Last Updated: 15 July 2026
1. General Information
This Privacy Policy applies to the mobile application “GNEWS Reader” (the “App”), operated and provided by Česká mediální kancelář z. s. (“we”, “us”, “our”). The App is a free, non-commercial, ad-free news reading application that displays news content published on our website https://gnews.cz/ and provides a search function operated exclusively on our own servers. From version 2.0, the App also offers an optional user account and related reader features. Reading the news remains free and does not require an account.
This policy is published in compliance with the Google Play Developer Policies and the Apple App Store Review Guidelines, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 and applicable European Union and European Economic Area data protection laws, as well as applicable United States federal and California state privacy laws, including the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA), the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA), and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
By downloading, installing, accessing, or using the App, you confirm that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.
2. Data Controller
Česká mediální kancelář z. s.
Bermanova 1009/12, Prague 9, 196 00, the Czech Republic
Registered under file number L 79146 at the Municipal Court in Prague, Czech Republic, ID No.: 21633100. For any question, request or complaint regarding your personal data, contact us at the address above.
3. What Data We Process, Why, and on What Legal Basis
You can browse and read articles anonymously, without an account; for this we do not require you to provide any personal data. If you choose to create an account and use the reader features, we process the following categories of personal data:
Account data — your e-mail address, username and password, together with e-mail-verification and password-reset tokens. The password is never stored in readable form; it is protected using the argon2id hashing algorithm. Purpose: to create and secure your account, verify your e-mail address and let you reset your password. Legal basis: performance of a contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).
Account preferences — your interface language, display currency and login-streak / badge counters. Purpose: to provide the App as you prefer and to operate these features. Legal basis: performance of a contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).
Newsletter opt-in — if you opt in, we store your choice together with the date and time of your consent. Purpose: to send you the newsletter and to prove your consent. Legal basis: consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you can withdraw at any time.
Sessions — when you log in we create a session. We store a SHA-256 hash of the session token, the IP address and the user agent (device/browser type) used, with a 30-day expiry. Sessions are revocable — you can log out of individual sessions. On your device, the App additionally stores its authentication token pair in encrypted form using the Android Keystore. Purpose: to keep you signed in securely, detect misuse and let you manage your sessions. Legal basis: performance of a contract and our legitimate interest in the security of the service (Article 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR).
Comments, votes and abuse reports — the comments you post, the votes you cast and any abuse reports you submit. Purpose: to operate the discussion function and to moderate content. Legal basis: performance of a contract, and our legitimate interest and legal obligation in moderating illegal or harmful content (Article 6(1)(b), (f) and (c) GDPR).
Favourites, saved articles and reading history — the articles you mark as favourite or save, and your reading history (articles read, timestamps and read counts). Please note that on a news site your reading history can reveal your opinions and interests; we therefore treat it with particular care, keep it strictly for your own use in the App and never use it to build advertising profiles. Purpose: to provide the favourites, saved-articles and history features. Legal basis: performance of a contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).
Daily quiz / word-game attempts — your attempts and results in the daily quiz and word game. Purpose: to provide these features and show your progress. Legal basis: performance of a contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).
User-block relationships — the users you choose to block. Purpose: to hide content from users you have blocked. Legal basis: performance of a contract and legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR).
Contact-form submissions — the message and contact details you send us. Purpose: to answer your enquiry. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in responding to you, or steps taken at your request (Article 6(1)(f) and (b) GDPR).
Search queries. Search queries you enter in the App are sent to our own self-hosted search proxy (sch.gnews.cz). They are used only to return search results; they are not linked to your account and are not used to profile you.
We do not carry out any profiling or automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
4. Analytics and Sponsored Content
We use only first-party, self-hosted analytics derived from our own server logs, including a coarse (approximate) geographic location derived from the IP address. We do not use any third-party analytics, advertising networks, cross-site tracking or third-party trackers. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in understanding and improving the service (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). Any sponsored banners shown in the App are contextual only — they are not based on behavioural targeting and involve no tracking — and are labelled “Sponsored”.
5. No Third-Party SDKs, No Advertising ID, No Tracking
The App contains no third-party analytics or advertising software development kits (SDKs), no advertising networks and no social-media trackers. It collects no advertising identifier (no AAID / IDFA) and no device identifiers for tracking purposes, and it performs no cross-app or cross-site tracking. This corresponds to the information we provide in the Google Play Data safety section and the Apple App Store privacy (“nutrition label”) disclosures.
