PianistDesk Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how PianistDesk handles personal information when you use the PianistDesk application, visit our website, or contact us.

1. Who we are

PianistDesk is operated by Timothé Watteau, an individual based in Switzerland ("PianistDesk", "we", "us" or "our").

Postal address: Timothé Watteau, PianistDesk, Case Postale, 1020 Renens VD 1, Switzerland Email: privacy@pianistdesk.com

This policy covers:

• the PianistDesk web application that schools use to coordinate collaborative pianists (the "Service");
• our public website at pianistdesk.com (the "Website"); and
• messages you send us, for example to request a demo.

It does not cover your school's own websites, systems or policies, or services that we do not operate.

2. Your school and PianistDesk

PianistDesk is used by university music departments, conservatories and other academic music programs ("Schools"). Each School has its own workspace. The School decides who may use its workspace, how the workspace is configured, and what information its collaborative-piano program collects.

School Data. Information entered into or generated in a School's workspace (accounts, rosters, performance requests, schedules, scores, email delivery records and activity records) is "School Data". The School is responsible for School Data. We process School Data on the School's behalf to provide the Service, following the School's instructions and our agreement with the School. In data protection terms, the School is the controller and we are its processor or service provider.

Information we are responsible for. We are responsible for the information we handle for our own purposes: Website visits, messages you send us, contact and contract details of the people we deal with at Schools, and the records we need to run, secure and account for our business.

If you are a student, pianist or other participant, your School is the most direct route for questions about how it uses PianistDesk and for requests to access, correct or delete School Data. Usually that means the collaborative-piano coordinator or the School's privacy office. You may also contact us; we will pass your request to your School and help it respond (see section 11).

3. Information we handle

Account and sign-in information

• Your email address, name, School and role (coordinator, student or pianist), whether you have confirmed your name, when your account was created, and timestamps of your recent visits (used, for example, to show recent activity on your dashboard).
• Students and pianists sign in with a one-time code sent to their email address. Coordinator accounts are created by us at the School's request.
• Sign-in records kept by our authentication provider, such as the time of sign-in and the IP address used.

School configuration

School name, approved email domains, time zone, semesters, request types, student-status options, scheduling settings, and any policies or terms the School chooses to show its users. Most of this is not about individuals, but it can include coordinators' names.

Pianist roster and availability

For each pianist, the School may record a name, email address, category, instruments, level, hour limits, rates and notes. Pianists or coordinators record the pianist's availability. The Service also holds each pianist's assignments and rehearsal history, from which workload totals are calculated.

Teacher list

Teacher names and, optionally, email addresses, entered by the School so that requests can name the performer's teacher. Teachers do not need an account.

Performance requests

Performer or ensemble name; instrument; teacher; request type (for example recital, jury, exam or lesson); student status and any short status detail; whether the performer is a music major; performance date; repertoire title and composer; preferred times, weekly availability and rehearsal preferences; notes for the pianist and coordinator notes; the request's reference number, status, submission time and creator; the assigned pianist; and the people who take part in the request, their roles and any pending invitations.

Scheduling

Rehearsal dates, times, durations and rooms (including recurring series), and moves, room changes, substitutions, cancellations and cancellation reasons.

Scores

PDF scores uploaded to a request, with the file name and upload time. Uploading a new score replaces the previous file, and earlier versions are not kept.

Email and activity records

The Service sends emails about request activity. Each email contains the details needed for its purpose, such as names, the request and rehearsal times, and passes through our email provider. Inside the Service we keep a delivery record for each email: the recipient's address, the type of email, the delivery status, the provider's message ID, the time and the related request. We do not keep the message text in this record. We also keep an activity record of actions in the workspace: who did what, when, and relevant details of the change.

Technical information

When you use the Service or the Website, our hosting and infrastructure providers process technical data needed to deliver and protect them, such as your IP address, browser and device type, the pages requested, the time of the request and error information. This data is kept in server logs.

We do not use analytics, advertising or social-media tracking tools in the Service or on the Website, and our emails do not contain tracking pixels or tracked links.

Messages you send us

If you write to us, for example through the Website's "request a demo" email link, we receive your name, email address, organization and whatever your message contains.

What we do not ask for

PianistDesk does not ask for birth dates, grades, government identification numbers or payment card details. It is not designed to hold health information, disability accommodations, financial aid details, immigration status or other sensitive information. Free-text fields and uploaded files contain whatever users put in them, so please keep this kind of information out of notes and uploads.

