Privacy Policy (Datenschutzerklärung)

How this website, the Shoji Flow desktop app and the companion browser extension handle personal data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR / DSGVO). The short version: this is a static site — no accounts, no cookies, no analytics, no third-party font or script CDNs.

This English version is a courtesy translation. The legally binding version is the German Datenschutzerklärung.

Controller (Verantwortlicher)

Hosting and server logs

This website is hosted by Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL, 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg (parent company: Amazon Web Services, Inc., 410 Terry Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98109, USA). AWS processes data on our behalf under a data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR (the AWS Data Processing Addendum, part of the AWS Service Terms). The website files and the access logs are stored in the AWS region Frankfurt (eu-central-1); the site is delivered through the Amazon CloudFront content delivery network, whose edge locations worldwide — including outside the EU — receive the requests. When you visit the site, the servers technically need to process connection data and keep access logs: your IP address, date and time of the request, the requested URL including its parameters, the HTTP status, the transferred data volume, the referrer, the browser user agent and the country derived from the IP address.

CloudFront additionally records the code of the edge location that served the request. The log files are delivered through the AWS log-delivery service in the us-east-1 region (USA) before being stored in Frankfurt.

The log also records technical details of each request: HTTP method, protocol and TLS version, response times, content type and size of the response, the requested byte range, the cache result at the edge location and a request ID.

This data is processed to deliver the website, to ensure its stability, to detect and defend against abuse, and to measure reach in aggregate (page views per language, referrers, clicks on the Steam link) — without profiles of individual visitors. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in operating the site securely and in measuring its reach). Log data is not merged with other data sources and is deleted automatically after 30 days. AWS is a US group — see "Transfers to the United States" below.

To measure reach, we group the log lines of one day into sessions by IP address and user agent and derive device class, operating system, browser and country from them; we count visits per language and source, the pages opened, use of the demo and the trailer, and clicks on the Steam link. This evaluation runs inside our AWS account (Amazon Athena, Frankfurt region); the resulting daily figures contain neither IP address nor user agent and are kept without time limit.

Fonts

All fonts on this site are self-hosted and delivered from our own server together with the page. No request is made to Google Fonts or any other third-party font service when you visit, and no data is transferred to such providers.

Cookies, analytics, interactive demo

This site sets no cookies and uses no analytics, tracking or advertising services. The interactive product demo ("Try it live") runs entirely in your browser with built-in sample data; it does not connect to a backend and does not transmit anything. When you start the demo, it stores its display preferences — theme and language, under the keys shojiflow-theme and shojiflow-language — in your browser's localStorage so they survive a reload. This data never leaves your browser, and you can remove it at any time via your browser's site-data settings. When you leave the page, the demo removes both keys again.

No analytics, tracking or advertising script runs in your browser. We measure reach exclusively in aggregate from the server logs (see "Hosting and server logs"). The link to the Steam store page carries campaign parameters (UTM parameters), which Valve processes under its own privacy policy.

Contact by e-mail

If you contact us by e-mail, we process the personal data you provide (your address and the content of your message) solely to handle your request. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR where your request relates to a contract, otherwise Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. Messages are deleted once your request is resolved, unless statutory retention duties apply.

Our mailbox is operated by Microsoft (Exchange Online, part of Microsoft 365); Microsoft processes the messages on our behalf under Art. 28 GDPR (Microsoft Products and Services Data Protection Addendum) — see "Transfers to the United States" below.

Purchases via Steam

The Shoji Flow app is sold on Steam. The purchase, payment, updates, achievements and the optional Steam Workshop are processed by Valve Corporation under its own terms; see the Steam Privacy Policy. We do not receive personal data about your purchase from this website. Valve is a US company — see "Transfers to the United States" below.

The Shoji Flow desktop app

The app itself works locally. Window tracking, insights and the optional AI run on your machine, and the app contains no telemetry, analytics or crash-reporting services.

One connection runs automatically and is not initiated by you: in the Steam build, the app syncs Steam achievements and their numeric progress counters (11 counters, including the cumulative active-use time stat_active_secs) to your Steam account through the Steam client. Recipient is Valve Corporation (US). Depending on your Steam profile privacy settings, your achievements and these counters can be visible to other Steam users; you control this in your Steam profile's privacy settings.

Like every title obtained through Steam, the Steam build also registers with the running Steam client when it starts, so Valve processes that and for how long you use the app (playtime, "currently running" status). The legal basis for this registration and the achievement sync is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR — our legitimate interest in offering the achievements and statistics customary on Steam; you control their visibility in your Steam profile.

