Privacy policy

SlideTimer (slidetimer.com) is run by a private individual in Switzerland: Raphael Bosshart, Wanne-Locherstrasse 14, 9450 Lüchingen. For any privacy question or request, contact slidetimer@proton.me. This policy is written to meet the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) and, where it applies, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In short: the practice tools work without an account and your slides, notes and history stay in your browser. We process personal data for the optional AI feedback (your e-mail address and credits), for payments (via Stripe) and for the ads that finance the site (via Google, with consent where required).

PDF files are opened and rendered directly in your browser. They are not uploaded to our servers unless you share them in a live session (see below).

PowerPoint files (.pptx, .ppt, .odp) are sent to our server only to convert them to PDF. The file is stored in a temporary folder during the conversion and deleted immediately afterwards. We do not keep, read or share it.

Practice history, target durations and study notes are stored in your browser's local storage on your device. You can delete them at any time by clearing your browser data.

When you create a live session, our server keeps the session state (current slide, timer, time per slide and the number of connected people) in memory so everyone with the link sees the same timer. If you choose Share my slides, the PDF is also kept in memory so participants can view it. Anyone who has the link can view and control the session, so only share it with people you trust.

Sessions are deleted automatically after 3 hours without activity and at the latest after 24 hours. Nothing is written to disk and we do not look at shared slides.

If you choose Me + call, your browser also captures the sound of the tab or screen you pick (for example a Teams or Zoom call) and mixes it with your microphone. Only audio is recorded, never the picture. You are responsible for telling the other people in the call that you are recording and getting their consent where required.

Recordings stay in your browser. Only when you click Get AI feedback is the recording sent, together with the time you spent on each slide and the file name of your presentation, to our server. It is processed there by AI models running on our own hardware in Switzerland (speech recognition and a language model). No third-party AI provider is involved. On the way, the recording passes encrypted through our web server (see “Hosting”) without being stored there.

Recordings, transcripts and feedback are processed in memory only and are not stored: they are discarded as soon as the result has been sent back to your browser. To protect the service from abuse, we temporarily keep your IP address together with the number of requests for at most one hour (rate limiting).

To use AI feedback you log in with your e-mail address: we send you a one-time login link (no password). We store your e-mail address, the date your account was created and of your last login, your credit balance, the number and dates of your analyses and your purchases (date, pack, amount). We need this to provide the feedback, to keep track of your credits and to prevent abuse (legal basis: contract; FADP Art. 31 / GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)).

To make sure the free analyses are given only once per mailbox, we keep a salted, irreversible hash of your e-mail address even after you delete your account (legitimate interest in preventing abuse, GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). It can't be turned back into your address. Throwaway e-mail domains can't be used. Login links expire after 15 minutes, login sessions after 90 days.

You can delete your account at any time on the account page. This deletes your e-mail address, credits, analysis history and purchase list immediately.

Login e-mails are sent through our e-mail provider, which processes your address only to deliver the message.

Credits are paid through Stripe Checkout, operated by Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd., 1 Grand Canal Street Lower, Dublin 2, Ireland. Stripe processes your payment details (e.g. card or TWINT), your e-mail address and the amount, and is itself responsible for this data under its privacy policy. We never see your card details; Stripe only tells us that the payment succeeded. Stripe may transfer data to the USA (Stripe, Inc. is certified under the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework). Stripe keeps payment records as required by law, also after you delete your SlideTimer account.

Our web server is rented from Hostinger International Ltd. (Cyprus) and located in a data centre in Europe. The AI models run on our own hardware in Switzerland, connected to the web server through an encrypted private network.

When you visit slidetimer.com our web server processes technical data such as IP address, date and time, requested page and browser type. This is necessary to deliver the website and keep it secure (legitimate interest). Logs are kept for a short period only.

• Login cookie (st_session, only if you log in): keeps you logged in for up to 90 days. Technically necessary, no consent required.
• Local storage: practice history, target times, notes and, if you bought credits, a note that this device should not show ads. It stays on your device and is never sent to us.
• Google advertising cookies: only on pages with ads, see below. In Switzerland, the EU and the UK they are only used after you agree in Google's consent dialog.

SlideTimer is financed by ads. Ads appear only on the home page, after a practice run next to the results and in our guides – never while you practise, in Study Mode or on the account and payment pages, and not at all for people who have bought credits. We use Google AdSense to show ads and may use Google Ads to measure the success of our own advertising. The provider is Google Ireland Ltd., Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland. Google may use cookies and similar technologies to show ads, limit how often you see them, measure their performance and, with your consent, personalise them. Data may be transferred to Google LLC in the USA, which is certified under the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

Visitors from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland are asked for consent before any advertising cookies are set. The consent dialog is Google's certified consent management platform (CMP) and stores your choice in a cookie. Without consent, Google can only show non-personalised ads using limited data (legal basis: consent, GDPR Art. 6(1)(a); FADP Art. 31). You can change or withdraw your choice at any time: Privacy settings.

More information: How Google uses information from sites that use its services. You can also manage personalised ads in your Google ad settings.

All fonts are served from our own server. No requests are made to Google Fonts.

You have the right to access, correct and delete your personal data, to restrict or object to processing, to data portability and to withdraw consent at any time. You can also lodge a complaint with a data protection authority (in Switzerland the FDPIC, in the EU the authority of your country). Contact us at slidetimer@proton.me.