How Cake handles personal information

About this policy

Cake is booking software for tattoo artists. This policy covers cake.ink, Cake Studio, artist booking pages, and the services an artist chooses to connect to Cake. In this policy, “Cake,” “we,” and “us” mean Cake Ink LLC.

We describe the product as it works today. If a feature handles information differently, we will explain that before collecting the information and update this policy when appropriate.

Information Cake collects

• Artist information: name, email address, profile and portfolio images, booking settings, working hours, availability, deposit settings, payment handles, notification choices, and other information the artist adds to Studio.
• Client and booking information: name, contact information, tattoo-request details, reference images, messages, appointment details, consent information, and records of booking and deposit activity.
• Account and device information: sign-in and session records, IP address, browser or device information, push-notification tokens when notifications are enabled, and security or diagnostic events needed to keep Cake working safely.
• Website usage information: pages viewed, general device and browser information, and similar measurements that help us understand whether the public site works. The analytics choices described below apply to this collection.
• Connected-service information: information an artist authorizes Cake to receive from a service such as Google Calendar, or Stripe for card payments. The Google Calendar section below describes that access in detail.

How Cake uses information

We use personal information to:

• provide artist profiles, tattoo requests, scheduling, booking, deposits, consent records, messages, and notifications;
• authenticate accounts, remember settings, prevent abuse, protect Cake, and investigate problems;
• provide support and communicate about bookings, account activity, and material service changes;
• maintain, measure, and improve Cake; and
• meet legal obligations and enforce our terms.

We do not sell personal information for money. With the choice described below, Cake uses Meta Pixel on some public pages to measure visits and to show Cake's own ads to people who visited. Some state laws call that sharing personal information for targeted advertising. You can turn it off under Your privacy choices at the bottom of any public page.

Waitlist and email

If you join Cake's waitlist, we use your email to send waitlist status and onboarding messages, including when we are ready to onboard you. We may also send occasional updates about the waitlist. We send broader Cake updates only if you separately choose them. You can unsubscribe from update emails at any time with the one-click link in the message. Necessary waitlist, account, and security messages may continue. Resend delivers these emails for us.

Text messages and your mobile number

A booking request asks for a mobile number so an artist can reach a client about the booking. Cake sends text messages only to a client who checked the text-message box on that request, and only about that booking: one message confirming they signed up, then appointment reminders when their artist has reminders turned on. Cake texts US numbers only. Checking the box is optional and a booking works without it. Message and data rates may apply.

Cake never sells mobile numbers or text-message consent, and never shares them for anyone's marketing. A client's number reaches only their artist (and the artist's Google Calendar, if connected), Cake, Twilio (which sends Cake's texts), and the carrier delivering the message.

Reply STOP to any Cake text to stop them, START to resume, and HELP for help. Stopping texts does not cancel an appointment. Cake keeps a record of when consent was given and when it was withdrawn, including the exact wording shown at the time, because consent has to be provable.

Google Calendar data

Google Calendar is optional. Cake accesses it only after an artist chooses Connect in Studio, reviews Google's consent screen, and approves the requested permissions.

• Permissions: Cake requests calendar.freebusy, calendar.events.readonly, calendar.calendarlist.readonly, and calendar.app.created. Each permission and its purpose is explained on Cake's Google Calendar page.
• Calendar list: Cake reads the names, identifiers, primary status, and access roles of calendars in the artist's Google Calendar list so the artist can choose which calendars Cake checks.
• Selected-calendar access: Cake reads free/busy times and event names only from the artist's primary calendar or the calendars the artist selects. It uses free/busy times to avoid offering unavailable times. Event names help the artist recognize busy time in their authenticated private Studio.
• Storage and retention: Cake stores calendar names, identifiers, primary status, and the artist's selections while Google Calendar remains connected. Cake also keeps free/busy times and event names in a short-lived cache. It does not use a cached value after 60 seconds. Cake clears the cache when the artist changes selected calendars or disconnects Google Calendar; otherwise it removes expired entries during a later successful refresh.
• Sharing: Event names appear only to the artist in Studio. Cake does not show them to clients, send them to logs or analytics, or disclose them except to operate or secure the Calendar feature or comply with law. Cake does not use Google Calendar data for advertising. Cake will obtain the artist's explicit prior consent before transferring Google user data as part of a merger, acquisition, or asset sale.
• Cake sessions calendar: Cake creates a separate calendar and adds, updates, and removes Cake session events there. A session event contains the client's full name, its start and end times and time zone, and a private link back to that session in Cake Studio. Cake does not add, change, or delete events on calendars the artist created.

Read why Cake requests each Google Calendar permission

How Cake protects Google Calendar data

Cake sends Google Calendar data only over encrypted HTTPS connections. The Cloudflare Durable Object storage Cake uses for connected Calendar data is encrypted at rest. Cake encrypts refresh tokens for new Google connections with AES-GCM before storing them. If Cake encounters an older unencrypted refresh token, it encrypts that token before continuing to use the connection. OAuth access tokens remain in server memory only as needed to communicate with Google.

System access to connected Calendar data is limited to the artist's authenticated private Studio and the Cake services needed to provide and secure the Calendar feature. Cake's policy permits human access only when the artist gives explicit consent, which we document, to read specific data for support; access is necessary to investigate a security problem; or access is required by law. Cake excludes Google OAuth credentials and Calendar event names from logs and analytics.

Disconnecting Google Calendar

When the artist disconnects Google Calendar, Cake first deletes its stored Google OAuth credentials, calendar catalog, selected read set, selections, free/busy and event-name caches, and every other Google-derived identifier. After that local cleanup, Cake asks Google to revoke the connection. Cake makes one best-effort attempt to delete the separate Cake sessions calendar only when Cake recorded that calendar identifier from Google's successful response to Cake creating the calendar.