4. Where the information comes from

• From you, for example when you submit a request, enter availability or upload a score.
• From your School. Coordinators create the pianist roster and teacher list, configure the workspace, manage requests and schedules, and may enter information about you, including notes.
• From other users. A student may add you to a request or invite you to it, and a request may name you as the performer's teacher.
• Automatically, as you use the Service (technical information and activity records).

5. How we use information

We use information to:

• provide the Service: sign-in, workspaces, performance requests, pianist suggestions, rehearsal scheduling, score storage and sharing, workload summaries and exports;
• send service emails: sign-in codes, invitations, submission receipts, assignment and rehearsal notices, reminders about missing scores before deadlines, and, for coordinators who subscribe, a weekly summary of pianist workload and rehearsals;
• keep the Service secure and working: checking access permissions, investigating misuse and email delivery failures, fixing errors and maintaining backups;
• provide support when you or your School ask for it;
• manage our relationship with Schools, including agreements, invoices and notices about the Service;
• respond to messages and demo requests; and
• comply with the law, enforce our Terms of Service, and establish or defend legal claims.

We do not:

• sell or rent personal information;
• use personal information for advertising or track you across other websites;
• use School Data to train artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models; or
• combine School Data across Schools or use it to build profiles for our own purposes.

Pianist suggestions. The Service suggests pianists for a request using fixed rules based on instrument fit, availability and current workload. The suggestions help coordinators; a coordinator makes every assignment. PianistDesk does not make automated decisions about anyone.

Workload totals. Rehearsal hours and workload totals are calculated from scheduled rehearsal records. PianistDesk does not track time worked, and these totals are not timesheets.

6. Who can see information inside PianistDesk

Each workspace belongs to one School. Users at one School cannot see another School's workspace. Within a School, what you can see depends on your role:

• Coordinators can see everything in their School's workspace, including rosters, requests, schedules, scores, user accounts (including when users last used the Service), email delivery records and activity records.
• Request participants. The person who submits a request (the owner) can share it with others as an editor, booker or viewer. All participants can see the request and its rehearsals. Owners, editors and bookers can also see the availability entered for the request. Owners and editors can view, upload and replace the score.
• Pianists can see their own roster entry and availability, and the requests, participants, rehearsals and scores for requests assigned to them. They may continue to see requests they worked on previously.
• Everyone with an account at your School can see the School's teacher list (including any teacher email addresses), request types, student-status options, semesters and scheduling settings.

Emails about a request go to the people involved in it, so the details in those emails are visible to the recipients. Notes and other free text can be read by others who have access to the request. The people a note is about can generally ask to see information held about them.

7. Service providers and other disclosures

We use the following providers to run PianistDesk:

These providers use their own sub-processors, such as cloud infrastructure companies, and publish lists of them. We notify Schools before adding or replacing a provider that processes School Data, as set out in our Terms of Service.

We may also disclose information:

• to your School and to other users, as described in section 6;
• to comply with the law or valid legal process. For School Data, we notify the School first unless the law prohibits it;
• where necessary to protect the safety, rights or property of users, Schools, PianistDesk or others, or to investigate a security incident;
• to a company or person that takes over the PianistDesk business, including a company set up by the current operator to run PianistDesk. The successor must respect this policy for information collected under it, and we will notify Schools in advance; and
• with your consent or at your School's direction.

8. International transfers

We are based in Switzerland, Schools and users are in the United States and Canada, and our providers operate in several countries. Your information may therefore be processed in Switzerland, the United States, Canada, Singapore and other countries where our providers' infrastructure operates. Workspace data is stored in the United States.

Swiss law allows personal data to be disclosed to countries that the Swiss Federal Council recognizes as providing adequate protection. For the United States, this recognition covers only organizations certified under the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, such as Vercel and Google. Canada is recognized where its private-sector privacy laws apply. Where a recipient is not covered by such recognition, as with Supabase and Resend, we rely on the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission, adapted for Swiss law, as included in those providers' data processing terms. You can ask us for more information about these safeguards.

