Chikorie Privacy Policy
Website and waitlist · Effective date: 17 October 2026 · Last updated: 17 October 2026
The short version. If you join the Chikorie waitlist, we keep your email address and anything you choose to tell us, so we can email you when Chikorie is ready. We don't use cookies, we don't run analytics or ads, we never sell or share your data, and you can have it deleted any time by writing to chikorie.app@gmail.com.
1. Who we are
Chikorie is made by Hyttelabs, a one-person studio in Berlin run by Aymen Lakehal ("we", "us"). That's the person responsible for your data — the "controller" under the GDPR.
Contact for anything privacy-related: chikorie.app@gmail.com
We haven't appointed a data protection officer — at our size the law doesn't require one. You get the person who built the thing.
2. What we collect
When you visit chikorie.com
Like any website, the server that delivers our pages sees technical connection data: your IP address, your browser and device type, the page you asked for, and the time. Without it the page can't reach you. Our website is hosted by Google Firebase. We don't keep our own visitor logs.
When you join the waitlist
- Your email address — so we can tell you when Chikorie is ready.
- When you signed up — a timestamp.
- Which sign-up form you used (the one at the top or the bottom of the page) — so we learn which part of the page works better.
- Your device type (iPhone/iPad, Android, computer, or other) — worked out in your browser; we don't store the full browser string. It tells us which phones to support first.
If you answer the two optional questions after signing up
- Your "plant kryptonite" — the option you tap (for example "I forget to water" or "I travel a lot").
- Your plants — whatever you type into the free-text box (up to 2,000 characters).
Both are optional, and skipping them changes nothing. Please keep the text box about your plants — there's no need to share anything personal there.
What we don't collect: no name, no postal address, no phone number, no payment details, no location, no cookies, no analytics, no advertising or tracking pixels.
3. Why we use it, and on what legal basis
| What | Why | Legal basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| Email, sign-up time, sign-up form, optional answers | To email you when Chikorie is ready to order — including the founder price for the first 100 — and, for your answers, to understand what your plants need so we build the right thing | Your consent, Art. 6(1)(a). You give it by submitting the form, and you can withdraw it any time |
| Device type | Knowing which phones to support first | Our legitimate interest in building for the phones our future customers actually use, Art. 6(1)(f). You can object any time |
| Connection data when you visit | Delivering the website and protecting it from abuse | Our legitimate interest in a working, secure website, Art. 6(1)(f) |
We only email you about Chikorie becoming available. No newsletter you didn't ask for, no handing your address to anyone else.
Giving us your email is voluntary — but without it we can't put you on the list. We don't make automated decisions about you.
4. Cookies and browser storage
chikorie.com sets no cookies. That's why there's no cookie banner — there's nothing to agree to.
To be complete: Google's Firebase library, which saves your sign-up, isn't loaded until you press the sign-up button. Then your browser fetches it from Google, and it may keep a tiny technical record in your browser's storage noting that it ran. That record holds nothing about you and isn't used to track you.
5. Who else handles your data
We never sell, rent or share your data. The only company involved is the one that runs our infrastructure:
- Google (Firebase) hosts the website and stores the waitlist. Google processes it only on our behalf, under a data processing agreement (Art. 28 GDPR).
Your waitlist entry is stored in Germany. Google and its service providers may handle some data outside the EU, mainly in the United States — for example to deliver the website quickly. Those transfers are protected by the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework and the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
If we start using an email-sending service for the launch email, we'll name it here before the first email goes out.
6. How long we keep it
- Your waitlist entry (email, sign-up time, sign-up form, device type, optional answers): until we've sent the launch emails, and no longer than 6 months after Chikorie goes on sale. If Chikorie hasn't launched by 31 December 2027, we delete the list then.
- If you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it: we delete your entry within 30 days — usually much sooner.
- Your answers as totals: we may keep anonymous counts (like "4 in 10 of you forget to water") after the list is gone. They can't be traced back to you.
- Connection data from visits: handled by Google for delivery and security under Google's own short retention periods. We don't keep it.
7. Your rights
You can ask us at any time to:
- tell you what we hold about you and send you a copy (Art. 15 GDPR),
- correct it (Art. 16),
- delete it (Art. 17),
- limit how we use it (Art. 18),
- give it to you in a machine-readable format (Art. 20),
- stop using it where we rely on our legitimate interest (Art. 21).
You can withdraw your consent at any time — email us, or use the unsubscribe link in any email we send. That stops future use; it doesn't make past use unlawful (Art. 7(3)).
Write to chikorie.app@gmail.com from the address you signed up with, so we know it's you. We answer within one month.
You can also complain to a data protection authority — the one where you live or work, or ours in Berlin: Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, Alt-Moabit 59–61, 10555 Berlin, www.datenschutz-berlin.de. We'd like the chance to put it right first, but that's your call.
8. Children
The waitlist is for people aged 16 and over. If you're younger, ask a parent or legal guardian to sign up for you.
9. Changes
When Chikorie launches, this page will grow to cover the app and the shop. We'll update the date at the top whenever it changes, and we won't use your waitlist data for anything new without asking you first.
10. Contact
Hyttelabs — Aymen Lakehal, Berlin
chikorie.app@gmail.com