This Privacy Policy explains the nature of your relationship with us when you visit Balkan Radio. The terms "Balkan Radio," "www.BalkanRadio.com," "BR," "We," "Us," and "Our" refer to Balkan Radio. We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring you understand how we collect, use, process, disclose, and safeguard any information obtained through our services, including our website and mobile application.
Balkan Radio provides an online radio streaming service through our website (www.BalkanRadio.com) and mobile application. Both the website and app are developed, owned, and managed by Martin Kachev.
We do not ask you to register, and we do not build an account or a profile for you. We may collect personal details such as name, email address, and messages if you voluntarily contact us via email - and this stands for both the app and the website. This information is used solely to respond to your inquiries and enhance your user experience.
Some information does reach us automatically while you use the service, and European law treats part of it, an IP address in particular, as personal data. What that information is, why we hold it and how long we keep it is set out in the sections below.
When you use our website or app we receive technical information about the connection: browser type, IP address, device details, and similar details about how you reached us. This is ordinary server and connection information rather than anything you have told us about yourself.
While you are listening, the app and the website report to our own server so that we can see how many people are listening and where in the world they are. Each report contains your IP address, your approximate location (country and city) worked out from that IP address, your device model, your operating system version, the app version, which station you are listening to, and a random session number that is created fresh each time playback starts.
That random session number is not tied to you, your device or your account. It exists only so that one person listening for an hour is counted once rather than sixty times, and it is discarded when you stop.
We use this only to understand our audience: how many people are listening, from which countries, on what kind of device, and to which station. We do not use it to build a profile of you, and we do not sell it. These records are automatically deleted after 90 days.
Reporting happens only while audio is actually playing. When you stop listening, the reporting stops.
The app shows sponsor logos in the corners of the player and on the screen you are casting to, alongside our online video streams. We count how many times each logo was shown and how many times it was tapped, together with the same technical details described above, so that we can tell a sponsor honestly how their placement performed.
A sponsor is given access to the figures for their own placement only, and they see totals: how many times their logo was shown, how many taps it received, which countries those came from, and whether it was a phone or a cast screen. Sponsors never see IP addresses, sessions, individual listeners, or anything about any other sponsor.
These records are automatically deleted after 90 days, the same as everything else described here.
If you allow notifications, the app registers with OneSignal, a push notification service, which assigns your installation a device identifier so that a message can reach it. We use this to tell listeners about new stations, shows and events. You can turn notifications off at any time in your device settings, and doing so does not affect playback.
When you cast to a screen or a speaker, that device connects directly to our audio and online video streams and to our cast page. Google Cast handles the connection between your phone and that device, and Google's own privacy policy applies to that part.
-OneSignal, for push notifications, receives a device identifier for your installation.
-ip-api.com, which turns an IP address into a country and city so the listener map can work. The IP address is sent for that lookup and the result is cached on our own server.
-Apple's iTunes Search service, which is asked for the cover art of the song currently playing. It receives the song title only, and nothing about you.
-Google Cast, when you choose to cast.
Each of these processes data on our behalf for the purpose described. We do not sell, trade or rent your information to anyone.
Some of these services operate outside the European Economic Area, which means the information described above may be processed in other countries, including the United States.
-Notifications, so playback controls can appear on your lock screen and so we can send announcements.
-Storage or media access, so anything you record stays saved on your own device. Recordings are never uploaded to us or to anyone else.
-Network access, which streaming requires.
The app does not ask for your microphone, your camera, your contacts, your phone state or your precise GPS location.
We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to third parties. Everything the app sends to us travels over an encrypted connection.
Stop playback and the reporting stops with it. Turn off notifications in your device settings and the push identifier is no longer used. If you would like the records associated with your listening deleted, write to us at thebalkanradio@gmail.com and we will remove them.
If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom you have the right to ask what we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to object to us processing it, and to receive a copy of it. Write to us and we will act on it. You also have the right to complain to your national data protection authority.
Balkan Radio is a general audience music and news service. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under the age at which consent can be given for online services, which is 13 in some countries and up to 16 in others.
Cookies are collected to enhance your browsing experience on our site. The primary reasons for collecting cookies include:
-Remembering your cookie preferences (acceptance or rejection).
-Providing an optimized user experience.
-Ensuring site security when necessary.
-Identifying users accessing our site from mobile devices.
If you contact us via email, we naturally receive certain information such as your email address. Similarly, if you interact with us through social media (e.g., commenting), we may see your social media username. However, we do not collect or sell this information to third parties.
Since our site does not require user registration or profiles, the chances of collecting personal information such as name or date of birth are minimal. Cookies are processed with your consent under GDPR Article 6(1)(a). The listening statistics and sponsor figures described above are processed under our legitimate interest in understanding our audience and in reporting honestly to the sponsors who support the station, under GDPR Article 6(1)(f). You may object to that processing at any time by writing to us.
If you have any concerns, reach out to us at thebalkanradio@gmail.com.
This Privacy Policy was last updated on August 22, 2026. For any questions, please contact us at thebalkanradio@gmail.com.