Privacy Policy

Pubdate is a social media management service for Irish pubs, operated as a sole trader based in Ireland. When this policy refers to "Pubdate", "we", "us", or "our", it means the Pubdate service and its operator.

As the data controller, we are responsible for deciding how and why your personal data is processed. If you have any questions or concerns about how we handle your data, please contact us at hello@pubdate.ie.

We collect the following categories of data to provide the Pubdate service:

We use the data we collect to:

• Generate social media content (Facebook posts, Instagram posts, Google Business updates) based on information you share via WhatsApp
• Send you draft posts for approval via WhatsApp before anything is published
• Publish approved posts to your connected social media accounts on your behalf
• Manage your subscription and process payments via Stripe
• Improve the quality of AI-generated content based on your feedback and approval history
• Respond to your support queries
• Send service announcements and updates about material changes to the service

We do not sell your data to third parties. We do not use your data for advertising or build profiles for marketing purposes beyond the Pubdate service itself.

Under GDPR, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Contract performance — processing your business information, WhatsApp messages, social media tokens, and photos to deliver the Pubdate service you have subscribed to
• Legitimate interests — improving the quality of the service, detecting and preventing abuse, and maintaining service security, where these interests are not overridden by your rights
• Legal obligation — retaining transaction records as required by Irish tax law
• Consent — for any optional marketing communications (e.g. product updates sent via WhatsApp or email, where you have opted in)

We use the following third-party services to operate Pubdate. Each acts as a data processor on our behalf and is bound by data processing agreements:

Some of our processors are based in the United States (Twilio, Supabase, Anthropic, Vercel, Meta, Stripe). Where personal data is transferred outside the European Economic Area, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, including Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) as approved by the European Commission.

By using Pubdate, you acknowledge that your data may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States and other countries outside the EEA.

• Active subscribers — we retain your data for as long as your subscription is active
• After cancellation — account data is retained for up to 30 days after cancellation to allow for reactivation, then deleted upon request. Payment records required by law (e.g. VAT records) are retained for 6 years in line with Irish tax obligations.
• WhatsApp messages and post history — retained while your account is active to maintain conversation context and audit trail of published posts
• OAuth tokens — deleted immediately upon disconnection or account deletion

As a data subject under GDPR, you have the following rights:

• Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Erasure — request deletion of your data ("right to be forgotten"), subject to legal retention obligations
• Portability — receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format
• Restriction — ask us to limit processing of your data in certain circumstances
• Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing

To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@pubdate.ie. We will respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commission Ireland at dataprotection.ie.

We use a minimal number of cookies, strictly necessary for the service to function:

• pub_session — a secure, HTTP-only session cookie used to authenticate pub owners in their dashboard. This cookie does not track you across other websites.

We do not use third-party tracking cookies, advertising cookies, or analytics cookies. We do not use Google Analytics or any similar third-party analytics service on the main Pubdate application.

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), encrypted storage, and access controls limiting which team members can access sensitive data. OAuth tokens are stored encrypted at rest.

No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us immediately at hello@pubdate.ie.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you via WhatsApp or email at least 14 days before the changes take effect. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision.

For any privacy-related questions or to exercise your rights, contact us at: