Privacy Policy

We strive to provide an accessible, coherent, and private experience for researchers and community members. That's why we respect your privacy and protect it with strict policies that govern how all data is handled.

We deeply believe that using evidence-based information and open research data, you can make informed decisions about visual perception research and experimental protocols.

Our commitment to protecting your privacy comes from a deep respect for our users and the scientific community. We know that your trust doesn't come easy, and we work hard to earn and keep it.

1. Our Privacy Commitment

Project Veilbreak is committed to protecting your privacy through technical and policy measures. We do not collect personally identifiable information and intentionally anonymize traffic when possible. We use basic analytics solely to determine site usage and functionality. Our servers are located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and we comply with applicable US privacy laws.

2. No Tracking or Cookies

We do not use cookies, user fingerprinting, or any frontend tracking technologies. We do not capture IP addresses or create user profiles. Our focus is solely on providing a platform for research and data collection, not on tracking individual users or their behavior.

3. Analytics and Server Data

We use self-hosted Umami analytics without cookies or personal tracking to understand basic site usage patterns. Like most web servers, our systems automatically collect technical information such as:

  • Browser type and version (User Agent string)
  • Page requests and response times
  • Date and time of access
  • General geographic region (not precise location)

This data is aggregated and anonymized, stored on our self-hosted servers in Boston, MA, and used only for improving site performance and understanding usage patterns.

4. User-Submitted Public Data

All experiments and protocols on our platform are user-submitted and publicly available. When you submit content to our platform, you understand that this information will be publicly accessible under Creative Commons licensing. We strongly recommend not including any personal information in your submissions, as they are intended to be open research data.

5. No Third-Party Data Sharing

We do not share any data with third-party services for advertising, tracking, or commercial purposes. While we provide links to external platforms like Discord for community features, we do not transmit user data to these services. Any interaction with external platforms is governed by their respective privacy policies.

6. Data Storage and Security

All data is stored on self-hosted servers located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Our database and analytics systems (Umami) are self-hosted and not shared with any third parties. While our website frontend is hosted on Vercel in the US, no personal data is transmitted to or stored by Vercel beyond basic server logs.

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect our systems. However, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect data while acknowledging that absolute security cannot be guaranteed.

7. Legal Compliance

As our servers are located in the United States, we comply with applicable US privacy laws and regulations. Since we do not collect personally identifiable information or sensitive data, most privacy regulations do not apply to our operations. We store only public research data that users voluntarily submit.

8. Changes to This Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. We will notify users of any significant changes by posting the updated Privacy Policy on this page with a revision date.

9. Our Privacy Guarantees

To fulfill our commitment to user privacy, we obligate ourselves to the following guarantees:

  • ✓We will never sell, share, or monetize any information about our users to anyone.
  • ✓We do not collect or store IP addresses or create user profiles for tracking purposes.
  • ✓Our servers are physically protected in a secure data center in Boston, MA, operated by professional hosting providers.
  • ✓We use only self-hosted analytics (Umami) without cookies or third-party tracking.
  • ✓All user-submitted content is intended to be public research data under Creative Commons licensing.
  • ✓We have never worked with any government agency to create backdoors or provide user data.
  • ✓Should we ever receive legal requests for data, we will be transparent about our response within legal limits.

10. How We Use Data for Research

In addition to basic platform operation, your data may be used in the following ways:

  • We use self-hosted Umami analytics to track platform usage, allowing us to identify and fix broken features and improve user experience.
  • We may analyze aggregated, anonymized usage patterns to understand how researchers interact with protocols and experiments.
  • Using collected, anonymized data, we may develop features that improve the platform for everyone.
  • We may include anonymized and aggregated information in public reports about Project Veilbreak's progress and research impact.

All analysis is performed on anonymized, aggregated data and is used solely to improve the platform and advance open research in visual perception phenomena.

11. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us through our Discord community or other available communication channels.