Privacy policy

Stencil is booking software used by tattoo studios. This policy covers the information handled when you message a studio through its website chat or through Instagram, and when a studio records your booking.

The studio you are contacting is the data controller for its own client records. Stencil provides the software and processes that information on the studio's behalf.

It also covers the people who work at a studio and use the Stencil app on their phone: artists and studio admins. That part is below, under “If you use the Stencil app”.

• The messages you send, and the assistant's replies, kept as a transcript so the studio can see what was agreed.
• Contact details you choose to give: name, and an email address or phone number.
• What you want tattooed: the design, placement, rough size and style.
• Booking and payment records once a session is arranged, including what deposit is expected or received.
• On Instagram, an account identifier Meta provides so replies reach the right conversation.

Health information such as allergies or reactions to ink is collected only on a consent form, in person at the studio, and never through a chat. Do not send payment card details, bank details or identity document numbers in a message. The assistant is instructed to refuse them.

To answer your questions, check real availability, quote honestly, and put a booking request in front of the studio. A member of the studio confirms every booking; the assistant cannot book chair time by itself.

Aggregate counts, such as how many enquiries arrived from Instagram versus the website, are used to help the studio understand where its work comes from. That reporting does not identify you.

Replies in the website chat and in Instagram direct messages are generated by an automated assistant, which says so in its first message. To produce a reply, the text of the conversation is sent to OpenAI, which provides the language model, and is not used by them to train models. You can ask to speak to a person at any point and the conversation will be handed over.

The app is for artists and studio admins. When you use it, Stencil keeps:

• Your login: email address and password (the password only as a secure hash).
• Your profile: name, Instagram @, city, the languages you speak and the styles you work in.
• Your setup: the days and hours you work, what you take on, how long pieces take, and the days you mark as off.
• Pictures you choose to add to your portfolio. The app only opens the pictures you pick; it never uses the camera or microphone.
• Your answers to booking requests, and the bookings in your calendar.
• If you turn notifications on, a notification address for your phone, so new requests reach you.

It is used to send you requests, show your bookings, and let the studio's booking assistant describe your work and offer your free times. The studios you are part of see it. Nothing is sold, there are no ads, and nothing in the app tracks you across other apps or websites.

You can delete your account in the app at any time: Account, then Delete my account. Your login, profile and portfolio pictures are deleted straight away and you leave every studio you are in. The bookings you did and the studio's clients stay with the studio, because they are its records.

• The studio you contacted, and its artists.
• Supabase, which hosts the database, inside the EU.
• Vercel, which runs the application.
• OpenAI, which generates the assistant's replies.
• Expo and Apple, which deliver the app's notifications, if you turn them on.
• Meta, if you chose to message through Instagram, under its own privacy policy.

Your information is not sold, and it is not used for advertising.

Conversations and client records are kept while the studio has a reason to keep them, normally so it can look after work it has already done for you. Consent forms are legal records and some jurisdictions require studios to retain them for a set number of years, so those may outlive a request to delete other information.

You can ask the studio for a copy of what it holds about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted. Contact the studio directly and it will action the request, subject to the retention rule above for consent forms.

For anything about this policy, contact the studio you were speaking to. For questions about the software itself or the app, write to hello@studiosuite.art.