list as personal information too. | To generate your file and to ship a physical print | 60 days, then deleted; this is also the reprint and dispute window |
| Your print ships | Two weeks later, one email to the address you gave at checkout, asking for a Google review and, if you would like to share one, a photo of the print. It is the only one we send about that order, and it has a link to never get one again. If you use that link we keep a one-way hash of your email address, which cannot be turned back into it, so we know not to. | To ask how it turned out | The order is still deleted at 60 days; the hash, until you ask us to remove it |
| You send a message through the contact page | Your name, email address, the topic you pick, an order number if you give one, and your message. It is emailed to our inbox with your address set as the reply address. It is not saved on our server or written to our logs. | To answer you | In our inbox for as long as we need it to deal with your question, then deleted |
| Any payment | Handled entirely by Stripe. Card numbers never reach our servers and we never see them. | To take payment | Governed by Stripe's own policy |
Consent, and taking it back
You give consent by choosing to do the thing: searching for a song, allowing location, paying for a link or a plate. Each of those is optional, and the free experience works without any of them. You can withdraw consent at any time by deleting your gift link with the management link and code we emailed you, or by writing to us. Withdrawing consent cannot undo a print that has already been produced and posted, and it does not affect processing that already lawfully happened.
Who else sees it
- Stripe processes payment and holds the billing and shipping details you enter at checkout. See Stripe's privacy policy.
- Printful is the print lab. For a physical order only, it receives the artwork and the shipping name, address, phone and email, solely to print, frame if you chose a frame, and post the item. See Printful's privacy policy. If Printful cannot make an order, Prodigi may receive the same details for the same purpose instead, and orders placed before September 22, 2026 were printed by Prodigi.
- Resend delivers the transactional email this site sends you: receipts, download links, gift delivery, management codes, and messages sent through our contact page to our own inbox. It sees only what is in that email.
- Spotify sees a pasted track link, and your IP address, only if you use that feature.
- TikTok receives the ad measurement described above, only if you said yes to it. Unlike the companies above, TikTok also uses that information for its own purposes, under its own privacy policy, such as improving its advertising.
- Render hosts the site and the order server, and therefore stores the order and gift data described above, along with the daily visit totals.
Apart from TikTok, each of these is a service provider acting on our instructions for the purpose described, not an independent recipient free to do as it likes with your information. We do not sell personal information, we share it for advertising only with TikTok and only if you say yes, and we do not disclose it to anyone else except where the law actually requires it, in which case we will tell you unless we are prohibited from doing so.
Information that leaves Canada
Our order server and its stored data run on Render in Ohio, in the United States. The static site is served from Render's global network. Visit totals are kept on that same order server. Stripe, Printful, Prodigi, Resend, Spotify and, if you allow it, TikTok each operate internationally and may process information outside Canada and outside your own country.
PIPEDA permits transfers like these for processing, and it holds us accountable for your information no matter where it is processed, so our obligations under this policy follow the data. You should know the practical consequence: while information is in another country it is subject to that country's laws, and may be accessible to that country's courts, law enforcement and national security authorities under their legal processes, which differ from Canada's and over which we have no control. If that is not acceptable to you, the free experience never sends anything, and that remains a real option.
How it is protected
- Everything travels over HTTPS.
- A visit is counted only as a plain page label and the linking site's name. Gift codes, checkout numbers, IP addresses and browser details are never recorded.
- TikTok's script is not even fetched until you say yes, and checkout numbers are never passed to it: a purchase is reported under a one-way code made from the checkout, which cannot be turned back into it.
- Card data never touches our servers; Stripe handles it end to end.
- Plate download links are signed and expire. Nothing is stored as a finished PDF, so a guessed or stolen path is useless without a valid signature, and a leaked link dies on its own.
- IP addresses used for abuse control are stored only as codes made with a key that is replaced daily and never written down, never as addresses.
- The photo never leaves your device. A gift link carries the low-resolution black-and-white mask; a plate of their face carries only the list of stars the face lights. Either one leaves your device only if you pay to send or print.
- Stored data sits on Render's managed disk, reachable only by the order server and the operator.
- Retention is enforced by an automatic sweep, not by remembering to do it: gift links expire at 12 months, orders are deleted at 60 days.
No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise. If a breach ever occurred that created a real risk of significant harm to you, we would notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, as PIPEDA requires, and we would keep a record of it.
Seeing, correcting, or deleting what we hold
You can ask what personal information we hold about you, ask for a copy of it, ask us to correct it if it is wrong, and ask us to delete it. Email writteninrealstars@gmail.com. We will respond within 30 days, which is the PIPEDA time limit, and normally much sooner, and we will not charge you for it.
Two shortcuts that do not require asking us at all: a gift link can be deleted immediately by you using the management link and code in your confirmation email, and an order's file and details are deleted automatically 60 days after it is placed. Because there are no accounts, we may need something to connect a request to a record, usually the order or gift email, and we will ask for as little as possible to do that.
If you are in the United States
We ship to the US, so some of our customers are covered by state privacy laws such as California's. Written in Real Stars is a small operation that falls well below the revenue and volume thresholds that make those laws apply to a business. We do not sell personal information. If you say yes to ad measurement, TikTok's pixel receives the information described above, which some state laws would count as sharing for targeted advertising; if you say no, or your browser sends Global Privacy Control, nothing is shared that way. Even so, the access, correction and deletion routes above are open to anyone who asks, wherever they live, and we will honour them without requiring you to establish that a particular statute applies.
Reporting a gift link
If a gift link contains something that should not be there, someone else's photo used without their knowledge for instance, it can be reported from the link itself or by writing to us. We will review it and remove it if the report is sound, and the person who made it does not get to appeal that into a debate with the person in the photo.
Children
This site is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has sent us information, write to us and we will delete it.
Complaints
If you think we have mishandled your information, please tell us first, at writteninrealstars@gmail.com. We will investigate, answer you in writing, and correct anything we got wrong, including changing our practices if the complaint shows they need changing.
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you have the right to complain to the federal regulator: the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, 30 Victoria Street, Gatineau, Quebec K1A 1H3, 1-800-282-1376. You do not need our permission to do that and you do not need to go through us first.
Changes to this policy
If this changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes with it, and the version on this page is always the current one. A change that would materially expand what we collect or what we do with it would apply only going forward, and to anything already collected we would ask you first.
Contact
Written in Real Stars
Safowan Mostaque, sole proprietor and the person accountable for privacy
581 Meadowvale Road, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
writteninrealstars@gmail.com
(647) 491-2051
Contact page
See also the Terms of Service and the Accessibility Statement.