Privacy Policy

Last updated: 29 June 2026 · Governing law: New Zealand

This policy explains how Metal TV ("we", "us") collects, uses and protects your personal information when you use metaltv.live. We are based in New Zealand and aim to comply with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020 and, for visitors in the EU/UK, the GDPR.

Who we are

Metal TV is operated by Trent Stewart, New Zealand. For any privacy question or request, contact us via the contact page (or trent_art@hotmail.com).

Information we collect

• Account details – your email, display name, password (stored hashed), and optionally your country and chosen avatar.
• Content you submit – chat messages, bands/videos you add, contact-form messages, and promotion/advertisement content.
• Payment information – if you buy a promotion or ad, payment is handled by Stripe. We do not see or store your full card details; we keep a payment reference, amount and status.
• Usage & technical data – a hashed (not reversible) form of your IP address for the live viewer counter and to rate-limit abuse, plus basic device/browser information and buffering diagnostics to keep the stream healthy. Your IP is also used in the moment to approximate your country so advertisements can be shown by region; this lookup runs on our own server using a local database, your IP is not sent to a third party for it, and we do not store the result.
• Cookies & local storage – see below.

How we use it

• To run your account and the features you use (following, saving, chat, submissions).
• To process and manage promotions and advertisements you purchase.
• To send service emails (email confirmation, password reset, promotion updates, contact replies) and, if you opt in, a heads-up when a band you follow is scheduled.
• To operate, secure, measure and improve the stream and the site.

Where the GDPR applies, our legal bases are performance of a contract (running your account and purchases), legitimate interests (security, anti-abuse, basic analytics, keeping the service running), consent (optional notification emails), and legal obligations.

Cookies and local storage

We keep this minimal and do not use advertising/tracking cookies. We use:

• Essential – a sign-in cookie to keep you logged in, and anti-forgery tokens to protect form submissions.
• Preferences – browser local storage to remember things like your genre picks and that you dismissed a banner.
• Security – Google reCAPTCHA on some forms to block bots, which sets its own cookies (see Google's privacy policy).

You can clear or block cookies in your browser, but essential cookies are needed to sign in.

Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with service providers that help us run Metal TV:

• Stripe – payment processing.
• Resend – sending our emails.
• Bunny CDN – delivering the video stream.
• Google reCAPTCHA – bot protection on forms.
• Hetzner – server hosting (Germany).

We may also disclose information if required by law.

International transfers

Our servers and some providers are outside New Zealand (for example in the EU and the US). Where we transfer personal data internationally we rely on appropriate safeguards and the providers' own compliance frameworks.

How long we keep it

We keep account and content data while your account is active, and payment records as long as needed for legal and accounting purposes. Diagnostic and viewer-counter data is short-lived. You can ask us to delete your account and associated personal data.

Your rights

You can access, correct or delete your information, object to or restrict certain processing, and (where the GDPR applies) request a copy of your data or withdraw consent. Contact us to exercise these. You may also complain to your local regulator (in New Zealand, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner).

Children

Metal TV is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.

Security & changes

We take reasonable measures to protect your information, though no online service is perfectly secure. We may update this policy; material changes will be posted here with a new "last updated" date.

Attributions

IP-to-country data is provided by DB-IP, used under CC BY 4.0.