Privacy Statement
Last updated: May 20, 2026
Contents
PoliticalConcern ("we," "us," or "our") is a for-profit civic platform. This Privacy Statement explains what personal information we collect when you visit or use PoliticalConcern, how we use it, and your rights regarding that information.
By using PoliticalConcern, you agree to the practices described in this statement.
1. Information We Collect
Information you provide directly
- Account registration: First name, last name, email address, date of birth, gender, street address (for election matching — never displayed publicly), and a password (stored as a secure bcrypt hash).
- Profile information: Display name, biography (up to 500 characters), and profile photo (avatar).
- User-generated content: Posts and comments in election discussion threads and the general forum, civic events you submit, and any other content you post to the platform.
- Payment information: When you pay for an event posting or make a donation, payment details are processed by Stripe (card payments) or NowPayments (cryptocurrency). We do not store full card numbers or private crypto keys.
Information collected automatically
- Usage data: Pages visited, interactions (clicks, searches), session duration, and referring URLs. IP addresses are hashed before storage and are not linked to identifiable users.
- Device information: Browser type, operating system, and screen resolution (standard web server logs).
- Cookies: Session cookies for authentication and third-party cookies from services we use. See our Cookies Statement for details.
2. How We Use Your Information
- Account management: Creating and maintaining your account, authenticating your identity, and sending email verification messages.
- Platform features: Matching you to relevant elections based on your address, enabling discussion posts and event submissions, and displaying your public profile information.
- Communications: Sending transactional emails (verification, payment confirmation) and, where you have opted in, platform updates.
- Payment processing: Facilitating event posting fees and charitable donations via our payment processors.
- Safety and moderation: Detecting abuse, enforcing our Terms & Conditions, and taking action against prohibited conduct.
- Analytics and improvement: Understanding how users interact with the platform so we can improve it.
- Advertising: Displaying political and business advertisements to users. See the Advertising section below.
3. Data Sharing
We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We share data only in the following limited circumstances:
- Stripe: When you pay by card, your payment details are transmitted to Stripe, Inc. Stripe's privacy policy governs their handling of your data.
- NowPayments: When you pay by cryptocurrency, transaction data is transmitted to NOWPayments. Their privacy policy applies.
- Cloudflare: Profile photos are stored on Cloudflare R2 object storage.
- Infrastructure providers: Our hosting provider (Render) and database provider (Neon) store application data on our behalf under service agreements.
- Legal requirements: We may disclose information when required by law, court order, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of PoliticalConcern, our users, or the public.
4. Cookies & Tracking
We use cookies for authentication and to improve platform performance. For full details on what cookies we use and how to manage them, see our Cookies Statement.
5. Advertising
PoliticalConcern is a for-profit, ad-supported platform. We display political and business advertisements to users. Advertisers may include political candidates, political action committees, advocacy organizations, and commercial businesses.
Advertising may be targeted based on general location or interests derived from your activity on the platform. We do not share personally identifiable information with advertisers without your explicit consent.
6. Data Retention
We retain your account information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide services. Unverified accounts that remain unverified for 30 days are automatically deleted. You may request deletion of your account and associated data at any time (see Your Rights).
Hashed analytics data may be retained indefinitely for aggregate reporting purposes.
7. Your Rights
You have the right to:
- Access the personal information we hold about you.
- Correct inaccurate or incomplete information via your account settings.
- Delete your account and personal data by contacting us.
- Object to certain uses of your data, including targeted advertising.
- Withdraw consent for email marketing at any time by unsubscribing or contacting us.
To exercise any of these rights, email us at privacy@politicalconcern.com. We will respond within 30 days.
8. Security
We use industry-standard security practices including bcrypt password hashing, HTTPS-only transmission, HTTP-only session cookies, and access controls on our infrastructure. No system is perfectly secure; if you discover a vulnerability, please contact us at security@politicalconcern.com.
9. Contact Us
For privacy-related questions or to exercise your rights, contact us at:
privacy@politicalconcern.com
We may update this Privacy Statement periodically. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision. Continued use of the platform after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised statement.