Privacy
What we do with your details.
Last updated 4 August 2026
Caught At The Surface is a home photography studio in the Philippines. To photograph you we have to hold a few things about you, and this page says what those are, why we have them and how long we keep them. We do not sell any of it and we do not use it for advertising. If anything here is unclear, email caughtatthesurface@gmail.com and we will explain.
When you book a session
The booking form asks for your name, your mobile number, and your email address if you want a copy of the confirmation. It also records the package you picked, the date and time you asked for, and anything you write in the notes. We need your name and number to hold the date and to reach you about it, and your email only to send confirmations. There is no account to create and no password to remember, so we find your bookings by your mobile number. If you use a promo code, the booking keeps a note of which offer it was and what it took off. Some codes are meant for one person, or can only be used once each, and for those we keep a record of which offer went with which booking so that we can tell whether it has been used. If we send you a code that is yours alone, your number is what makes it yours. We do not use any of this to work out what you respond to, and there is no advertising here to use it for. We also keep a record of what you paid: the amount, whether it came by GCash, bank transfer or cash, and any reference number you send us. Card details never reach this website, so we have none to store.
Your photos
Photos from your session go into a private gallery. It opens with the QR link or with the code and PIN we give you, and with a share link if you decide to make one. Galleries are not listed anywhere on the site, are kept out of search engines, and expire after a while. We hold on to the originals so we can send them again if you lose your copies. Your gallery has a button that makes a separate link you can send to family. It is a different link from your own, and anyone who opens it can look through the photos and nothing else. They cannot download them and they cannot change which ones you have marked as favourites. The link lasts a fortnight and you can stop it whenever you like from the same place you made it, which stops it working straight away even if it has already been passed on to somebody else. We keep a record of when a share link was made, opened and stopped, and the studio can stop yours for you if you ask. Nothing from your session appears on this website unless you have told us it can. We record your permission when you give it, and the studio's own tools will not let us publish a photo of yours before then. Even after you have agreed, we pick the photos one at a time rather than publishing a whole gallery. A photo we do publish is copied into the public part of the site, so it stays up after your private gallery has expired. If you change your mind, email us and we will take it down.
If we ask what you thought
A few days after you have opened your gallery we may email you once to ask for a line about your session. There is a link in it to a page where you can write one, and the link works for a month and only once. We ask a customer this a single time, and never again, whether or not you answer. If you would rather we did not, tell us and we will note it. If you do write something, we keep what you wrote, the name you asked to be shown as, and which session it was about. It sits with the studio until someone here has read it. Nothing you write goes on the website unless we put it there, and when we do, the page shows the name you chose and the kind of session, not your full name, your number or your email address. Ask us to take it down or to change the name on it and we will, that day.
If we send you a code
Some time after a session we may email you once with a code for money off your next one. It is worked out from your bookings and nothing else: that you came, and when. We do not buy anything about you, we do not track you around the internet, and we do not work out what you respond to. A code we send is tied to your mobile number, so it is yours and nobody else can use it. We keep the code, what it is worth, when it runs out and whether it has been used. Each kind of code is sent to a person once and never again, and nothing is sent to you at all if there is no email address on your booking. If you would rather we did not send these, tell us and we will note it. There is no mailing list here to leave.
If you message us on Facebook
The Message us buttons open Messenger. Facebook does not pass us your name, your number or any identifier for you, so this website learns nothing about the conversation. All it records is that a button was tapped, which is described under What we measure. Whatever you write in Messenger is held by Facebook and covered by Meta's privacy policy rather than by this one. An instant reply there comes from Facebook's own automatic replies and not from this website. If you would rather not use Messenger, email us instead.
When you write to us
The form on the help page asks for your name, your email address, your mobile number if you want to give it, and whatever you write. We keep it so we can answer you and so we can find the conversation again later, and a copy is emailed to the studio so that a message does not sit in a form unread. We reply from our own inbox, so your message and our answer also sit with our email provider. There is no mailing list here, so writing to us does not put you on one. Messages are deleted a year after we have dealt with them. Ask us sooner and we will delete yours right away.
What we measure
We count how often the Message us buttons are tapped, so we know which parts of the site are worth keeping. What gets stored is a one-way hash of the network address that tapped, never the address itself, and it exists so that one person cannot run the count up on their own. Forms that could be hammered only allow a few attempts at a time, so that nobody can sit and guess their way into somebody's gallery or into a staff account. Each attempt is stored as a one-way hash of the network address and of whatever was entered, which is enough to count them and not enough to read them back. We also keep a note when the site turns a request away, so we can see whether somebody is trying to reach an account or a gallery that is not theirs. A note says what was refused and when. It never holds a PIN or a password, and an email address in one is hashed like everything else here. This site carries no advertising trackers, no analytics scripts and no third-party cookies.
Cookies and what your browser keeps
A few, all of them set by this site and none of them used to follow you anywhere else. Opening your gallery sets a signed cookie so you do not have to type the PIN on every page, and it lasts a day. Sending a booking request, or looking one up afterwards, sets one that opens that booking's page for a week. Your browser also remembers on your own device that you have been here before, so a return visit does not jump you back to the top of the homepage. While you are filling in a booking, what you have typed is kept in that browser tab, so a reload or a dropped connection does not lose it. It stays on your device and your browser throws it away when you close the tab. On a shared or borrowed phone, closing the tab is enough to clear it.
Who else can see it
The studio's own staff, and the companies whose services this website runs on: Vercel hosts the site, Supabase stores the database and the photos on servers in Sydney, Google or Resend carries our email, and Meta runs Messenger. They handle it on our behalf and are not allowed to use it for their own purposes. We will hand information over if the law requires it, and for nothing else.
How long we keep it
Booking and payment records are kept as business records. Galleries expire and are then archived, and the photos are eventually deleted from storage. Of the things described under What we measure, the attempt counts are deleted after a day, the notes about refused requests after ninety days, and the button taps after a little over a year. If you want us to delete your details, ask us and we will, apart from anything we have to keep for tax or accounting.
Your rights
Under the Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012 you can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete or block it, and object to how we use it. Email caughtatthesurface@gmail.com and we will answer within a few days. There is no charge for asking. If you think we have handled your details badly and we have not put it right, you can complain to the National Privacy Commission at privacy.gov.ph.
Changes to this page
If what we do with your details changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves to the day it happened. We will not quietly start doing something with your information that this page does not mention.
To see where a booking of yours stands, or to ask us anything at all, the help centre is the quickest way in.