9. How long we keep information

• School Data is kept while the School uses the Service. Cancelling a request or rehearsal marks it as cancelled; the record stays in the School's history. A School can ask us to delete specific records at any time.
• At the end of a School's subscription, the School may ask for an export of its School Data within 30 days. After that period, we delete the School's data, including uploaded scores, from our systems within 30 days. Database backups containing it expire automatically within a further 30 days.
• Accounts are kept while the School's workspace is active and you are an authorized user. If your School removes you or asks us to delete your account, we delete your account details within 30 days. Records that form part of the School's history, such as requests you submitted, rehearsals and activity records, stay in the School's workspace unless the School asks us to delete them.
• Email delivery records and activity records are part of the School's workspace history. They are kept while the School uses the Service and deleted with the rest of its School Data, or earlier if the School asks.
• Our email provider, Resend, may keep copies of the emails we send and their delivery events while our account with it is active, and deletes them within 90 days after that account ends.
• Server logs are kept by our hosting providers for limited periods under their own retention settings.
• Messages and demo requests are kept for up to two years after our last exchange. If they relate to an agreement with a School, we keep them with our contract records.
• Contract, invoice and accounting records are kept for as long as Swiss accounting and tax law requires, generally ten years.

We may keep information longer where the law requires it or where it is needed to establish or defend a legal claim.

10. Security

We protect information with measures including:

• separation of each School's data, using school-scoped records, database row-level security and server-side authorization checks on every change;
• private storage for scores, with access limited by School, request and role;
• sign-in with one-time codes instead of passwords;
• encrypted connections (HTTPS), and encryption of stored data by our database provider; and
• administrative access limited to the operator of PianistDesk, used only to provide support, maintain and secure the Service, or comply with the law.

No system is completely secure. If we learn of a security breach affecting School Data, we will notify the affected Schools without undue delay and help them meet their own obligations. We will notify the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner and affected individuals where the law requires it.

11. Your rights and choices

Emails. Service emails are part of how PianistDesk works, so you cannot turn off essential ones while you have an account. Coordinators can turn the weekly summary on or off in their PianistDesk dashboard.

Your rights. Depending on the law that applies to you, you may have the right to ask for access to your personal information, for its correction or deletion, or for a copy in a portable format, and to object to or restrict certain uses of it. Under Swiss law, anyone can ask us whether we process their personal data and receive the information the law requires. We answer such requests within 30 days, normally free of charge.

Requests about School Data should go to your School. If you send such a request to us, we will forward it to your School within 5 business days and help the School respond. We respond directly only where the School authorizes us to or the law requires it.

How to contact us. Email privacy@pianistdesk.com. We may need to verify your identity, for example by asking you to confirm the request from the email address linked to your account.

Complaints. Please contact us first so that we can try to resolve your concern. You can also contact your School's privacy office, the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (www.edoeb.admin.ch), or the authority responsible for privacy where you live. In the United States, complaints under FERPA about how a school handles education records go to the U.S. Department of Education's Student Privacy Policy Office. In Canada, you can contact the privacy commissioner for your province or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

12. Students' education records

United States. Where a School is subject to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and School Data forms part of a student's education records, the School controls those records. We act as a "school official" with a legitimate educational interest, under the School's direct control regarding the use and maintenance of the records. We use personally identifiable information from education records only to provide the Service, and we do not disclose it further except as the School authorizes or FERPA permits. Students exercise their FERPA rights, such as the right to inspect and seek to amend their records, through their School.

Canada. Canadian Schools are generally subject to provincial privacy laws for public bodies, or to private-sector privacy laws. We handle School Data as a service provider to the School, which remains accountable for it.

13. Users under 18

Some School programs, such as pre-college divisions, include students under 18. They may use PianistDesk only through a School that authorizes them, and the School is responsible for obtaining any parental or guardian consent required by the laws and policies that apply to it.

The Service is not intended for children under 13. Schools must not give them access, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child under 13 has used the Service, please contact us and we will delete the child's information.

14. Cookies

We use only the cookies needed to sign you in. We set no other cookies. The dashboard uses your browser's session storage to remember which detail sections you open or close during the current tab session. We do not use local storage or other persistent browser storage.

We do not use analytics, advertising or social-media cookies. If you block these cookies, you will not be able to sign in.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. We do not track users across other websites, so the Service works the same way whether or not your browser sends these signals. We do not allow third parties to collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites through the Service or the Website.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. We will post the new version here with a new "Last updated" date. If a change materially affects how we handle School Data, we will notify Schools at least 7 days before it takes effect, and we will inform users by email or through a notice in the Service where appropriate.

16. Contact

Timothé Watteau, PianistDesk

Case Postale, 1020 Renens VD 1, Switzerland

privacy@pianistdesk.com