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Privacy Policy

What Qivo does with your information, which is very little: it stays on your devices, apart from anonymous viewing trends you can turn off.

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The short version

  • No account. There’s no Qivo account, and we don’t ask for your name, email address or anything else to use Qivo.
  • On your device. Your providers, library, favourites, watch progress, settings and downloads are stored on your device. The apps don’t send them to us.
  • Passwords in the Keychain or Keystore. The passwords you type, and your playlist and TV guide addresses, are kept in the Keychain on Apple devices, and in storage encrypted with the Android Keystore on Android. The stream addresses in an M3U playlist, which can contain your login, are stored in the app’s private library database on your device.
  • Your devices, end-to-end encrypted. Saved logins can reach your other devices through iCloud Keychain or Google Block Store, end-to-end encrypted.
  • Anonymous viewing trends. When you’ve watched a movie or series for 30 seconds, the app tells our server its IMDb or TMDB ID (or both) and whether it’s a movie or a series, and nothing else: no account, device ID, provider or title name. We keep only a count per title per day, to show what’s popular. You can turn this off in Settings ▸ Share Anonymous Viewing Trends (see below).
  • Only the connections it needs. Qivo connects to the providers you add; to Apple and Google for purchases, saved logins and casting; and to our server for viewing trends.
  • No ads or tracking. Qivo’s own code has no ads, tracking or crash reporting, and the anonymous viewing trends are its only statistics. We don’t sell or share your information. Google components Qivo uses (Google Cast on both platforms, and Google Play Billing and Google Play services on Android) may send diagnostic data to Google (see below).

About this policy

This policy explains how the Qivo apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Android phones and tablets, Android TV and Google TV (together, “Qivo”), and this website, www.qivo.tv, handle information. Qivo is published by Qivo Team (“we”, “us”, “our”).

Qivo is a media player: it plays the sources you add, and doesn’t provide any content itself. Your providers have their own privacy policies for their services.

What stays on your device

Qivo keeps what it needs on the device you’re using:

  • Your providers: the name you give each one, its server or playlist address, your username, and the account status and expiry date your provider reports. Your passwords, and full M3U playlist and TV guide addresses (which often contain a login), are stored separately: in the Keychain on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV, and on Android encrypted with a key held in the Android Keystore.
  • Your library: the channels, TV guide, movies and series your providers list, with their descriptions, artwork and stream addresses, and a cache of artwork images. An M3U playlist’s stream addresses are stored as the playlist lists them, so if they contain your login, the library does too.
  • What you do in Qivo: favourite channels and categories, My List, watch progress and Continue Watching, recently watched channels, and the categories you’ve switched off. Search runs on your device too.
  • Your settings, including parental controls. The parental-controls PIN is kept in the Keychain or in Android Keystore-encrypted storage.
  • Downloads and recordings you make on iPhone, iPad, Mac or Android.
  • A few housekeeping details, such as which version of the Terms of Use you’ve accepted and whether Qivo Premium is active.

None of this is sent to us. The only thing the apps send us is described under Anonymous viewing trends.

Saved logins on your other devices

To save you typing, Qivo saves each provider login that connects successfully: its name with the server address, username and password, or with the playlist and TV guide addresses. Your other Apple devices, or your next Android device, then offer it under “Saved logins on your devices” when you add a provider. Qivo keeps the five most recent, and removing a provider in Qivo also removes its saved login.

  • iPhone, iPad and Mac: saved logins are stored in your iCloud Keychain, which is end-to-end encrypted and syncs between your devices signed in to the same Apple Account with iCloud Keychain turned on. Apple TV keeps its own copy, on that Apple TV only.
  • Android: saved logins are stored with Google’s Block Store. They’re kept on the device and, only when end-to-end encrypted backup is available (for example, when the device has a screen lock), backed up to your Google Account with that encryption, so they can be restored when you set up a new device. Otherwise they stay on the device, though a direct transfer to a new device can carry them over. Without Google Play services, Qivo doesn’t save logins.

We can’t read your saved logins: they stay in your own Apple or Google account, handled by Apple or Google under their privacy policies.

