Privacy policy / Datenschutzerklärung

Mahad Khalid Tarar and Abdul Moeez

Our postal address will be added soon. Until then, contact us at psa.community.forum@gmail.com.

Visiting the site

Every time you open a page, our host Vercel processes technical data needed to deliver it: your IP address, date and time, the page requested, browser and operating system (user agent) and the referring page. Vercel keeps these in short-lived request logs that we use only to find errors and stop abuse. We do not combine them with your account.

Your account

Accounts are handled by Supabase Auth. When you sign in we store your email address, how you signed in (email link or Google), when the account was created and when you last signed in. Supabase keeps security logs of sign-ins that include your IP address. When you sign in with an email link, Supabase sends that email to you.

If you choose “Continue with Google”, Google tells Supabase your name, email address, your Google account ID and the link to your profile picture. We use only your name, as the starting value of your display name, which you can change. We never show your Google picture.

Bot check on the sign-in page

When you open the sign-in page, your browser loads Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that you are a person and not a bot, usually without showing anything. For this Cloudflare processes your IP address, technical details of your browser and connection (user agent and TLS fingerprint) and which site the check is for. Turnstile does not see what you type into the form. Our form only receives a token, which it sends along with your sign-in request.

Your profile

Your display name, your @username, the optional affiliation badge you choose (for example student or graduate), your role (member, moderator or admin), your reputation points and the date you joined. These are shown publicly next to your posts and on your profile page.

What you post and do

• Threads, comments and replies, including earlier versions of edited threads, which moderators review. Published posts are public, with your name.
• Votes: the totals are public; who voted is visible only to you.
• Bookmarks, followed threads and guide progress: visible only to you. If you ticked guide steps while signed out, they are copied to your account when you sign in.
• Reports, update requests and moderator applications, with the reason or text you entered. Moderators see them so they can act on them.
• Feedback you send with “Send feedback”: your message, your account and the page you sent it from.

Notifications

Notifications about replies, mentions, followed threads and moderation decisions, whether you have read them, and your notification settings (which types you muted and how often you want emails).

Moderation and abuse prevention

When moderators approve, reject or archive threads, hide comments, handle reports, or mute or ban an account, we keep a moderation log entry with who did it, to whom, and the reason. Restrictions on an account are stored with their reason. To limit spam, the forum counts how many posts, votes and reports an account made recently; this uses the posts themselves and stores nothing extra.

Supabase (database and sign-in)

Supabase Pte. Ltd., 65 Chulia Street #38-02/03, OCBC Centre, Singapore 049513. Our database and accounts are stored on Amazon Web Services in London, United Kingdom (region eu-west-2). The EU has recognised the UK as providing adequate data protection (adequacy decision under Art. 45 GDPR). Where Supabase staff or sub-processors outside the EU or UK access data, the EU Standard Contractual Clauses in Supabase’s data processing agreement apply. Supabase privacy policy.

Vercel (hosting)

Vercel Inc., 440 N Barranca Ave #4133, Covina, CA 91723, USA. Vercel runs our server code in London (region lhr1) and delivers pages through its global content delivery network, so a request may be answered by the server nearest to you. Vercel states that it is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (Art. 45 GDPR); its data processing agreement also includes the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. Vercel privacy policy.

Cloudflare (bot check on the sign-in page)

Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend St., San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. Cloudflare runs the bot check for us. It also uses the same data as its own controller to improve its bot detection, and states that the purpose is not to identify, profile or target individuals. Cloudflare states that it is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (Art. 45 GDPR); its data processing agreement also includes the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. Cloudflare privacy policy and Turnstile privacy addendum.

Backblaze (backups)

Backblaze, Inc., 2261 Market Street STE 81006, San Francisco, CA 94114, USA. Backblaze stores our encrypted database backups in a private bucket in Amsterdam, Netherlands (region EU Central). It cannot read them, because they are encrypted before they are uploaded. Backblaze states that it is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (Art. 45 GDPR); its data processing agreement also includes the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. Backblaze privacy policy.

Google (only if you choose “Continue with Google”)

If you sign in with Google, you are sent to Google, which learns that you are signing in to this forum and then passes your name, email and profile picture link to Supabase. Google processes this as its own controller under its privacy policy. Signing in with an email link involves no Google service.

GitHub (Contributors page)

The Contributors page shows the public GitHub profiles of people who contributed code. Our server fetches that list from GitHub; it sends no data about you. When you open the page, your browser loads the profile pictures directly from GitHub, which then sees your IP address and browser, as described in the GitHub privacy statement. No other page loads anything from GitHub.

Moderators and authorities

Volunteer moderators see reports, update requests, applications, feedback and the moderation log so they can look after the forum. We disclose data to authorities only where the law obliges us to.