Data Handling & Privacy

This page explains what data FilterIQ collects, where it is stored, how long it is retained, and what happens when you uninstall the app. We are committed to handling your data responsibly and transparently.

What Data We Collect

Product Data

We index your product catalog to power search and filtering. This includes:

Product titles, descriptions, handles, and images (URLs)
Prices, compare-at prices, and variant information
Tags, vendor, and product type
Variant options (Color, Size, etc.) and SKUs
Inventory quantities (for merchandising features)
Configured metafields (only the ones you choose to make searchable or filterable)

Product data is stored in our search engine (our search engine) and kept in sync with your Shopify store via webhooks.

Configuration Data

Your app settings are stored so your configuration persists across sessions:

Filter definitions (which filters are active, their type, display order)
Synonym pairs
Merchandising rules (boost, bury, pin, hide)
Search configuration (searchable attributes, weights, typo tolerance)
Appearance settings (product card layout, CSS customizations)
AI Assistant conversation history (retained for 30 days)

Analytics Data

We collect aggregated analytics about how shoppers interact with search and filters:

Search queries -- What terms shoppers search for, how often, and whether results were found
Filter usage -- Which filters are applied, which values are selected, and how often
Click-through data -- Which products shoppers click on from search results (aggregated counts, not per-user tracking)
Conversion attribution -- Whether a search-initiated session led to a cart addition or order (aggregated)

Analytics data is aggregated and anonymized. The storefront widget stores a per-session identifier in localStorage so that events fired during a single browsing session (30-minute idle timeout, 24-hour hard cap) can be linked together server-side. We also store a single returning-visitor bit — a one-character flag with no identity attached — so that aggregate dashboards can distinguish first-time from repeat shoppers; it cannot be used to identify or track an individual. Both writes only occur after consent is granted via the Shopify Customer Privacy API and only when the browser does not signal Global Privacy Control (GPC) or Do Not Track (DNT). We do not build customer profiles, attach personally identifying information to these identifiers, or share them with third parties.

Shopify App Pixel

We install one Shopify App Pixel (smart-search-filter-web-pixel) which subscribes to the standard search_submitted Customer Event published by Shopify. This is how we count storefront searches reliably across all themes.

The pixel runs inside Shopify's strict-sandbox web worker — it has no access to document, window, localStorage, or third-party cookies, and cannot fingerprint visitors.
Each event we receive contains only the search query string and the list of product IDs Shopify returned for that query.
The pixel respects your customers' analytics consent — if a customer opts out of analytics in your storefront's privacy banner, the pixel does not fire for them.
We never use this data for advertising, retargeting, or to identify individual shoppers.

What We Do NOT Collect

Customer personal information (names, emails, addresses)
Payment or billing information (handled entirely by Shopify)
Customer browsing behavior outside of search and filter interactions
Marketing tracking signals (we do not subscribe to cart_viewed, checkout_started, or any other Customer Event beyond search_submitted)
Cross-site tracking cookies on your storefront
Order details beyond what's needed for search-revenue attribution (we read order line items only to confirm a searched-for product was purchased, never customer identity or payment data)

Where Data Is Stored

Data Type	Storage Service	Location	Encryption
Product index	our search engine Cloud	US-East	Encrypted at rest (AES-256)
Configuration	our database (PostgreSQL)	US-East	Encrypted at rest (AES-256)
Analytics	our database (PostgreSQL)	US-East	Encrypted at rest (AES-256)
Cache	our caching layer Redis	US-East	Encrypted at rest, TLS in transit
File uploads	None	N/A	We do not store uploaded files

All data transmission between your store, our servers, and our storage services uses TLS 1.2 or higher encryption.

Data Encryption

At Rest

All stored data is encrypted at rest using AES-256 encryption, managed by the respective cloud provider (our database, our search engine Cloud, our caching layer).

In Transit

All API communication uses HTTPS with TLS 1.2+. This includes:

Shopify-to-FilterIQ webhook delivery
Storefront search requests via the app proxy
Dashboard API requests
Internal service-to-service communication

Data Retention

Data Type	Retention Period
Product index	Continuously updated; removed within 48 hours of uninstall (see Privacy Policy §6 for the 96-hour worst-case retry qualifier)
Configuration	Retained while app is installed; deleted within 48 hours of uninstall
Search analytics	Retention is tiered by plan (see Billing for per-tier retention; aggregates may be retained longer for service-level reporting)
Filter analytics	Tiered by plan — same policy as Search analytics
AI conversation history	30 days from last message
Webhook processing logs	7 days
Error logs	30 days
Audit logs (GDPR-event rows)	6 years (shop_domain pseudonymized at the 48h mark)
Audit logs (non-GDPR rows)	30 days

Canonical retention source-of-truth: docs/governance/DATA_RETENTION.md on the project repository. This page reflects that source; if you spot a contradiction, the governance doc wins and we will reconcile this page.

What Happens When You Uninstall

When you uninstall FilterIQ from your Shopify store:

Immediately: The Theme App Extension is removed from your storefront. Search and filter widgets stop appearing.
Within 48 hours (typical case; see qualifier below): All of your data is permanently deleted from our systems:
- Product index is purged from our search engine
- Configuration, analytics, and account data are deleted from our database
- Cached data is cleared from Redis
- Any AI conversation history is deleted
Your Shopify data is unaffected: We never modify your products, themes (beyond our app extension block), or any other Shopify data.

Deletion timeline qualifier: Data is typically removed within 48 hours of Shopify delivering the required shop/redact privacy webhook (which Shopify sends ~48 hours after you uninstall). In rare cases involving webhook delivery retries, completion may take longer — Shopify retries failed webhooks with exponential backoff, so the absolute worst case can extend the deletion timeline beyond 48 hours. We monitor processing time via Sentry alerts and operate well within the typical case.

Data deletion is irreversible. If you reinstall the app later, you start with a fresh configuration and a new product index.

Data Sharing

We never sell your data. We do not share merchant data or customer data with third parties for marketing, advertising, or any other purpose.

Two categories of third-party processors handle your data on our behalf:

Infrastructure providers listed in the Privacy Policy storage table — these process data solely to provide their hosting, database, search, caching, and observability services to us.
AI subprocessors (Anthropic and OpenAI) named in AI Setup and in the Privacy Policy subprocessor table — these receive minimized and redacted catalog context only when AI features run.

We do not authorize any of these processors to use your data for marketing or to train public AI models on your submitted content.

Your Rights

You can request a full export of your stored data at any time by contacting support@filteriq.app. We will provide the export within 5 business days.

If you have questions about how we handle your data, contact us at support@filteriq.app.