Device backups

  • Qivo leaves your library, favourites, watch progress, downloads and recordings out of iCloud and Android backups. The library is rebuilt from your providers when you add them again.
  • Your settings can be included in your device’s own backup (iCloud Backup or Android backup) if you’ve turned that on.
  • Provider passwords stored on a device aren’t restored to a different device. On Android, your Premium status isn’t backed up either: Google Play confirms it on each device.

Who Qivo connects to

  • Your providers. Qivo connects to the servers you add, and to the addresses your providers’ data points to: streams, TV guides and artwork, which can be hosted elsewhere. Like any service you use, these servers receive your IP address, your login and what you request, and handle them under their own policies. If an address starts with http:// rather than https://, the connection to it isn’t encrypted.
  • Apple and Google, for purchases (the App Store and Google Play), saved logins (iCloud Keychain and Block Store) and casting (see AirPlay, Chromecast and external displays), and for the diagnostic data Google’s components may send (see No ads or tracking).
  • Our server, www.qivo.tv, for anonymous viewing trends: the apps send it the IMDb or TMDB IDs of what you watch, unless you turn that off, and download its lists of what’s popular.
  • Links you open, such as a trailer or these legal pages, open in your browser or in the app they belong to.

Qivo doesn’t connect anywhere else, and sends us nothing besides those viewing trends.

Qivo can show what’s popular with other Qivo viewers, such as the movies and series watched most today and this week, limited to the titles your providers have. To make those lists, the apps share what’s being watched, anonymously:

  • What’s sent: when you’ve watched a movie or an episode for 30 seconds, the app sends our server the title’s IMDb ID, its TMDB ID or both, whichever your provider lists (for an episode, the series’ IDs), and whether it’s a movie or a series. It sends each title at most once a day.
  • What isn’t: no account, name or email address; no device or advertising ID; no provider, login or stream address; no title names; and no times, time zone, language or location. Nothing links one report to another, or to you.
  • How it’s stored: the server adds one to that title’s count for the day (in UTC) and keeps only those daily totals per title, and, from reports with both IDs, which IMDb and TMDB IDs belong to the same title. There’s no record of individual plays, or of who or which device played what, so we can’t tell what you watched.
  • Your IP address reaches our server, as with any request on the internet, and the server doesn’t store it. To limit abuse, it uses the address only to place the report in one of 4,096 broad groups of addresses (each covers about a million, so a group can’t point to anyone), and for the current day counts the reports of each title from each group, so that no one can push a title up the lists. Those counts are deleted when the day is over. The company that hosts our website may keep your IP address in its standard access logs, if it keeps them (see This website).
  • The lists: anyone can download the lists of the most-watched titles of today and this week, as IMDb and TMDB IDs. A title only appears once it has been played at least 3 times on the same day, and each device counts a title once a day, so one device’s viewing never puts a title on a list. Your app downloads the lists and checks on your device which of the titles your providers have; it doesn’t tell us what’s in your library.
  • How long: the daily totals are deleted after 400 days.

To stop sharing, turn off Settings ▸ Share Anonymous Viewing Trends. The app then sends nothing; it still shows the trending lists, as downloading them doesn’t send anything about you.

No ads or tracking

Qivo’s own code contains no advertising, crash reporting or tracking, and its only statistics are the anonymous viewing trends, which aren’t linked to you or your device. It doesn’t use advertising identifiers or track you across other companies’ apps and websites. We don’t sell, rent or share your information.

Qivo does use some Google components: Google Cast for Chromecast on both platforms (see below), and on Android the Google Play Billing Library for purchases and Google Play services for Chromecast and saved logins. These may send diagnostic data to Google, which handles it under the Google Privacy Policy; it doesn’t come to us.

Purchases

Qivo Premium is bought through the App Store or Google Play, and Apple or Google processes the payment. We never see your payment details. The store tells Qivo which plan is active and when it renews or ends, so Qivo can unlock Premium; Qivo keeps that status on your device. Apple and Google give developers sales and financial reports, which we use only for accounting.

