Privacy policy
Last updated 6 November 2026
DCU Timetable is built and run by Stephen Harcourt, an independent student developer. I am the data controller for the personal data the app handles. The app is not affiliated with or endorsed by Dublin City University (DCU).
Contact: [email protected]
The short version
- You sign in with your DCU email so the app knows you're a DCU student.
- It stores what it needs to show your timetable and to run the shared features. Nothing else.
- No advertising, no analytics, no tracking, and nothing is sold or shared for marketing.
- You can delete your account from inside the app at any time.
What the app collects and why
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Your DCU email address and a password (stored only in hashed form) | To create your account and to confirm you are a DCU student. |
| Your name, taken from your email address | To match you to your class list, so the app can show the groups you are in. |
| Your student number, read from the barcode on your student card or typed in. The photo of your card is read on your iPhone and is never saved or sent anywhere; only the number is. | To tell you apart from someone with the same name on a class list. |
| Your programme and groups | To show the right timetable. |
| An account ID and a short public ID | To run your account. You give the public ID to an administrator only if you want to become a trusted reporter. |
| What you share: deadlines, confirmations that a deadline is right, and reports that a class was cancelled or went ahead | To show them to other students taking the same modules. Students do not see who shared what. |
| Reports you make about a deadline, and the people you hide | To review abusive or wrong content, and to stop hidden people's posts from reaching you. |
Kept only on your iPhone, and never sent anywhere: classes you mark as not attending, groups you hide, your appearance setting, and a copy of your timetable so it works offline.
Your iPhone fetches timetable data directly from DCU's timetable provider, Scientia. No account details are sent with that request.
Class lists
An administrator may upload a class list for a programme, supplied by the course, which says which group each student is in. While the list is being read, it is sent to Mistral AI, which works out its layout. What is stored afterwards is not your name. Each entry is turned into a keyed code that can't be reversed into a name, and stored with your group and, if the list has one, your student number. When you sign in, the app works out your code from your name and looks up your group.
If someone else on the list has the same name as you, the app asks which lab subgroup you're in and uses your answer only for that lookup, to tell the two of you apart. If your name and student number don't match the same entry on the list, the app doesn't guess: it keeps you on your programme's general timetable and records that the two disagree, so an administrator can sort it out. The record says which list it was and what disagreed, not the number you entered, and administrators see it by your public ID, not your name.
A class list is replaced when a new one is uploaded, and an administrator can delete it at any time.
Google Calendar
If you choose Export to Calendar → Add to Google Calendar, you sign in with Google and allow the app to make calendars in your Google account and manage the events in them, and nothing else. It cannot see or change any other calendar or event of yours.
The app makes one calendar, called DCU Timetable, and adds your classes to it: each class's name, time, room, staff and your alert times. This happens in your browser, straight between your browser and Google. Nothing from your Google account reaches DCU Timetable's servers. The permission Google gives the app lasts about an hour and is not stored. Your browser keeps only the new calendar's ID, so adding your classes again fills the same calendar.
DCU Timetable's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. You can remove the app's access at any time at myaccount.google.com/connections, and delete the DCU Timetable calendar in Google Calendar's settings.
Legal basis
Running your account and showing your timetable is necessary to provide the service you signed up for (GDPR Article 6(1)(b)). Moderating shared content, keeping the service secure, and matching you to your class list rest on legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)): giving students an accurate timetable and a safe place to share deadlines.
Who else handles the data
- Supabase: hosts the database and sign-in, in the EU (Frankfurt).
- Vercel: hosts the administrators' website.
- Google: only if you add your classes to Google Calendar, as described above.
- Mistral AI (France): reads the documents administrators upload: class lists, lab rotations, and notices of which surnames go to which class. It does so only at the moment of upload.
Each processes the data only to provide its service.
How long it is kept
- Your account and profile: until you delete your account.
- Deadlines and cancellation reports you shared: stay after you delete your account so classmates still have them, but nothing links them to you any more.
- Your reports about content, and the people you hide: deleted with your account.
- Class list entries: until the list is replaced or deleted.
- Records that your name and student number disagree with a class list: until you delete your account.
- Moderation actions: administrators' actions, such as removing a post or banning an account, are logged and kept.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your data, have it corrected or deleted, or object to how it is used. Email the address above. You can delete your account yourself in the app under Account → Delete account. If you are unhappy with how your data is handled, you can complain to the Data Protection Commission in Ireland (dataprotection.ie).
Age
The app is for university students and is not intended for anyone under 16.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes too. Significant changes are also announced in the app.