Privacy policy

Couvella is operated by Edenroche Sàrl, Avenue Centrale 85, 1884 Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. This policy says what we do with personal data we hold for ourselves. It applies under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection and, where they apply, the GDPR, South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) and the privacy laws of the American states. Effective 4 October 2026.

1. If you booked a table at a restaurant

Your data belongs to the restaurant you booked with. The restaurant decides what is collected and for how long, and we process it only on its behalf. The privacy notice linked from the booking page tells you what the restaurant keeps and how to reach it. To see, correct or erase what a restaurant holds about you, write to the restaurant; its contact details are in every message about your booking. Texts about a booking come from the sender “Couvella” on the restaurant’s behalf and never for marketing.

2. If you run a restaurant on Couvella, or work in its team

Data we hold: your name, email address, mobile number if you add one, language, role, text-size and alert preferences, the sign-in sessions and links we issue, the record of what you change in the application (which booking, which setting, when), and for the account owner the billing details Stripe needs and the invoices it issues. We never see card numbers.

Purpose and legal basis: to give you access, to run the account, to bill it, to send the alerts you asked for and the notices the terms require (a price change, a new sub-processor), and to keep a record of who did what, which the restaurant relies on. That is the performance of the contract with the restaurant and our legitimate interest in running a secure service. We do not send marketing to team members.

Retention period: while the account exists. When a team member is removed, their sign-in ends at once and their name stays only in the history of the changes they made. When the account ends, its data is deleted after the period in the terms, except invoices and what accounting law requires us to keep, for ten years.

3. If you asked for an invitation

Your request reaches us as an email at hello@couvella.com with the name, restaurant and email address you gave and the language you wrote in. We use it to answer you and to send an invitation; that is our legitimate interest in responding to somebody who wrote to us. It is not stored in the application. If no account follows, we delete the email within twelve months.

4. If you visit couvella.com: analytics, advertising and cookies

Couvella uses only the cookies and similar technologies needed to operate the service unless you choose otherwise where consent is required.

We may use analytics and advertising technologies, including services provided by Google and Meta, on the Couvella marketing website. These technologies may collect information such as your device and browser, pages viewed, interactions with the site, approximate location derived from your IP address, and identifiers associated with cookies or similar technologies. We use this information to understand how our website is used, measure advertising performance and, where permitted, show or measure relevant advertising.

These technologies are activated only after you have made the appropriate choice through our cookie or privacy controls: the banner shown on your first visit, and the Privacy choices link at the foot of every page of the marketing website, where you can change your mind at any time. They are never used on restaurants’ booking pages, in the application or in the emails and messages we send.

We do not use advertising technologies to disclose restaurant guest reservation details to advertising platforms. A guest’s name, email address, telephone number, reservation details, restaurant notes and other information processed by Couvella on behalf of a restaurant are not used by Couvella for targeted advertising.

Cloudflare, which serves the site, keeps its ordinary server logs (address, time, page) for a short period to run and protect the service. The application, once you sign in, uses one cookie to keep you signed in and remembers a few preferences in your own browser; nothing there is used for tracking. The site itself sets one cookie of its own, to remember the choice you made about advertising cookies.

Our current service providers and technology partners are listed on our sub-processors page.

5. Who else sees data

The companies on the list of sub-processors, each for the purpose stated there and no other. Data is stored in the European Union and Switzerland; where a company processes it elsewhere it does so under the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses or another recognised safeguard. We do not sell personal data and we do not share it with anyone else, except where the law requires us to.

6. Your rights

You may ask us what we hold about you, have it corrected or erased, have its processing restricted, receive it in a portable form, or object to processing based on our legitimate interest. Write to hello@couvella.com; we answer within 30 days. You may also complain to the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner or, in the European Union, to the authority of your country.

7. South Africa

Where POPIA applies, Edenroche Sàrl is the responsible party for the data described above, and the companies on the list of sub-processors are our operators. For restaurants in South Africa, Edenroche (Pty) Ltd, Rozenhof Villas, 165 Dorp Street, 7600 Stellenbosch, South Africa, collects the subscription and message credit in rand through Paystack on our behalf, and processes the billing details this needs only for that purpose.

Under POPIA you may ask whether we hold personal information about you and see it, have it corrected, destroyed or deleted, object to its processing, refuse direct marketing, and not be subject to a decision based only on automated processing. Write to our Information Officer, Johannes van Eeden, at hello@couvella.com. You may also complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa), inforegulator.org.za, complaints.IR@inforegulator.org.za.

Your personal information is stored outside South Africa, in the European Union and Switzerland, whose laws give it adequate protection. Every company that processes it is bound by an agreement to protect it, as section 72 of POPIA requires.

8. The United States

If you live in the United States, privacy rights may vary depending on your state and whether the relevant law applies to Couvella. Depending on applicable law, you may have the right to:

• know whether we process your personal information and access that information;
• request correction or deletion of your personal information;
• obtain a portable copy of certain personal information;
• opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information;
• opt out of the use of personal information for targeted advertising or certain profiling; and
• appeal a decision we make about your privacy request.

We do not sell personal information for money.

When we use advertising technologies such as Google or Meta on the Couvella marketing website, information collected through those technologies may constitute a “sale”, “sharing” or processing for “targeted advertising” under certain US state privacy laws, even where no money is exchanged.

Where applicable, you can opt out through the privacy controls available on our website. We also recognise legally required browser-based universal opt-out preference signals, including Global Privacy Control, where applicable.

We do not sell or use restaurant guest reservation data processed on behalf of restaurants for Couvella’s targeted advertising.

You may exercise your privacy rights by writing to hello@couvella.com. We may need to verify your identity before completing certain requests. We will respond within the period required by applicable law, normally within 45 days.

If we refuse your request, you may appeal our decision by replying to our response and asking us to reconsider it. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights.

California

California residents may have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, including rights to know, access, correct and delete personal information and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information.

For California law purposes, advertising or analytics technologies used on the Couvella marketing website may constitute “sharing” of personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. Where this applies, you can exercise your opt-out rights through our privacy controls or a recognised opt-out preference signal such as Global Privacy Control.

We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes that require us to provide a right to limit its use under California law.

Couvella does not knowingly sell or share the personal information of children for targeted advertising.

Restaurant guests

When you make a reservation with a restaurant using Couvella, the restaurant determines why your reservation information is collected and used. Couvella processes that information on the restaurant’s behalf to provide the reservation service and related functionality.

For requests concerning your reservation, guest profile or other information held by a restaurant, please contact the restaurant directly. We assist restaurants in responding to privacy requests where required.

Couvella does not use personal information processed on behalf of restaurants to build advertising profiles of their guests or to advertise Couvella or third-party products to those guests.

9. Changes

When this policy changes we update the date at the top and, for changes that matter to account holders, tell them by email. The current version is always at couvella.com/privacy. How restaurants’ guest data is processed is set out in the data processing agreement.