AirPlay, Chromecast and external displays

  • Chromecast: when you cast, Qivo sends the Chromecast or Google TV the address of the stream and the title, subtitle and artwork of what’s playing, and the device then plays the stream straight from your provider. For Xtream Codes providers the stream address contains your username and password, so only cast to devices you trust.
  • AirPlay is handled by Apple: the video, or the address of the stream, goes to the AirPlay receiver you choose.
  • External displays show the picture on a screen connected to your device; nothing is sent over the network.

Chromecast support uses Google’s Cast software: the Google Cast SDK in the iPhone and iPad app, and Google Play services on Android. It may send Google diagnostic and usage information about casting, such as a device identifier. Google handles that information under the Google Privacy Policy; it doesn’t come to us.

Permissions

Qivo only asks for what its features need:

  • Local network (iPhone and iPad): to find Chromecast devices on your network. iOS asks the first time you tap the Cast button.
  • Notifications (iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android): to tell you about downloads and recordings, for example when one finishes or when storage runs low. Qivo asks the first time you download or record something.
  • Background work and “Alarms & reminders” (Android): so downloads and recordings carry on in the background, and scheduled recordings start on time, even after the device restarts.

Qivo doesn’t ask for your location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone.

This website

www.qivo.tv doesn’t use cookies, analytics, advertising or tracking, and it doesn’t load anything from other companies’ servers: its fonts, images and scripts all come from the site itself. If you pick an accent colour on the site, your browser remembers it in its own storage; it isn’t sent to us.

Like most websites, the server that hosts the site may record standard technical information in its logs, such as your IP address, browser, the page requested and the time, to keep the site running and secure. That includes the apps’ requests for viewing trends.

When Qivo is installed, your device’s operating system (or Apple or Google on its behalf) fetches a small file from this website to confirm that links to www.qivo.tv may open in the app. That request doesn’t include anything about you or how you use Qivo.

When you contact us

If you email us, we use your email address and message only to answer you, and keep them only as long as we need to for that. Please never send us your provider passwords.

Children

Qivo isn’t directed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone, children included: the apps send us only the anonymous viewing trends described above, which aren’t linked to anyone. Parents can use Settings ▸ Parental Controls to limit ratings and hide adult categories behind a PIN. These controls depend on the ratings and categories your provider supplies, so they can’t catch everything.

Your choices and your data

Your information stays on your devices, so you’re in control of it:

  • Remove a provider: in Settings, select the provider, then Remove Provider. This removes its channels, movies and series, your favourites and progress with them, and its login from the device, and forgets its saved login on your other devices.
  • Delete downloads and recordings: Settings ▸ Downloads & Recordings.
  • Clear cached artwork: Settings ▸ About ▸ Clear Artwork Cache.
  • Stop sharing viewing trends: turn off Settings ▸ Share Anonymous Viewing Trends.
  • Delete Qivo from an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Android device to remove its library, settings and downloads there. On Apple devices, remove your providers in Qivo first: the Keychain keeps their passwords and playlist addresses after the app is deleted, and removing a provider deletes them (the parental-controls PIN stays in the Keychain). On a Mac, also delete the folder ~/Library/Containers/net.mindzone.Qivo, which holds Qivo’s library, settings and downloads. Removing your providers first also erases their saved logins from iCloud Keychain or Block Store.
  • Cancel Qivo Premium in your App Store or Google Play account settings.

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or move your personal information, or to object to how it’s used. The viewing trends we keep are anonymous daily totals that can’t be linked to you, so we usually won’t hold any information about you; if you’ve emailed us, you can ask to see or delete that correspondence. You can also contact your local data protection authority.

Security

Qivo keeps your information inside the app’s private storage, protected by your device’s own security. The passwords you type, your playlist and TV guide addresses and the parental-controls PIN are encrypted by the Keychain or the Android Keystore, and saved logins travel end-to-end encrypted. The stream addresses from an M3U playlist, which can contain your login, are stored in the app’s private library database on the device, not in the Keychain or Keystore. No system is perfectly secure, so keep your devices up to date and protected with a passcode or screen lock.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when Qivo changes or the law requires it. The date at the top of this page shows when it last changed. When we make a significant change, the apps ask you to accept the updated terms and policy before you carry on.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Get in touch:

Qivo Team
Email: support@qivo.tv