Polium — Privacy Policy

Effective date: [DATE] · Version 1.0

1. Who We Are

Polium is a civic accountability game operated by Human Flourishing (“HF”, “we”, “us”). It allows players to survey political candidates against ethical criteria, contribute to community-generated ratings, declare vote alignment, and earn points for doing so. HF’s mission is to improve real-world outcomes by rewarding ethical behaviour — for everyone, forever.

For privacy enquiries, contact us at: privacy@[domain]

2. What We Collect and Why

2.1 Account Data

When you create an account we collect:

• Email address — used for login, security notices, and optional communications.
• Username — your public display name within the game. It does not have to be your real name.
• Password (hashed; we never store the plaintext).
• Membership tier — whether you are a free or paid member.
• Date of account creation.

We do not require your real name, phone number, date of birth, or any government identifier to use Polium.

2.2 Gameplay Data

Your activity within the game generates the following data:

• Survey responses — your yes/no answers to HF criteria questions about candidates. These are stored linked to your account ID for deduplication and points-award purposes, but are aggregated before being displayed publicly. Your individual answers are never attributed to you by name.
• Vote declarations — your stated intention to vote in alignment with a candidate’s HF rating. This is linked to your account so points can be awarded. It is not displayed as part of a public profile by default.
• Evidence submissions — links, documents, or references you submit to support candidate ratings. These are publicly visible and attributed to your username.
• Usefulness votes and flags — your votes on the helpfulness of evidence submitted by others, and any flags you raise. Stored for integrity purposes; not displayed individually.
• Points balance and transaction history — a ledger of how you earned points within the game.

2.3 Technical Data

• IP address — collected at login for security purposes (rate limiting, fraud detection). Not used for tracking or advertising.
• Device and browser type — collected for compatibility and debugging.
• Session data — a session token stored in a secure cookie to keep you logged in.
• Usage logs — pages visited, actions taken, and timestamps. Used in aggregate to improve the platform. Not sold or shared.

2.4 What We Do Not Collect

• Race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
• Precise geolocation. We may ask for your jurisdiction (e.g. country, state) to surface relevant elections, but we do not track your physical location.
• Financial data of any kind.
• Data about your activity outside Polium.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use the data we collect exclusively to:

• Operate the game — calculate ratings, award points, display leaderboards, and surface relevant elections.
• Prevent abuse — detect duplicate accounts, spam survey responses, and fraudulent point claims.
• Communicate with you — send account security emails (password resets, breach alerts) and, if you opt in, product updates.
• Improve the platform — analyse anonymised usage patterns to fix bugs and improve features.
• Comply with legal obligations — where applicable law requires us to retain or disclose data.

We do not use your data for advertising, behavioural profiling, or any purpose not listed above.

4. Sensitive Data — Voting Preferences

Vote declarations are political data. In many jurisdictions, voting preferences are legally classified as sensitive personal information. We treat them accordingly:

• Vote declarations are stored securely and are never sold, shared with third parties, or used for political targeting.
• They are not displayed publicly on your profile by default. You may choose to share your declaration yourself.
• Aggregate statistics (e.g. “X% of Polium players in this jurisdiction declared support for candidates rated above 75%”) may be published, but these never identify individuals.
• If you delete your account, your vote declarations are permanently deleted.

5. Candidate Data and Public Figures

Polium holds data about political candidates. Candidates are public figures. The information we store about them — names, offices sought, jurisdictions, public voting records, and community ratings — is either already publicly available or is an expression of community opinion formed from that public information.

• Candidates do not have accounts on Polium and cannot request deletion of their candidate profiles.
• Community ratings are aggregate opinions, not statements of fact, and are clearly presented as such.
• If a candidate profile contains factually incorrect information, it can be corrected by any player through the standard evidence and flagging system.
• Admin suppression of a candidate profile is always logged transparently and visible to all players.

6. Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only in the following limited circumstances:

• Service providers — we use third-party services to host the platform, send emails, and monitor for security threats. These providers process data on our behalf, are bound by data processing agreements, and are not permitted to use your data for their own purposes.
• Legal obligations — we may disclose data if required by a court order, subpoena, or applicable law. We will notify you if we receive such a request unless prohibited by law from doing so.
• Business transfers — if HF merges with or is acquired by another organisation, your data may transfer as part of that transaction. We will notify you in advance and you will have the opportunity to delete your account.
• With your consent — we will not share your data for any other purpose without asking you first.

7. Data Retention

• Account data — retained for as long as your account is active, plus 30 days after deletion to allow for recovery requests.
• Survey responses — retained indefinitely in aggregate form (to maintain the integrity of candidate ratings). Individual responses linked to your account ID are deleted when you delete your account.
• Vote declarations — deleted immediately when you delete your account.
• Technical logs — retained for 90 days for security and debugging purposes, then automatically purged.
• Evidence submissions — these are public contributions to a shared knowledge base. They are retained after account deletion in anonymised form (your username is replaced with “[deleted]”).

8. Your Rights

You have the following rights regarding your personal data. To exercise any of them, contact us at privacy@[domain].

• Access — you can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction — you can correct inaccurate data in your account at any time via account settings.
• Deletion — you can delete your account and associated personal data at any time. Some anonymised data may be retained as described in Section 7.
• Portability — you can request an export of your personal data in a machine-readable format.
• Objection — you can object to any use of your data that goes beyond what is necessary to operate the game.
• Withdrawal of consent — where we rely on your consent to process data (e.g. optional communications), you can withdraw it at any time without affecting our ability to provide the service.

We will respond to rights requests within 30 days. If you are unhappy with our response, you may lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority in your jurisdiction.

9. Security

• Passwords are hashed using a modern, slow hashing algorithm (bcrypt or equivalent). We never store plaintext passwords.
• Data is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2 or higher.
• Sensitive data is encrypted at rest.
• Access to production data is restricted to authorised personnel only.
• We conduct regular security reviews and act on findings promptly.

In the event of a data breach that affects your personal data, we will notify you within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, consistent with applicable law.

10. Cookies and Tracking

We use the minimum cookies necessary to operate the service:

• Session cookie — keeps you logged in during a browser session. Expires when you close your browser or log out.
• Persistent login cookie — if you choose “remember me”, a secure token is stored for up to 30 days.
• CSRF token — a security cookie that prevents cross-site request forgery attacks.

We do not use advertising cookies, third-party tracking cookies, or analytics cookies that send data to external parties. We do not participate in cross-site tracking.

11. Minors

Polium is not intended for use by anyone under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from minors. If we become aware that we have done so, we will delete the data and the account immediately. If you believe a minor has created an account, please contact us at privacy@[domain].

12. Changes to This Policy

We will post any changes to this policy on this page with an updated effective date. For material changes — changes that meaningfully affect how we collect, use, or share your data — we will notify you by email at least 14 days before the change takes effect. Continued use of Polium after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact Us

For any privacy-related questions or to exercise your rights:

• Email: privacy@[domain]
• Post: Human Flourishing, [Address]

We aim to respond to all enquiries within 5 business days.