Legal
Privacy Policy
Last updated 2026-09-09
How Fotova handles information — both the accounts operators create and the photos guests take at a booth. Those are two different things with two different sets of rules, and this policy keeps them apart.
Who this covers
Notliss LLC (“we”) builds Fotova, software that turns an iPad into a photo booth. Two kinds of people appear in it:
- Operators — the businesses and individuals who run booths. They create accounts, subscribe, and design the templates. They are our customers.
- Guests — the people who walk up to a booth at a wedding, party, or brand activation and have their photo taken. Guests have no account with us and, usually, no relationship with us at all.
The distinction matters legally. For an operator’s own account data we decide what happens and are the controller. For guest photos we act only on the operator’s instructions and are the processor — the event is theirs, the guests are theirs, and the decision to run the booth was theirs. If you are a guest who wants photos removed, the fastest route is the operator who ran your event; see Guests: your choices.
What we collect from operators
- Account details — name, email address, and a password or the identifier from the Google or Apple account used to sign in. Authentication is handled by Clerk; we do not store passwords.
- Subscription details — plan, status, renewal date, and the customer and subscription identifiers Stripe issues. Card numbers go to Stripe directly and never reach our servers.
- Event and template content — event names, dates, branding, logos, backgrounds, and the print templates that are designed in the app.
- Device records — which iPads have been provisioned to an account, so a plan’s device limit can be enforced and a lost device can be revoked.
What we handle for guests
- Photographs — the images captured during a session, the composed print strip, and the short animated clip assembled from them.
- A phone number or email address — only if a guest enters one at the booth to have their photos sent to them. It is used to deliver that one bundle and for nothing else. We do not build marketing lists from it and we do not sell it.
- Session metadata — the time of the session, how many photos it held, and which event it belonged to.
Some operators enable a lead-capture step, in which guests are asked for contact details on the operator’s behalf. Where that happens, the operator is asking, the operator receives the answer, and the operator’s own privacy notice governs what they do with it.
Photos are processed on the iPad, not on our servers
Capture, effects, background replacement, strip assembly, and printing all happen on the device. That is a product requirement — a venue with no usable Wi-Fi must not stop the booth — but it is also a privacy property worth stating plainly: we never run image processing on your photographs. Media reaches our storage only so it can be delivered to the guest and revisited from the gallery link.
Background replacement produces a mask separating the person in frame from what is behind them. It is computed on the device, used to composite that one photograph, and not retained, transmitted, or used to recognize or identify anyone. We do not run facial recognition, we do not generate faceprints or other biometric templates, and we do not attempt to match a guest across sessions or events.
How long we keep it
Guest media is deleted automatically. Each event has a retention window of 7, 30, or 90 days, and 30 days is the default. When it expires, the photos, the strip, and the clip are deleted from our storage and the gallery link stops working.
- Guest contact details — the phone number or email address used to send a bundle — are deleted on the same clock as the photos they were collected to send, when the event’s retention window ends. They are held for exactly as long as there is something to deliver, so a guest who loses their link can still be sent it again, and not one day longer.
- Operator account data is kept while the account is open. Closing the account deletes it, except records we are required to retain — principally invoices and payment records, which tax law obliges us to keep for several years.
- Copies on the operator’s iPad are outside our control. The app keeps local copies so reprints work offline and prunes them on its own schedule, but the device belongs to the operator.
Who we share it with
We do not sell personal information, we do not share it for advertising, and we do not use advertising networks or data enrichment services. Photographs are processed on the iPad rather than by any cloud vision service, so no third party ever analyzes the content of a guest’s picture. Visits to this website are measured with Google Analytics, described in Website analytics below — this site only, never anything inside the app.
We do not share, sell, or provide your mobile phone number or messaging consent data to third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Mobile information will not be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. All of the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties. Service providers who deliver our messages on our instructions, such as Twilio, are not third parties for this purpose and may not use the information for their own purposes.
Website analytics
This website uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages are read. It sets cookies in your browser and sends Google your IP address, approximate location, the page that referred you, and the pages you view. We use it to learn which parts of the site are useful. That is the whole purpose.
It runs on this website and nowhere else. The iPad app contains no analytics software of any kind, so nothing a booth touches — no photograph, no phone number, no email address, no event detail — is ever sent to Google. Google Signals, the setting that would let Google tie these visits to a signed-in Google identity for advertising, is turned off.
To opt out, install Google’s browser add-on or block cookies for this site. Nothing here needs them to work.