If creating or deleting a calendar has an uncertain result, Cake leaves that calendar untouched. A calendar's name, Cake marker, access role, appearance in the calendar list, prior target identifier, or older grant does not show that Cake created it and cannot authorize Cake to change or delete it. Cake does not keep a calendar identifier for a later cleanup attempt. Disconnecting does not delete booking and session records the artist or a client created in Cake.

Google API Limited Use

Cake's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements. Cake does not use Google Workspace API data to develop, improve, or train generalized artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models.

Cookies, local storage, and analytics

Cake uses secure, essential cookies to keep artists signed in and to protect account sessions. Cake may use local storage or a first-party cookie to remember privacy or interface choices on a device, such as turning ad measurement off.

On public pages, Google Analytics helps us understand visits and site performance. It may process information such as pages viewed and general browser, device, and approximate-location information. We use this information for measurement, not advertising. When a supported browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, Cake does not load Google Analytics.

On some public pages, Meta Pixel tells Meta that a browser visited Cake. Meta may set its own cookies and process the page address, browser and device information, and approximate location. Cake uses this to measure its ads and to show Cake ads to people who visited. Cake never sends Meta a handle, an email address, a name, or anything typed into a form, and Meta Pixel does not run on claim, verification, consent-form, privacy, or terms pages. Cake does not load Meta Pixel when a browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, or after you turn it off under Your privacy choices.

When you claim a handle in a browser where Meta Pixel already ran, Cake's server sends Meta one signal that a signup happened. The signal carries Meta's own browser cookie IDs, your browser's user agent, the time, and the claim page address, and nothing else: no handle, email, name, or IP address. Cake sends nothing when your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, or after you turn ad measurement off under Your privacy choices.

When Cake shares information

We disclose information only as described here:

• Cloudflare hosts and secures Cake, stores its data, and provides abuse-prevention tools.
• Stripe processes card deposits in Cake and Cake's own plan payments. Cake sends Stripe the booking details a card payment needs, such as the artist, the request and the appointment time. For a plan payment, Cake sends the artist's email. When an artist sets up card payments, Stripe collects the details it needs for the artist's own Stripe account and tells Cake whether that account can take payments, and when a deposit is paid or refunded. A client's card details go to Stripe, not Cake.
• Resend sends and receives service emails used by Cake.
• Twilio delivers the text messages Cake sends to clients who ask for them.
• Google provides connected Calendar features and public-site analytics. Google stores the separate Cake sessions calendar.
• Meta receives Meta Pixel visit signals from some public pages, and one signup signal from Cake's server after a handle claim, as described above, unless you turn it off.
• Notification providers (Expo and the device platform) deliver notifications when an artist enables them.

These providers process information on Cake's behalf or provide a service an artist or client requests, subject to their agreements and legal obligations. We may also disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law, protect a person or Cake from harm, investigate fraud or abuse, or complete a business transaction subject to appropriate protections. The stricter Google API Limited Use terms above continue to apply to Google user data.

Health and other sensitive details

A client may share a health detail relevant to a tattoo request, such as an allergy or skin condition. Cake makes that information available to the chosen artist to handle the request. We do not use it for advertising or unrelated purposes.

How Cake protects information

We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information from unauthorized access, loss, misuse, or alteration. These include encrypted HTTPS connections, encryption at rest in our hosting provider's systems, additional encryption for sensitive credentials such as Google refresh tokens, authenticated access controls, short-lived or hashed credentials where appropriate, and logging rules that exclude or redact personal information and secrets.

Cake's policy permits Cake staff to open the “Notes to self” an artist keeps on a client only to help with support or to fix a problem. Staff open a note from within the artist's Studio, and Cake records who opened it and when. The record does not contain the note.

No system can guarantee absolute security. We review safeguards as Cake changes and respond to suspected security incidents.

How long Cake keeps information

We keep personal information only as long as reasonably needed to provide Cake, maintain booking and consent records, meet legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, and protect the service. Retention depends on what the information is and why we need it. When information is no longer needed, we delete it or remove identifying details.

The Google Calendar section gives more specific retention and deletion terms for Google user data. Artists and clients may also request deletion using the contact information below. We may retain limited information when required by law or when necessary for security, fraud prevention, or an unresolved dispute.

Your choices

• Access and corrections: artists can review and change much of their information in Studio. Anyone may contact us to ask about access or correction.
• Google Calendar: an artist can change selected calendars or disconnect Google Calendar in Studio.
• Notifications and email: artists can change available notification choices. Marketing messages, if any, include a way to opt out; necessary booking, account, and security messages may continue.
• Analytics signals: Cake honors supported Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track signals as described above.
• Ad measurement: turn Meta Pixel off under Your privacy choices at the bottom of any public page where Meta Pixel can run. The choice is kept in this browser, in local storage and a first-party cookie.
• Deletion: contact us to request deletion. We will verify the request and explain if a narrow legal or security exception applies.

Depending on where a person lives, local law may provide additional privacy rights. We will respond to requests as applicable law requires and will not discriminate against someone for exercising a privacy right.

Private booking links

Cake gives clients private booking links instead of client passwords. A link opens only the booking it identifies, but anyone holding the link can open it. Keep it private and contact the artist or Cake if it may have been shared with the wrong person.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page when Cake's data practices materially change and revise the “Last updated” date above. If a change materially affects how we use personal information, we will provide additional notice when appropriate.

Contact Cake

For privacy questions or requests, write to support@cake.ink or Cake Ink LLC, 3723 Greenville Ave, STE 19747, Dallas, TX 75206 USA.