Draft pending legal review. This document describes how SoundJem works today, but it has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer and may change before launch.
SoundJem is a music streaming, fan community and rewards platform for independent African artists. This policy explains what we collect when you use the SoundJem website and mobile app, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have.
Information you give us
To create an account we ask for an email address, a password, a display name, your gender and your birthday. We also generate a public handle for your profile. You can later add an avatar image and a short bio, and artists additionally provide a stage name, genres, and cover and banner images.
Your password is never stored on SoundJem's own servers. It is held by Supabase, our authentication provider. If you sign in with Google instead, we receive your email address and basic profile details from Google and store no password at all.
Information created as you use SoundJem
Using the app produces records that are tied to your account:
- Play events for each track you listen to, along with where you started it from, and the aggregate play count of each track.
- Your listening history.
- Artists you follow, and tracks you like or save.
- Posts, comments, comment likes, reactions and stories you create in artist communities, including any media you attach, plus a record of the stories you have viewed and reacted to.
- Your Jems ledger — every Jem award and deduction, with the action that caused it — and the rewards you redeem.
- Reports you submit and accounts you block.
- Moderation records, including content removals, copyright strikes and suspensions.
Recent searches are an exception: they are kept only on your own device and are never sent to us.
Device and advertising information
If you allow push notifications on the mobile app, we store an Expo push token for that device and whether the device is iOS or Android, so we can deliver notifications you have asked for.
SoundJem shows ads to fans. On iOS, Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt controls whether Google AdMob may use your device's advertising identifier: unless you allow tracking, the app requests non-personalised ads only. On the web, ads are served by Google Ad Manager and are non-personalised until you accept personalisation in the consent banner. You can change that choice at any time in Settings → Ad preferences.
When something goes wrong, Sentry receives a diagnostic report that can include the page or screen you were on, your device and app version, and technical details of the error.
Why we use your information
- To create and secure your account and sign you in.
- To stream music, build your library and history, and run artist communities.
- To calculate Jems, enforce daily earning caps, and process reward redemptions.
- To send the notifications you have turned on, and service email such as verification and password reset codes.
- To moderate content, act on reports, apply copyright strikes and keep the platform safe.
- To show ads, which keep SoundJem free for fans.
- To diagnose crashes and fix problems.
Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal data. We use the following service providers, each for the purpose described:
- Supabase — authentication and the account database, including sign-up verification and password reset emails.
- Cloudflare R2 — storage for audio, artwork and community media, served through the Cloudflare CDN.
- Cloudflare — hosting for the SoundJem website.
- Render — hosting for the SoundJem API, and the Redis store behind caching, Jem balances and daily caps, and background job queues.
- Google AdMob — banner and rewarded ads in the mobile app, including the server-side verification that awards Jems for a rewarded ad.
- Google Ad Manager — display ads on the website.
- Google Sign-In — if you choose to sign in with Google.
- Expo push notifications — delivery of push notifications to the mobile app.
- Sentry — error and crash reporting.
- Resend — delivery of moderation emails, such as a takedown or suspension notice.
- Shopify— artist merch storefronts. Buying merch takes you to the artist's own Shopify store, which handles the checkout and your payment details under its own privacy policy. SoundJem never receives your card details. When an order completes, the artist's store tells us the order total so we can award Jems.
We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or to investigate abuse of the platform.
Retention and account deletion
You can delete your account from Settings → Delete Account. Please read this carefully, because deletion on SoundJem is currently a deactivation rather than an erasure.
- Your profile is hidden across the platform and you can no longer sign in. Existing sessions are revoked.
- Your email address is retained, which also prevents the same address being used to create a new account.
- Your uploads, posts, comments, play history, Jems ledger and redemption records are retained rather than erased. The Jems ledger and redemptions are kept as a financial and audit record.
- A SoundJem administrator can restore a deleted account, which is why the underlying records are kept.
If you want your data permanently erased rather than deactivated, contact us through the support page and we will handle the request manually.
Children
SoundJem is not directed at children under 13 and we ask that people under 13 do not create an account. We collect a birthday during sign-up, but we want to be plain about a limitation: SoundJem does not currently verify or enforce a minimum age, and an account is not automatically blocked on the basis of the birthday entered. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us through the support page and we will remove it.
Your choices and rights
- Update your email, display name, avatar, bio, gender and birthday in Settings → Account details.
- Choose which notifications you receive in Settings → Notification, and turn notifications off entirely at the device or browser level.
- Change ad personalisation in Settings → Ad preferences, or, on iOS, in the system tracking settings for SoundJem.
- Manage the accounts you have blocked in Settings → Blocked accounts.
- Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export or erase your personal data, or to object to some processing. SoundJem does not yet have a self-service data export, so please make these requests through the support page and we will action them.
Contact us
Questions about this policy, or a request about your data, can be sent to support@soundjem.com or raised through the support page.
Changes to this policy
We will update this page when SoundJem changes, and we will move the “Last updated” date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your data, we will tell you in the app.