Your information
Privacy Policy
Last updated: September 18, 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 choose to search for a song, or you pay for a link or a plate. There are no cookies, no advertising, 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. 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 |
| Just building or watching a sky | Nothing beyond the visit count above leaves your device. | n/a | n/a |
| 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. It is never sent to us. | So the form survives going back and forth | Until you close the tab |
| You search for a song | Your search text and IP address go to Apple's iTunes catalogue, so we can show you a 30-second preview to pick from. | To find the song | Not stored by us; subject to Apple's own policy |
| 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 only inside your browser to orient the sky above you. | To show the sky where you are | Never sent to us |
| You add a photo | Processed on your device into a 256×256 black-and-white brightness mask. The original photo is never uploaded. 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 or order a plate |
| You send a gift link (CAD $5) | The name, caption, message, the photo mask if you added one, an approximate location (rounded to about 11 km), your chosen song, and a salted hash of your IP address that cannot be reversed back to the address. | 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–$59) | The same content, plus for a printed plate the shipping name, address, phone number and email you give Stripe at checkout. | To generate your file and to ship a physical print | 60 days, then deleted; this is also the reprint and dispute window |
| 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.
- Prodigi is the print lab. For a physical order only, it receives the artwork and the shipping name, address, phone and email, solely to print and post the item.
- 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.
- Apple and Spotify see a song search or a pasted track link, and your IP address, only if you use those features.
- Render hosts the site and the order server, and therefore stores the order and gift data described above, along with the daily visit totals.
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 do not share it for advertising, 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, Prodigi, Resend, Apple and Spotify 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.
- 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 salted hashes, never as addresses.
- The photo never leaves your device; only the low-resolution black-and-white mask does, and 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, and we do not sell or share personal information for targeted advertising under any of their definitions. 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.