Privacy Policy

1. At a glance

• We collect what we need to run your account, the community and your stations, and to keep the site safe.
• We do not sell your personal information, share it for targeted advertising or use advertising cookies.
• Optional cookies and similar tools stay off until you allow them. We honour the Global Privacy Control signal.
• The exact location of a station is always private to its operator and us. You choose how precisely it appears in public: hidden, about 11 km (the default), about 1 km, or exact only for public infrastructure.
• You can download or delete your data from your account at any time, or write to us.
• Points, badges and trust levels are recognition only. They are not a payment for your personal information.

2. Who we are and what this policy covers

Nexus Observatory Inc. (we, us) operates observatory.global and every site on it, including its subsites. Nexus Observatory Inc. is a Canadian company and an Ellipi Group company, located in Toronto, ON M4R 1V2. We are responsible for the personal information described here (in the European Union, United Kingdom and Brazil, we are the controller).

This policy covers the websites, accounts, community features, forms, emails, station registration and data contribution tools on observatory.global. It does not cover websites of other organizations that we link to, or personal information we process for a customer under a written contract; that contract and its data processing terms apply instead.

3. Person in charge of privacy

Our Privacy Officer is the person in charge of the protection of personal information under Quebec law. The Privacy Officer is also our data protection contact for the European Union and the United Kingdom, and our data protection officer (encarregado) for Brazil. Reach the Privacy Officer at contact@observatory.global (Privacy Officer) or our privacy request form or through our privacy request form.

No representative has been appointed yet under Article 27 of the GDPR (European Union) or Article 27 of the UK GDPR (United Kingdom). One is being appointed, and we will name them here. Until then, if you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, contact our Privacy Officer at contact@observatory.global (Privacy Officer) or our privacy request form or through the privacy request form. You keep every right in this policy, and you may complain to your supervisory authority at any time.

We have a representative in Switzerland, reachable through the privacy request form.

4. What we collect

Information you give us

• Account: your name, email address, password (stored only as a one-way hash), country, preferred language, whether you want news emails, and your agreement to our terms. If you turn on two-step sign-in, a secret key (encrypted) and single-use recovery codes (hashed).
• Profile: what you choose to add, such as a headline, organization, place, short biography, interests (platforms, industries, technologies, countries), languages, links, a profile photo and a cover image. You decide who sees each field: everyone, members or only you.
• Community activity: posts, comments, discussions, replies, private messages, groups you create or join, events and replies to invitations, follows, connections, blocks, saved items and portfolio items, including images you upload. We remove location and other hidden data from uploaded images.
• Observatories, stations and data contributions: the observatories you operate or claim (name, type, operator, location and the evidence you give to support a claim); for each station, the device class, serial number, exact position, sharing tier, public location precision, your confirmation that you have the site owner's permission, the status the app reports and its qualification record; and the data, guides, datasets, code or test results you contribute.
• Forms: what you write in our contact, deployment and privacy-request forms, and in feedback on knowledge articles.
• Reports, notices and appeals: what you tell us when you report content, send a notice about illegal content or appeal a decision, including your name and email address when you give them.

Information we collect automatically

• Technical data: your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you request, the time of the request and the referring page. Our hosting provider records this to deliver the site and protect it from attacks.
• Security data: failed sign-in attempts, lockouts, and counters that limit how often a form or action can be used. These counters use a keyed hash of your IP address instead of the address itself.
• Choices and records: your cookie choices with a proof-of-consent record (a random consent identifier, the time, the method, your region and the rules applied, the versions and a fingerprint of the text shown, the language, the page address, a shortened IP address and a keyed hash of your browser's user agent), the time and version of your consent to our terms, and email delivery status.
• Device storage: the cookies and browser storage described in our cookie and storage notice.

Information from other sources

• Other members may mention you, invite you, message you or report content that concerns you.
• If you sign in through an identity provider that we offer, it tells us an identifier for your account and the details you allow it to share.
• The Nexus Observatory app reports the technical status of stations linked to your account.

Information we do not ask for

We do not ask for health information, government identity numbers, payment card details or information about your racial or ethnic origin, religion, political opinions, union membership or sexual life. Please do not post such information about yourself or others. We take no payments on observatory.global.

5. Why we use it and on what legal basis

We use personal information only for the purposes below, or for purposes compatible with them. The legal basis column applies where the law asks for one, such as in the European Union, the United Kingdom and Brazil. In Canada, we rely on your consent, which is implied for what is needed to provide a service you asked for and express for anything optional.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have balanced them against your rights and you can object (see section 12). We do not use your personal information to make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you based solely on automated processing.

6. Automated processing

Some protections run automatically. We tell you about them because they affect what you can do on the site:

• Trust levels are calculated from facts such as a verified email address, two-step sign-in, accepted contributions and moderation history. They decide when you can post links, upload files, send messages or create groups. Points never buy a level.
• Hiding pending review: when enough members report the same item, it is hidden until a person reviews it. Suspected child sexual abuse material is hidden at once. Automated tools never remove content or close an account on their own.
• Abuse prevention: rate limits, temporary lockouts after failed sign-ins, bot checks and the refusal of disposable email addresses.