Everything else only connects when you start it: downloading an optional AI model contacts Hugging Face (US) and downloading an optional GPU backend contacts GitHub (US) — the app asks separately before each of these downloads. In both cases the providers receive the technical request data (your IP address, the requested file and the app version as the request identifier "ShojiFlow/<version>"); the files are delivered through the providers' content delivery networks, which process this data as well. The legal basis for these downloads is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR — our legitimate interest in providing the feature you requested. Steam features you trigger (Workshop sharing and browsing) communicate with Valve (US) through your Steam account. Transfer safeguards for all of these are described in "Transfers to the United States" below.

If you enable the optional AI, by default it additionally reads the titles of your open windows to name your layouts. Those titles are held in memory only and are neither stored nor transmitted; what is stored — locally on your computer — are only the names and descriptions generated from them. You can switch off the reading of window titles separately in the AI settings.

When you share a layout on the Steam Workshop, Valve receives its name, description, tags, the window arrangement and the program names of the apps involved; the app removes file paths, launch arguments and browser URLs beforehand. Importing a layout creates a Workshop subscription for that item in your Steam account.

The bug-report bundle (Settings → Data → Diagnostics) and the backup file are local files that you save yourself; nothing is uploaded. The bug-report bundle contains the app's log files, including file paths from your computer — share it only if you want to.

Companion browser extension

This section also serves as the privacy policy for the optional Shoji Flow Companion extension on the Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons (AMO) and Microsoft Edge Add-ons.

The extension reads the titles and URLs of your open browser tabs for a single purpose: letting the Shoji Flow desktop app restore browser tabs without opening duplicates when you apply a layout. This tab list is transferred exclusively to the Shoji Flow desktop app running on your own machine, over a local connection to 127.0.0.1:9876 — it never leaves your device, is not sent to us or to any third party, and is not used for advertising, analytics or profiling. If the desktop app is not running, the transfer simply fails and the data goes nowhere. The extension stores only its own settings in your browser's local extension storage, makes no other network connections and contains no telemetry.

Transfers to the United States

Where the services above involve providers in the USA, the safeguards under Art. 13(1)(f) GDPR are:

• Amazon Web Services, Inc. (website hosting; our contracting party is Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL, Luxembourg): currently certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (Art. 45 GDPR); in addition, the AWS Data Processing Addendum agrees the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR) as a fallback. Website files and access logs are stored in the EU (Frankfurt); when the site is delivered through CloudFront edge locations outside the EU, connection data is processed there temporarily. Privacy notice: aws.amazon.com/privacy/.
• Microsoft Corporation (e-mail mailbox, Exchange Online): currently certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (Art. 45 GDPR); in addition, the Microsoft Products and Services Data Protection Addendum agrees the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR). Privacy notice: privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement.
• Valve Corporation (Steam purchase, achievements, Workshop): currently certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (Art. 45 GDPR); Valve additionally relies on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR).
• GitHub, Inc. (optional GPU backend download): currently certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (Art. 45 GDPR); GitHub additionally relies on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR). Privacy notice: docs.github.com/site-policy/privacy-policies/github-general-privacy-statement.
• Hugging Face, Inc. (optional AI model download): not certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework — the EU adequacy decision for the United States only covers companies on that list, so it does not cover this download — and we are not aware of other appropriate safeguards under Art. 46 GDPR for this data flow. The download therefore only starts after you have expressly consented in the app's download dialog immediately beforehand (Art. 49(1)(a) GDPR); without consent no download takes place. Please be aware of the risk: your IP address is not protected there as it is in the EU — US authorities can access it under US law, and your data protection rights are harder to enforce against Hugging Face. You can cancel the download at any time, also by turning the AI off; request data already transmitted is not retrieved by that. The AI feature is off by default and everything else works without it. Privacy notice: huggingface.co/privacy.

Your rights (Betroffenenrechte)

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• access to your personal data (Art. 15 GDPR),
• rectification (Art. 16 GDPR),
• erasure (Art. 17 GDPR),
• restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR),
• data portability (Art. 20 GDPR),
• objection to processing based on Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (Art. 21 GDPR),
• withdrawal of any consent you have given, with effect for the future (Art. 7(3) GDPR).

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR), in particular with the authority responsible for our registered office: Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen (LDI NRW), Kavalleriestr. 2-4, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany, www.ldi.nrw.de.

Status

Last updated: October 2, 2026