Privacy Policy | HappyAnime

1. Data Controller

HappyAnime is operated as an independent web service. For any privacy-related inquiries, you can contact us at [email protected].

2. Information We Collect

When you create an account, we collect your name, email address, and password (stored as a bcrypt hash). We never store your plain-text password.

We do not collect payment information. Future Pro plan payments are handled by third-party payment processors under their own privacy policies.

3. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), we process your personal data under the following legal bases:

Contract performance — to provide and maintain your account, watchlist, and profile
Legitimate interests — to improve the service and prevent abuse
Consent — for optional features such as personalised recommendations
Legal obligation — to comply with applicable laws

4. How We Use Your Information

To provide and maintain the HappyAnime service
To store your watchlist, ratings, and profile information
To send password reset emails when requested
To improve the service through anonymous usage analytics

5. Data We Do Not Collect

We do not host, stream, or redistribute any anime or manga content. All media metadata displayed on HappyAnime is sourced from the publicly available Jikan API (MyAnimeList) and AniList. Trailers are embedded from YouTube and subject to YouTube's privacy policy.

6. Third-Party Service Providers

We share data with the following third-party processors solely to operate the service:

Database hosting provider — stores your account and watchlist data
Email delivery provider — sends transactional emails (e.g. password reset)
OpenAI — our “Find by Description” AI feature sends your text query to OpenAI's API for anime identification. No account data is transmitted. OpenAI's Privacy Policy applies.
trace.moe — our “Find by Screenshot” feature submits your uploaded image to the trace.moe API for reverse anime image search. No account data is transmitted.
Plausible Analytics — we use Plausible, a privacy-friendly analytics tool that does not set cookies and does not collect any personal data or personally identifiable information. Plausible is fully GDPR compliant.
YouTube — official trailers are embedded from YouTube. YouTube may set cookies per Google's Privacy Policy.

7. International Data Transfers

Some of our third-party service providers (including OpenAI) are based in the United States. When data is transferred outside the EEA, we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent safeguards as required by GDPR Article 46.

8. Cookies & Sessions

We use a single session cookie to keep you logged in. We use no advertising or tracking cookies. Third-party YouTube embeds may set cookies per YouTube's policy. Plausible Analytics operates without cookies. For more details, see our Cookie Policy.

9. Data Sharing

We do not sell your personal data. We share data only with service providers necessary to operate HappyAnime (as listed in Section 6 above).

If your profile is set to Public, your username, watchlist, and ratings are visible to all users.

10. Data Retention & Deletion

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active. You may delete your account at any time from your profile settings. Upon deletion, all personal data is removed from our systems within 30 days.

11. Your Rights (GDPR)

If you are located in the EEA, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

Right of access — request a copy of the data we hold about you
Right to rectification — request correction of inaccurate data
Right to erasure — request deletion of your data (“right to be forgotten”)
Right to data portability — receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format
Right to object — object to processing based on legitimate interests
Right to restrict processing — request that we limit how we use your data

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

12. Contact

For privacy concerns, contact us at [email protected].