6. Recipients and Processors
We do not sell your personal data and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We share personal data only with:
Brevo, our e-mail delivery provider, acting as a processor, which sends transactional e-mails (e-mail verification and password reset) on our behalf; alternatively, these e-mails may be sent from our own SMTP server.
Public authorities, where required by a binding, lawful order. In such cases we limit disclosure to the minimum necessary and challenge overly broad requests where legally permitted.
The App and its data are operated exclusively on our own servers.
7. Data Retention
Account data and preferences: kept for as long as your account exists; erased or anonymized when you delete your account (see section 8).
Sessions: expire after 30 days, or sooner if you log out or revoke them; expired and revoked sessions are deleted.
Comments: kept while your account exists; on deletion they are tombstoned (content removed, shown as “deleted”).
Favourites, saved articles, reading history, quiz / word-game attempts, votes, abuse reports and block relationships: kept while your account exists and hard-deleted when you delete your account.
Newsletter consent record: kept until you withdraw consent or delete your account, and for a reasonable period afterwards as proof of consent.
Contact-form submissions: kept for as long as necessary to handle your enquiry and any follow-up.
8. Deleting Your Account and Your Data
You can delete your account at any time — on the web at /account/delete or directly in the App (in line with the Apple App Store and Google Play in-app account-deletion requirements). When you delete your account:
your account personal data (e-mail, username, password hash, tokens, preferences) is scrubbed;
your sessions are revoked and deleted;
your activity records (favourites, reading history, votes, quiz / word-game attempts, blocks and abuse reports) are hard-deleted;
your comments are tombstoned — their content is removed and they are shown as deleted so that replies from other users remain intelligible.
9. Content Moderation, Reporting and Blocking
The App lets you report objectionable or illegal comments (the “report” action on every comment) and block other users. Reported content is reviewed, normally within 24 hours. Anyone, including people without an account, can also notify us of allegedly illegal content via our contact page. Where we remove content or restrict an account, we state the reasons for the decision, and you can contest it through our contact channel. Further details are set out in our Terms of Use.
10. Your Rights Under the GDPR
If you are in the European Economic Area, you have the right to: access your personal data; have inaccurate data rectified; have your data erased (“right to be forgotten”); restrict processing; data portability; object to processing based on our legitimate interests; and withdraw consent at any time (without affecting processing carried out before withdrawal).
To exercise any of these rights — including the right to data portability, which we fulfil through our support contact — write to generalnews@gnews.cz. You can also delete your account yourself as described in section 8. We may ask you to verify your identity.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority. In the Czech Republic this is the Office for Personal Data Protection (Úřad pro ochranu osobních údajů, www.uoou.cz).
11. United States & California Privacy Rights
This section applies to users in the United States, and in particular to residents of California.
We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by the CCPA/CPRA, and we do not use personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information beyond the purposes permitted by the CCPA/CPRA.
In the past 12 months we have collected the following categories of personal information (as defined by the CCPA/CPRA), for the purposes described in section 3: identifiers (e.g. e-mail address, username, IP address); internet or other electronic network activity (e.g. comments, favourites, reading history within the App, quiz activity); and geolocation data limited to a coarse, approximate location derived from your IP address. We collect it from you directly and from your use of the App.
California residents have the right to know about and access their personal information, to request its deletion, to request correction of inaccurate personal information, and not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. To exercise them, e-mail generalnews@gnews.cz or use the account deletion page at /account/delete. We will verify your request before acting on it.
Do Not Track (CalOPPA). Because we do not track users across third-party websites or services, we do not respond differently to “Do Not Track” (DNT) browser or device signals — there is no cross-site tracking for such a signal to stop.
Shine the Light. We do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct-marketing purposes.
Children (COPPA). The App is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal data, contact us and we will delete it.
12. Data Security
We apply appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect personal data, including HTTPS encryption in transit, argon2id password hashing, hashed session tokens, encrypted on-device token storage via the Android Keystore, and access controls. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we act to minimize risks and will comply with applicable breach-notification requirements under the GDPR, the CCPA/CPRA and other relevant laws.
13. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes take effect when the revised version is posted with an updated “Last Updated” date. We will signal material changes in the App.
14. Contact
Česká mediální kancelář z. s.
Bermanova 1009/12, Prague 9, 196 00, the Czech Republic