Privacy & Cookie Policy

BeadsCAD (“we”, “us”) is a bead-weave pattern designer. For the purposes of the EU/UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), BeadsCAD is the data controller for the personal data described here.

Operator/legal entity and postal address to be completed by the site owner. For any privacy question or request, contact us at info@beadscad.com.

We only collect data from registered users. Anonymous visitors browsing the public feed have no data stored on our servers.

• Account data: your email address, chosen username, and password (stored only as a salted bcrypt hash — we never store your plain password).
• Google sign-in (optional): if you sign in with Google, we receive your verified email, name, and Google account identifier to create or link your account.
• Content and settings you create: pattern layouts, custom color palettes, weave dimensions, favorites, public/private flags, and your interface preferences such as your chosen language.
• Analytics data (only with your consent): if you accept analytics, Google Analytics collects usage events and technical data such as IP address, device/browser type, and pages visited, via cookies.

We use your data for the following purposes, each with a GDPR legal basis:

• Run your account and store/sync your patterns — legal basis: performance of a contract with you.
• Keep the service secure and prevent abuse — legal basis: our legitimate interests.
• Measure and improve usage via analytics — legal basis: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data, and we do not use it for automated decision-making or profiling.

BeadsCAD sets one cookie of its own: it remembers the language you chose so pages can be delivered in that language from the very first request. Under the ePrivacy Directive a user-selected language preference is strictly necessary, so it needs no consent and is not affected by your analytics choice. Everything else BeadsCAD stores lives in your browser’s local storage, which is not cookies and also needs no consent. The only non-essential cookies on the site are set by Google Analytics, and only if you accept analytics.

You control the visibility of each pattern. Toggling a pattern to “Public” makes it searchable and visible to all visitors in the community feed, along with your username as the author. You can switch it back to “Private” at any time; private patterns are accessible only to your authenticated account.

We share data only with service providers that process it on our behalf:

• Google (Analytics) — usage measurement, only with your consent.
• Google (Sign-In / OAuth) — to authenticate you if you choose “Continue with Google”.
• Our hosting & database provider — to store your account and patterns.

Some providers (for example Google) may process data in countries outside your own, including the United States. Where personal data is transferred outside the EEA/UK, it is protected by appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses or an adequacy decision.

We keep your account data and patterns for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account, your account, patterns, and settings are erased. Analytics data is retained according to our Google Analytics retention settings. Residual copies in encrypted backups are purged on a rolling basis.

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• Access a copy of your data (data portability) — export it yourself from your account.
• Rectify inaccurate data, and erase your data (“right to be forgotten”) — delete your account from your account page.
• Restrict or object to processing, and withdraw analytics consent at any time.
• Lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority.

You can exercise the main rights directly from your Account & Privacy page (export or delete your data, and manage cookie consent), or by emailing us at info@beadscad.com.

BeadsCAD is not directed to children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their personal data. If you believe a child has provided us data, please contact us and we will delete it.

Passwords are stored only as bcrypt hashes, sessions use signed tokens, and data is stored in a secured cloud database. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, but we take reasonable measures to protect your information.

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes affecting analytics or how we use your data will be reflected here and, where required, we will ask for your consent again.