Privacy policy
Casewire, the app, and casewire.app, this website. Last updated 7 September 2026.
The short version
- No account, no sign-in, no registration — it is not offered, so there is nothing to log in to.
- The app measures how it is used — which cases are opened and followed across everyone, how setup goes, whether there is a subscription. It is anonymous: no account, no advertising identifier, nothing linked to you as a named person.
- What you follow, what you have read and how you set your alerts stay on your device.
- There are no ads, and the advertising identifier is never used.
- This website loads nothing that counts you unless you say yes first.
What we do not collect
- Your contacts, photos or location.
- Any cross-app or cross-site tracking, and no advertising identifier.
- Any profile of your interests. We do not sell or share data with data brokers, because we do not have any to sell.
Setup asks for a first name, and optionally an age range and a gender. The name stays on your device. The age range and the gender are sent as a band and a bucket — “35–44”, never a date of birth — so we can tell who the app is reaching.
The app measures how it is used: which cases are opened and followed across
everyone, how setup goes, which features get touched, and whether there is a
subscription. That measurement is anonymous. It is keyed to an identifier
generated on your device, never to an account, a name or an advertising
identifier, and there is no session recording and no screen tracking. It runs on
eu.i.posthog.com, inside the EU.
If you write to support or send a correction about a case, we receive the address you wrote from, your message, and the first name you gave at setup, so that a person can reply to you.
Stored only on your device
The app keeps the following in its own storage, on your device:
- which cases you follow, and the alert level you chose for each;
- which updates you have already seen, and when you last opened the app;
- your Nightstand listening progress and sleep-timer preference;
- your notification and quiet-hours preferences;
- your reading-theme choice, and whether you have finished onboarding;
- whether your subscription is currently active.
None of it is transmitted to us, and all of it goes when you uninstall the app. Because there is no account it does not sync: a follow made on your phone does not appear on your tablet.
Reading the case bundle
Cases, timelines and source lists are published as static files and downloaded from
cdn.casewire.app, served from a content delivery network. These are ordinary file
downloads: everybody gets the same files, and the request carries no identifier for
you and does not say which case you are reading. As with any web request, that network
processes your IP address and standard connection information to deliver the
response and protect the service from abuse. There is no API and no user database
behind this — it is files over HTTPS.
Video and thumbnails
Casewire does not host video. A case’s film, and most of the Nightstand
catalogue, play through YouTube’s official embedded player inside the app, on
the youtube-nocookie.com privacy-enhanced domain. That reduces what
YouTube collects, but playing a video is still an interaction with a Google service:
Google receives your IP address and player activity for the video you play. We never
extract or re-host anyone’s stream. Case thumbnails are loaded directly from
YouTube’s image servers for the same reason, and are always shown with the
publisher credited.
Opening a source
Opening a source opens the publisher’s page in an in-app browser view. From that point you are on their site, under their privacy policy and their cookies, not ours — and we receive nothing back about what you read there.
Breaking notifications
Optional, and off until you allow them. If you turn them on, our push provider Messaging issues a device notification token so bulletins can reach your device. That token identifies a device installation, not you, and we hold no other record alongside it.
Bulletins are broadcast to every subscribed device rather than targeted, so we do not need to know — and do not learn — which cases you follow. Your per-case alert levels, your quiet hours, and the rule that no bulletin is ever shown during a sleep session are all applied on your device, after the message arrives.
Purchases
Payment is processed by the Apple App Store or Google Play, and entitlements are managed by our subscription provider. To enable and restore purchases, it processes an anonymous app-user identifier generated on your device, the purchase and subscription status, and basic device and platform information needed to validate it. It is used solely to deliver and restore your subscription, never for advertising. Your card and billing details are handled entirely by Apple or Google; we never see or store them.
What this website collects
casewire.app is a static site. It sets no advertising cookies and loads no third-party scripts on its own initiative.
- Anonymous visit counting, only with your consent. If it is switched on at all, a banner asks once. Say no, or ignore it, and nothing analytics-related is loaded — the script is never fetched, so there is nothing to opt out of afterwards. When it is on, the footer carries an “analytics choice” link so you can change your mind; when it is off, that link is not there because there is nothing to change.
-
Campaign parameters. If you arrive from an ad or a link carrying
utm_*or a click ID, that is kept in your browser’s local storage so a later App Store tap can be attributed to the campaign that paid for it. It stays in your browser and identifies a campaign, not a person. - Server logs. Our hosting provider processes IP addresses and standard request information to serve the page and stop abuse.
- The contact form. Your name, email address and message are sent to our support system so a person can reply. The form asks your permission for exactly that, and the server refuses the message without it.
- The launch notification list, while the app is still in review. If you leave an address, it is stored — hashed as its key — for one purpose: to send you one email the day Apple approves the app. After that send, the list is deleted. It is never used for a newsletter, never shared, and never joined to anything else. There is nothing to unsubscribe from because there is no second message; if you would rather come off it sooner, write to support@casewire.app.
People named in the news
Casewire reports on real criminal cases, so the reporting it collects names real people. That material comes from published journalism and public records; we link to the original and name the publisher rather than republishing their work as our own. We do not compile dossiers on private individuals, and we do not accept user-submitted claims about anybody.
If you are named in coverage the app carries and something is wrong, out of date, or unfair, write to support@casewire.app. Please say which case and which screen. Corrections are handled before anything else in the inbox.
Your rights
Casewire is the controller for the little data described here. Under the GDPR you may ask for access, correction, erasure, restriction, portability, or object to processing. In practice there is usually nothing to hand over: with no account, the records that can exist about you are a support conversation you started, anonymous usage measurements not linked to you, and, if notifications are on, an anonymous device token. Write to support@casewire.app. You may also complain to your national data protection authority.
Children
Casewire is rated 16+ and is not intended for children. It reports on real crimes, including violent ones. We do not knowingly collect anything from a child, and there is no account through which we could.
Changes
If this policy changes materially, the date at the top changes with it.