Privacy

Basement is software you run yourself. Your library, your account and what you watch stay on your own server. The Basement project runs no service the apps report to.

The apps (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Android, Android TV)

• They connect only to the Basement server you choose, which you or someone you know runs. Everything you do in the app (signing in, browsing, playing, downloading) goes to that server, and nowhere else.
• On your device they keep the server's address, your sign-in (in the iOS Keychain or Android Keystore), downloaded videos, and the viewing progress of downloads until it reaches your server. Signing out removes that account's sign-in and downloads.
• To find your server at home, they look on your local network (Bonjour/mDNS and a local broadcast). That is the only reason they ask for local network access.
• The Basement project has no advertising, analytics, crash reporting or tracking of its own, and no account with the project. Nothing is sold or shared.
• Casting. The iPhone, iPad and Android phone apps include Google's Cast library so you can play on a TV with Chromecast or Google Cast built in. Google's library sends Google an anonymous device identifier, diagnostic data and how casting is used, to run and improve casting. It is not linked to you or used for tracking; Google's privacy policy applies. The Apple TV and Android TV apps don't include it.
• Trailers. A title's trailer plays from YouTube (its privacy-enhanced player on the web, YouTube's page or app on phones and TVs), so YouTube sees that request under its own privacy policy. Nothing goes to YouTube unless you play a trailer.
• Watch party chat. When you chat along with what a TV is playing, your messages, reactions and the name you give go through the Basement server you're watching on, to the people in that watch party. The server keeps them in memory only while the party lasts, never writes them to disk or its logs, and forgets them when it ends. You can report a message to the host, or block someone so you no longer see theirs.
• GIFs. Only if a server's owner turns them on with their own Tenor or GIPHY key: what you type in GIF search is sent by the server to that service, which also supplies the pictures. Your device never contacts it, and the service sees the server, not you.

Your server

• It keeps the accounts, profiles, watch history and requests of the people you invite, on your computer. Passwords and sign-in keys are stored hashed; keys Basement has to read back (for example to talk to apps you connect) are encrypted.
• To show artwork and details it asks TMDB (themoviedb.org) about titles in your library, and, for music and books, MusicBrainz and the Cover Art Archive and Open Library about the albums and books you have. These are on by default and the owner can turn them off. Those services see the lookups, not who watches what. To check for updates it reads a public release file. If you connect the request apps you run (such as Lidarr) or email, it talks to the services you set up. If its owner adds an OpenAI or Anthropic (Claude) key for Ask, what you type into Ask goes to that service along with, unless the owner turns it off, the titles you can see in the library and your recent watches.
• Watch party chat stays in its memory while a party lasts and is never saved; a removed guest's address is kept (as a one-way hash) only for that party, to keep them out.
• If its owner turns on a relay, apps away from home may connect through it. The relay passes the connection on still encrypted; whoever runs it sees the server's relay name, connection times and amounts of data.

Children

The Basement project collects nothing from anyone, children included (the phone apps' casting library sends Google only the anonymous data described above). Profile limits (ratings, PINs) are set and kept on your own server.

Questions

Email hello@getbasement.app. If this policy changes, the change is published here.

Last updated 9 November 2026.