Privacy Policy
Last updated 16 October 2026.
Ceol (ceol.app, and the Ceol app for iPhone) is run by Ian Varley. If you have a question about your data, or want something changed or removed, email [email protected].
In short: Ceol keeps what it needs to track your tunes and sessions, and nothing more. It shows no ads, doesn't track you across other apps or websites, and never sells or rents your information.
What Ceol keeps
Your account. Your name, email address, username, and password (stored only as a one-way hash, so nobody can read it). If you choose to add them: your phone number, town and country, instruments, thesession.org member number, time zone, language, and whether you want update emails.
What you add. Your tune list, with each tune's status, notes and tags; the sessions you add or edit; the nights you attend; and the tunes you log at them.
What others add about you. A session's admins can add you to their session's people list by name, and sometimes by email, so they can invite you. If you then sign up with that email, the two are joined.
Recordings. When you use Listen, the app works out which tune is playing on your phone itself; the sound isn't sent anywhere. If you choose to keep a recording, it stays on your phone. A recording only goes to Ceol if you turn on "Upload the recording to Ceol" or upload it yourself, and then it's kept with that night's session so its admins can use it to check what was played. This is entirely optional.
Sign-in records. When you sign in, Ceol notes the time, your IP address and the kind of browser or device, to keep your account safe and spot misuse.
Reports and emails you send. If you report a page or email support, we keep that conversation in the support mailbox.
Cookies. The website uses one cookie to keep you signed in and one to remember your language. There are no advertising or analytics cookies.
Who can see what
- Sessions, and the tunes logged at each night, are public: anyone can see them, signed in or not.
- A session's people list is visible only to that session's admins and to the members they've confirmed.
- Your personal tune list isn't public. Other signed-in people can see the tunes you have in common with them (ones you both know or are learning), but not the rest of your list.
- Your email address, phone number and sign-in records are never shown to other users.
How Ceol uses it
- To run the service: show your tunes and sessions, let several people log a night together, and keep things working offline.
- To email you: sign-in links, email confirmation, password resets, and, if you've said yes, occasional news about Ceol, which you can turn off at any time from Me or the link in each email.
- To keep Ceol safe and working: spotting misuse and fixing problems.
Ceol uses your information because you've asked it to keep track of your tunes and sessions (that's the service), and, for sign-in records and safety, because it has a legitimate interest in keeping accounts secure.
Who else handles it
Ceol uses a few companies to run, and they handle your data only on Ceol's behalf:
- Render hosts the website and its database, in the United States.
- Amazon Web Services stores uploaded recordings, in the United States.
- Twilio SendGrid sends Ceol's emails.
- Cloudflare carries traffic to and from ceol.app.
Ceol reads public information from thesession.org, such as tunes, sessions and, if you give your member number, your public tunebook. It doesn't send your information there.
Because these services are in the United States, your information is stored and processed there.
How long it's kept
Your information is kept while you have an account. You can delete your account at any time from Me → Delete Account, on the website or in the app. That removes your login, your tune list and instruments, your contact details and your sign-in records straight away. Your name stays on the sessions you were part of, the way it would for anyone a session admin adds, and the tunes logged at those sessions stay in their logs, even if you logged them. Copies in database backups expire on the hosting provider's own schedule.
Your rights
You can see and correct most of your information yourself on the Me page. You can also ask, by emailing [email protected], for a copy of what Ceol holds about you, for something to be corrected or removed, or for Ceol to stop using it. If you're in the EU or the UK and aren't happy with the answer, you can complain to your data protection authority (in Ireland, the Data Protection Commission).
Children
Ceol isn't meant for children under 13, and doesn't knowingly keep information about them. If you think a child has signed up, email support and the account will be removed.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. If a change matters to how your information is used, you'll be told by email or in the app first.