Privacy
What this site collects, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to be read rather than to be defensible, so if anything here is unclear, ask and it will be fixed.
The short version
You can read the entire Field Guide without an account and without telling us anything about yourself. If you make an account, we hold your email address and whatever you choose to save. We use analytics to see which parts get used.
If you never sign in
We record anonymous usage events. Which pages and nodes are opened, what is searched for, which filters and trails are used. These are stored with a random identifier kept in your browser's local storage, so that a series of actions can be recognised as one visit. That identifier is not linked to a name, an email address or an account, and it stays on your device until you clear your browser.
Search terms are stored exactly as typed. This is deliberate: it is how we find faults. A recent example is a search that returned nothing because of the quotation marks around it, which would have been invisible in a tidied-up log. Please do not type anything into the search box you would not want stored.
Google Analytics runs on the site. It collects the usual: pages viewed, approximate location, device and browser. We use it in aggregate and never connect it to accounts.
Two other services see your IP address simply because your browser requests files from them: Google Fonts, which serves two typefaces, and our host, Render, which serves the site and keeps standard server logs.
If you have an account
Accounts exist so you can keep things. We hold:
- Your email address, used to sign you in and to contact you about the service. That may occasionally include new features or paid options. You can unsubscribe from anything that is not required to operate your account.
- Anything you save: personal maps and the nodes and connections in them, notes, bibliographies, flagged items, and which trails you have completed.
- Share links you create, including the label and any name you choose to display, plus a count of how many times each has been opened. We do not record who opened them.
Notes and flags are yours. They are never included when you share a map.
Signing in uses either a link sent to your email, or Google. If you use Google, they tell us your email address and nothing else.
What we do not do
- No ad networks and no tracking pixels.
- We do not sell or rent personal data.
- We do not build profiles of individuals or attempt to identify anonymous visitors.
- Your notes and flags are never included when you share a map.
Who processes data on our behalf
Each of these is a service provider under contract, not a party we share data with for their own purposes.
- Supabase — the database and sign-in (EU)
- Render — hosting (EU/US)
- Google — analytics, fonts, and sign-in if you use it (US)
- Tally — the feedback form, if you use it (EU)
How long we keep things
- Your account and everything in it: until you ask us to delete it.
- Usage events: one year, after which they are deleted automatically.
- Backups: Supabase keeps daily backups, retained for seven days.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask us to show you what we hold about you, correct it, delete it, give you a copy in a portable form, or stop a particular use of it.
To delete your account, email tom@psychsafety.com and it will be done, along with everything attached to it. There is no self-service button for this yet; there will be. We will not ask you why.
If you think we have handled your data badly, please tell us first, but you are entitled to complain directly to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Changes
If this notice changes in a way that matters, the date above will change and the substance of the change will be described here rather than quietly folded in.