Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

Account Information: When you sign in with Google, we receive your email address, name, and profile picture. We use this to create and manage your account. We also collect your age verification confirmation (13+ years old).

Voting Data: We store your votes on statements to track your participation, calculate statistics, and prevent duplicate voting. Your individual votes are kept private and are never shared publicly.

Comments: Comments you post are public and associated with your anonymous rank badge, not your identity. Your email is never shown with your comments.

Usage Analytics: We collect anonymous usage data to improve our service, including page views, feature usage, and engagement metrics (streaks, time on site).

Technical Data: We automatically collect IP addresses, browser type, device information, and cookies necessary for authentication and security.

2. How We Use Your Information

• To provide and maintain the Adoptoza service
• To prevent voting fraud and ensure fair participation
• To calculate aggregate voting statistics (shown anonymously)
• To determine your engagement rank based on participation
• To process subscriptions and payments (handled by Stripe)
• To send important service notifications
• To improve our service based on usage patterns

3. Data Protection & Anonymity

Anonymous Participation: Your votes and comments are displayed anonymously. Other users see only your rank badge (e.g., "Engaged Citizen"), never your name or email.

No Political Profiling: We do not create political profiles, sell your data to political organizations, or use your voting patterns for targeted advertising.

Security: We use industry-standard security measures including HTTPS encryption, secure authentication via Google OAuth, and protected database access.

4. Third-Party Services

Google Authentication: We use Google OAuth for secure sign-in. Google's privacy policy applies to information collected during authentication.

Stripe Payments: If you subscribe, payment processing is handled by Stripe. We do not store your payment card details. See Stripe's privacy policy for details.

Supabase: Our data is stored securely on Supabase infrastructure with encryption at rest and in transit.

Anthropic (AI Moderation): We use Anthropic's Claude AI to moderate user-generated content (comments and submissions). Comment content is sent to Anthropic for analysis to detect hate speech, harassment, and policy violations. Anthropic processes this data according to their privacy policy and does not use it for training. No personal identifiers are sent with content for moderation.

5. Cookies and Local Storage

We use the following cookies and browser storage:

• Authentication cookies: Essential for keeping you signed in (session management)
• Theme preference: Stored locally to remember your light/dark mode choice
• CSRF tokens: Security tokens to prevent cross-site request forgery

We do not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking cookies.

6. Your Rights (GDPR/CCPA)

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights under GDPR (EU), CCPA (California), or other applicable privacy laws:

• Right to Access: Request a copy of your personal data
• Right to Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate data
• Right to Erasure: Request deletion of your account and associated data
• Right to Portability: Export your data in a machine-readable format
• Right to Object: Object to certain processing of your data
• Right to Restrict Processing: Request limitation of how we use your data
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Withdraw consent at any time (does not affect prior processing)

California Residents (CCPA): You have the right to know what personal information we collect, request deletion, and opt-out of the sale of personal information. We do not sell your personal information.

To exercise these rights: Email us at privacy@adoptoza.com with your request. We will respond within 30 days. You may be asked to verify your identity.

7. Data Retention

We retain your data as follows:

• Account data: Retained while your account is active
• Voting history: Retained while your account is active
• Comments: Retained unless deleted by you or removed by moderation
• Session data: Automatically deleted after 24 hours
• Rate limit data: Automatically deleted after 24 hours

If you delete your account, we will remove your personal information within 30 days. Anonymous aggregate statistics (vote counts, comment counts) may be retained indefinitely.

8. Children's Privacy (COPPA Compliance)

Adoptoza is not intended for users under 13 years of age. By using our service, you confirm that you are at least 13 years old.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we discover that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will promptly delete their account and associated data.

If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, please contact us immediately at privacy@adoptoza.com.

9. International Data Transfers

Your data may be processed in the United States and other countries where our service providers operate. By using Adoptoza, you consent to the transfer of your data to these countries, which may have different data protection laws than your country of residence.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by posting a notice on our website and updating the "Last updated" date. For significant changes, we may also send an email notification. Your continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact Us

If you have questions about this privacy policy, your personal data, or wish to exercise your rights, contact us at:

privacy@adoptoza.com

For GDPR inquiries, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.