Privacy Policy

This policy explains how Babel42(“we”, “us”) collects and processes personal data, covering both data about you (our user) and data about people whose public posts are captured by your monitors. Babel42 is operated by Babel42 Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17269551), whose registered office is Unit 2/10, 259 Hospital Street, Birmingham, United Kingdom, B19 2YF. Babel42 Ltd is the data controller. By using Babel42 you agree to this policy and to our Terms of Service.

This single policy covers both the babel42.io website and the Babel42 application at app.babel42.io.

1. Data we collect

About you (account & website data): your email address, display name, industry, account preferences, and billing details (payment identifiers and subscription status held by our payment processor (we never store full card numbers)). On the website, if you choose to give it: newsletter sign-ups (your email) and contact messages (your name, email, optional company and message).

Collected public content (monitoring data): when you create keyword monitors or track channels, we collect and store publicsocial-media posts and associated public metadata that match your queries from the platforms you select. This can include the post text, the author’s public handle/display name, public follower or subscriber counts, public engagement metrics, post URLs, timestamps, and, where the platform exposes it, approximate location. See section 9 for how we treat the personal data of people who are not Babel42 users.

2. YouTube API Services

Babel42 uses the YouTube Data API v3 to search for and display public YouTube video data. By using Babel42’s YouTube monitoring features, you also agree to the YouTube Terms of Service.

Raw YouTube metrics we store come directly from the YouTube API response: video titles, descriptions, thumbnails, channel names, channel IDs, subscriber counts, view counts, like counts and comment counts, and are not altered. Any sentiment label or other analysis Babel42 shows is our own estimate, generated by our system as described in section 4; it is clearly distinct from YouTube’s data and is not presented as a YouTube-provided metric.

We keep the public YouTube data we store current by re-querying the YouTube Data API to refresh it at least every 30 days, and we remove stored video data once the underlying video is deleted or made private on YouTube, in line with the YouTube API Services Terms. Your plan’s retention window (section 6) governs how long matched content remains visible to you; stored YouTube data is kept up to date through this 30-day refresh cycle.

Google’s privacy policy governs YouTube data. Please review it at google.com/policies/privacy. You may revoke Babel42’s access to your Google account data at any time via Google’s security settings at security.google.com/settings.

3. How we use data

We use your account data to provide and bill the service, authenticate you, and contact you about your account. We use website data to reply to you and send any newsletter you asked for. We use collected public content to power the monitoring, analytics and dashboards you have configured. We do not use your data for advertising and we do not sell it.

4. Automated analysis & AI (estimates)

Babel42 applies automated analysis to collected posts, including sentiment classification, engagement-rate calculation and a coarse gender estimate inferred from public profile information. To classify sentiment we send post text to a third-party AI provider (Anthropic; see section 8).

These outputs are estimates produced by automated models and may be inaccurate or incomplete. They are provided for general insight only and should not be relied upon as fact or used as the sole basis for any decision that produces legal or similarly significant effects about a person. You can contact us to object to or request correction of an inferred attribute.

5. Cookies & local storage

The babel42.io website uses a strictly-necessary cookie to remember your cookie choices, and, only if you opt in, Google Analytics cookies to understand aggregate usage. You can change or withdraw consent any time via Cookie settings or our Cookie Policy. The application uses browser localStorage (not cookies) to hold your authentication token on your device so we can authenticate your requests; it does not use tracking or advertising cookies.

6. Data retention

Collected mention and channel-post data is retained according to your plan: Free 90 days, Starter 180 days, Growth 365 days, Scale 730 days, Enterprise unlimited (until you delete it). Billing and transaction records are kept for as long as required by applicable accounting and tax law. You may delete your account and its associated data at any time from account settings; deletion is processed promptly and completed within 30 days.

7. Data sharing

We do not sell your personal data. We share data only with the sub-processors listed in section 8, where required to operate the service, or where required by law.

8. Sub-processors

We rely on a small number of third parties to operate Babel42. The providers below store or process personal data on our instructions and under data-processing terms:

• Railway: application hosting and database (stores your account data and the public posts your monitors collect).
• Vercel: hosting for the babel42.io website.
• Stripe: payment processing and subscription billing.
• Anthropic: AI text analysis; post text is sent to generate sentiment estimates.
• Brevo: email delivery for newsletter sign-ups and contact replies.

To gather public content we also use third-party data-collection providers (currently including Apify, Bright Data and NewsData.io) to retrieve public posts and articles from platforms that lack a suitable native API; we send them search terms and they return public content. We may change these providers as platforms and their APIs evolve.

The public APIs of the platforms you monitor (e.g. Google/YouTube, X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Tumblr, Hacker News, DEV.to) act as data sources. Some of these providers are located outside the UK; where personal data is transferred internationally we rely on appropriate safeguards (e.g. the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or standard contractual clauses).

9. Personal data of monitored individuals (non-users)

Social listening necessarily processes personal data of people who are not Babel42 users. The authors of public posts that match a user’s query. For this processing we act as a controller (and, for content you configure, alongside you). Our lawful basis is our and our users’ legitimate interest in monitoring public discussion of brands, topics and people in the public domain, balanced against the rights of those individuals; we only process content that is already public, and we apply the retention limits in section 6.

If you are an individual whose public posts have been collected and you want them removed, or wish to object to processing, email support@babel42.io and we will action it in line with applicable law.

10. Your rights (UK GDPR)

If you are in the UK or EEA, you have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict, object to, and port your personal data, and to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk. Contact support@babel42.io to exercise these rights.

11. Children

Babel42 is not directed to children. You must be at least 16 years old (or the minimum age in your country) to create an account. We do not knowingly collect account data from children.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will revise the “last updated” date above and, for material changes, notify account holders by email or in-app. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

13. Contact

Questions about this policy, or to exercise your rights? Email support@babel42.io. A postal address is available on request.

This policy is provided in good faith for transparency and does not constitute legal advice.