Privacy Policy

1. Overview

GeoData Registry collects only the minimum information necessary to operate an informational public registry, contact relay, moderation system, admin dashboard, and optional public geodata card repository. The platform does collect names, affiliations, emails, public submissions, reports, contact messages, and technical anti-abuse metadata when users submit or contact records.

2. Information collected for planned collection records

When a user submits a planned geodata collection record, GeoData Registry may collect:

Name; institutional affiliation; official email address; role; planned collection title; description; geodata category; spatial and temporal metadata; attributes and method; collaboration status; tags; public visibility choices; acknowledgements; verification and edit tokens; moderation status.

3. Information collected for geodata cards

When a user publishes a geodata card, GeoData Registry may collect:

Dataset documentation fields entered by the user; name, affiliation, and contact information if provided; official email address for verification; public/restricted visibility choices; generated metadata needed to publish and display the card; moderation status.

Private geodata cards generated only for download are not intentionally stored in the database.

4. Contact relay information

When a visitor uses the contact relay, GeoData Registry may collect:

Sender name, sender email, message content, target record, time of submission, and technical anti-abuse metadata.

The recipient's private email address is not shown to the sender.

5. Report information

When a visitor reports a public record, GeoData Registry may collect:

Report reason, optional explanation, optional reporter email, target record, time of report, and technical anti-abuse metadata.

Reported records may be hidden immediately pending review.

6. Technical and anti-abuse information

GeoData Registry may process limited technical information for security, rate limiting, spam prevention, abuse prevention, debugging, and service integrity. This may include hashed IP-derived identifiers, timestamps, request metadata, and anti-bot verification results.

7. Public and private fields

Public fields may be displayed on public registry pages and public geodata card pages. Private fields, including contributor email addresses, verification tokens, edit tokens, admin notes, and moderation metadata, are not intended for public display.

8. Email addresses

Email addresses are used for verification, contact relay, moderation, and administrative communication. Email addresses must not be exposed in public pages, public APIs, public JSON, or page source.

9. Legal basis and purpose

The purpose of processing is to operate the registry, publish user-submitted records when requested, provide contact relay functionality, moderate content, prevent abuse, and maintain the security and integrity of the platform.

10. Data sharing

Public records are visible to anyone. Private emails and moderation metadata are not intentionally shared publicly. Service providers may process data as necessary to host the website, database, email functions, analytics if enabled, and anti-abuse tools.

11. Data retention

Public records may remain available until removed by the contributor where supported, removed by an administrator, or hidden through moderation. Contact requests, reports, and audit logs may be retained for moderation, security, and accountability.

12. Removal and correction requests

Users may request correction or removal of records they submitted. GeoData Registry may need reasonable information to verify the request.

13. Sensitive information

Users should not submit raw sensitive geodata, private participant locations, confidential field sites, exact locations of vulnerable people, protected species, shelters, critical infrastructure, or other sensitive spatial information unless it is appropriately generalized and safe for public display.

14. Security

GeoData Registry uses reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect private fields and moderation data. No system can guarantee complete security.

15. Children

GeoData Registry is intended for researchers, organizations, and adult users. It is not intended for children.

16. Changes to this policy

GeoData Registry may update this Privacy Policy. The updated version will be posted on the website.

17. Contact

For privacy questions, correction requests, removal requests, or moderation concerns, please use the contact page.