What we keep, and for how long

The forms on this site hold what you type into them: your name, how to reach you, and what you write. A request for early access also holds your work and links to it, and your organisation if you give one.

What you send is kept in a database on our own server, not with a service provider, and is read only by the Observatory's team, in its internal tools. It is not sent by email: our mailbox gets a notice that something arrived, without what it says.

We keep what you send until you ask us to delete it.

We count visits with Plausible, which runs on our own server, not a company's. It sets no cookies and does not keep your IP address: it uses the address for a moment to tell one visitor from another for a day, and to look up a country and city, then drops it. We see which pages are read, which site sent you, the links and files you open from here, and your country, city, browser and device type. Pages for account holders and invitations are not counted, and nothing ties a visit to an account.

There is no advertising and no other tracking. Fonts and scripts come from this site. One cookie remembers light or dark, if you choose one; another keeps you signed in, if you have an account. The one outside service is the security check on the request form, Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that a person is sending it.

An account holds a username, a scrambled form of your password that we cannot read back, your role, and whether an authenticator app is on. There is no email address on it.

Signing in sets one cookie that keeps you signed in for up to two weeks. We do not record the address or the browser you sign in from. Accounts are kept on our own server, not by a service provider. Ask us and we delete yours.

To have what you sent deleted, or to ask what we hold about you, write to us.

[email protected]