Text messages
What we collect. If a guest asks for their photos by text, we collect the mobile phone number they type on the booth screen and a record that they consented, with a timestamp. Nothing else about the phone is collected: no contacts, no device identifiers, no location.
How we use it. Solely to send that guest a link to the photos from the session they just finished. We do not use mobile numbers for marketing, we do not add them to any list, and we do not message a number that has not asked us to.
Message frequency. One message per photo session. Consent applies to that session only; a guest at a later event enters their number again.
Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any message to stop receiving them, or HELP for help. Full program terms are on the SMS Terms page.
Who receives it. Twilio, our messaging provider, which transmits the message on our instructions and may not use the number for its own purposes. Guest mobile numbers are deleted when the event’s photos are, at the end of its retention window.
These are the service providers we do use. It is the complete list — if a provider is not on it, your data does not reach it. Each is bound to process data only on our instructions.
| Service | Used for | Data it handles |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services (S3) | Object storage for photos, strips, and clips | Guest photographs, composed strips, animated clips, event branding |
| Railway | Application hosting and the managed database | Operator accounts, event and session records, guest contact details |
| Clerk | Operator sign-in and session management | Operator name, email, and third-party sign-in identifiers |
| Stripe | Subscription payments and the billing portal | Operator billing name, email, and payment details |
| Twilio | Delivering photo bundles by SMS | Guest mobile number and the message containing the gallery link |
| Amazon Simple Email Service | Delivering photo bundles by email | Guest email address and the message containing the gallery link |
All of them process data in the United States. We will update this list before a new provider starts handling personal data.
We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or to establish or defend legal claims. If a business transfer ever moves the product to another company, the same commitments follow it.
The gallery link
Delivered bundles are reachable at an unguessable link. Anyone holding that link can view and download that session’s photos until the retention window expires — that is what makes it possible to text a gallery to someone without making them create an account. Treat it the way you would treat any private link. It expires with the session, and an operator can delete a session before then.
Guests: your choices
- Don’t want your photo taken? Don’t use the booth. Nothing is captured until someone starts a session.
- Don’t want a copy sent? Leave the phone and email fields empty. Entering them is what asks us to send you something.
- Want your photos removed early? Contact the operator who ran the event — they can delete the session immediately. If you cannot reach them, write to [email protected] with the gallery link or the event and date, and we will pass it on and act on their instruction.
- Text messages. Reply STOP to any message to stop receiving them. See the SMS Terms.
Your rights
Several US states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia and others, with more taking effect each year — give residents the right to know what personal information is held about them, to have it corrected or deleted, to receive a copy, to opt out of its sale or sharing, and not to be treated worse for exercising any of these. We extend these rights to everyone who asks, wherever they live in the US, rather than checking an address first.
On the right to opt out of sale or sharing: there is nothing to opt out of. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising — not as a policy choice we could quietly reverse, but because nothing in the product does it.
Operators can exercise these rights directly with us. Guests should route requests through the operator, for the reason given above — we hold the photos, but the decision about them is not ours to make.
To make a request, write to [email protected]. We will need enough detail to find the right records, and we may need to verify who you are before acting on a request about someone’s photographs.
Security
Media is uploaded directly from the iPad to encrypted object storage using short-lived, single-purpose links, so photographs are not routed through our application servers. Traffic is encrypted in transit. Each iPad holds its own credential in the device keychain, so a single lost device can be revoked without disturbing the rest of an account. No system is perfectly secure, but if you believe you have found a problem in ours, please tell us before telling anyone else — the address is on the Terms of Service page.
Children
Fotova is sold to businesses, and operator accounts are not available to anyone under 18. Guests at an event may be children — a wedding or a family party is a normal place for a photo booth. We do not knowingly collect a child’s contact details, and where a booth collects any, it does so on the operator’s behalf and under the operator’s responsibility for obtaining whatever consent their event requires.
Where we operate
Fotova is offered in the United States only. We operate from the United States and store and process all data there, including photographs and guest contact details.
We are not set up to serve operators subject to European or UK data protection law, and we do not currently offer the contractual terms that would require — saying so plainly is more useful than implying a compliance posture we do not have. If you need to run events under those rules, tell us at [email protected] rather than assuming this policy covers you.
Changes
We will update this policy as the product changes. The date at the top moves whenever the wording does. If a change materially affects operators, we will say so by email rather than relying on anyone re-reading this page.
Contact
Privacy questions: [email protected]. Anything else: [email protected].
Notliss LLC
319 Ukiah St, Lewisville, TX 75056