The fine print · Privacy
Privacy policy
Effective July 13, 2026
Reel has no analytics, no telemetry, no ads, and no automatic reporting of any kind. The app talks to the media server you already run, to the account service that signs you into it, and to our own servers for the app's interface artwork - never for your media. The one thing Reel can ever send us about your setup is a diagnostics report: off by default, shown to you in full, and sent only when you press OK. This policy is short because there is genuinely this little to disclose.
What Reel is
Reel is a Roku app for people who run their own personal media server. It is a client - a remote control and a screen for a library that lives on your hardware, under your rules. Reel hosts no content and keeps no copy of anything you watch or browse.
Where your requests go
- Your media server. Every browse, search, artwork, and playback request goes to the server you connected during setup - that is the app's entire function. What your server records is governed by the server software you chose and run, not by us.
- The sign-in service. Reel signs you in through the account service your media-server platform provides. During sign-in, Reel sends the standard client-identification headers that service requires - the app's name and version, and a per-device identifier - so it can issue a sign-in token. That token is stored on your Roku device and presented back to your own server to prove you are you. It goes nowhere else.
- Our asset server. Roku requires channel packages to stay very small, so when Reel runs it loads its own interface assets - artwork, fonts, and other non-code files - from infrastructure we operate. Those requests fetch Reel's own files, never your media, and they carry no account identity. Like nearly every web server, ours keeps standard connection logs (IP address, file requested, time) to keep the service healthy - the same posture as this website, described below.
- The Roku platform. Roku, Inc. operates the device, the Channel Store, and payments, and collects its own platform data under Roku's privacy policy. Reel adds nothing to that stream - no events, no beacons, nothing.
- No one else, and nothing automatic. Reel sends no data to any third party, and nothing to us beyond the asset requests above and the diagnostics report described below - which exists only if you send it. There is no analytics vendor, no ad network, no crash reporter, and no account with us to create. This is a design decision, not a configuration default.
Diagnostics - only on your OK
When something misbehaves, Reel may offer to send us a troubleshooting report. Three properties of that report are structural, not settings we hope you find: it is disabled by default; nothing is sent until you press OK; and the full report is shown on screen first - you read exactly what we would. The report carries technical facts only: device model and firmware, app version, and the kind of stream detail an engineer needs to diagnose playback (container, codecs, resolution, bitrate). It never contains your name, billing information, your media's file names, your server's address, or your sign-in token.
What stays on your device
Reel stores a small amount of data in your Roku device's local registry: your settings, your sign-in token, and the display name of the signed-in profile (so the menu can greet the right person). None of it is transmitted anywhere except to your own server and the sign-in service described above. Signing out deletes the sign-in data immediately, and Roku deletes all of an app's stored data when you remove the app from your device.
Purchases
If you buy Reel, the transaction is handled entirely by Roku Pay, inside your Roku account. We never receive your payment details, billing address, or identity - Roku reports sales to developers only in aggregate.
This website
itsreel.tv sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and makes no third-party requests - the page you are reading is self-hosted down to its fonts. Like nearly every web server, ours keeps standard access logs (IP address, page requested, time) for security and uptime; they are routinely discarded and never shared or sold.
Children
Reel is not directed at children under 13, and because the app collects nothing, it collects nothing from children either. What a household's library contains - and who in the house may watch it - is a matter between the server's owner and their server software.
Changes to this policy
If Reel's data practices ever change, this page changes first, and the date at the top will tell you when. Given the app's design, the honest expectation is that this page stays boring.
Contact
Questions about privacy - or anything else - go to roku@itsreel.tv. A real person reads every message.