You can ask us which main factors led to an automated outcome, and ask a person to review it, by writing to contact@observatory.global (Privacy Officer) or our privacy request form or by appealing a moderation decision.

7. Who receives your information

• Other people, as you choose. Public posts, public groups and profile fields set to Everyone can be seen by anyone, including search engines. Fields set to Members are visible to signed-in members. Private messages are visible to their recipients.
• Our service providers, listed in section 8, who act on our instructions under written agreements that require them to protect the information and use it only to serve us.
• Authorities, when the law requires it or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is needed to prevent a threat to someone's life or safety. Where the law allows, we tell you about a request concerning you.
• Open data platforms, for open-tier stations only: daily summaries at your public location precision and without personal information, published to third-party open data platforms such as the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) under CC BY 4.0, and provided as an aggregated feed to risk and resilience indices.
• A buyer or successor, if all or part of our business is sold, merged or reorganized. The information stays protected by this policy, and we tell you before a new organization becomes responsible for it.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not use advertising networks or data brokers. We do not let the providers of embedded content use your information for their own advertising.

8. Service providers and other recipients

Some map and data views load public layers directly from the organizations that publish them. Your browser then sends them your IP address, browser data and the map area you view. They receive no account information. These layers load only after you allow External media in your privacy choices, or choose to load them once.

We will update these lists before we add a provider that handles your personal information. If you have an account, we will tell you about a significant change.

9. International transfers

We are based in Canada and serve people worldwide. Your information may be stored and processed in Canada and in the other countries named in section 8, whose laws may differ from those where you live. Authorities of those countries may be able to access it under their laws.

• From the European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland: Canada is recognized as providing adequate protection for organizations subject to the federal private-sector privacy law. For onward transfers to other countries, we use an adequacy decision, the recipient's participation in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and its UK and Swiss extensions where available, or the European Commission's standard contractual clauses with the UK addendum, together with any additional safeguards needed.
• From Quebec: before we communicate personal information outside Quebec, we assess whether it will be adequately protected, taking into account its sensitivity, the purpose of its use, the safeguards that will apply and the legal framework of the destination, and we put that protection in a written agreement.
• From Brazil: we transfer personal information abroad only under a mechanism permitted by the LGPD, such as the standard contractual clauses approved by the national data protection authority (ANPD).
• Elsewhere: we apply protections at least equal to those described in this policy.

You can ask us for information about these safeguards, or a copy of them, at contact@observatory.global (Privacy Officer) or our privacy request form.

10. How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purposes in section 5, then delete or anonymize it. Longer periods apply only when the law requires them or while a legal claim, investigation or request is pending.

11. How we protect it

We use administrative, technical and physical safeguards suited to the sensitivity of the information, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), passwords stored only as one-way hashes, encryption of form answers and two-step sign-in secrets, keyed hashes instead of IP addresses for rate limits, access limited to staff who need it, two-step sign-in for moderators and staff, and tested backups. No system is perfectly secure. Please use a strong, unique password and turn on two-step sign-in.

If a breach of security involving your personal information creates a real risk of significant harm (in Quebec, a risk of serious injury; in Europe and the United Kingdom, a risk to your rights and freedoms), we will notify you and the competent regulators as the law requires, and keep a record of every breach. To report a security problem, see our security and vulnerability disclosure policy.

12. Your rights

Your rights depend on where you live, but we offer the following to everyone, subject to the limits the law allows (for example, to protect other people's information or a legal claim):

• Access: know what personal information we hold about you, how we use it and to whom we have disclosed it, and get a copy.
• Correction: have inaccurate or incomplete information corrected.
• Deletion: have your information deleted when we no longer need it or you withdraw your consent.
• Portability: receive the information you gave us in a structured, commonly used technological format, or have it sent to another organization.
• Withdraw consent: at any time, for anything that relies on consent, without affecting what was done before.
• Object or restrict: object to processing based on our legitimate interests, or ask us to limit it while a question is resolved.
• Human review: ask a person to review an automated outcome and tell you the main factors behind it.
• Complain: to us, and to a privacy regulator (section 19).

Canada

Under the federal private-sector privacy law and the laws of the provinces, including Quebec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, you have the rights above. In Quebec, you may also ask us to stop disseminating your personal information or to de-index any hyperlink attached to your name that gives access to it, where the dissemination breaches the law or a court order or causes you serious injury. In Ontario and other provinces without their own private-sector law, the federal law applies.

European Union, European Economic Area and United Kingdom

Under the GDPR and the UK GDPR, you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection, and the right to withdraw consent. You may lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority where you live or work, or where an alleged infringement took place.

United States

If you live in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia or another state with a consumer privacy law, you have the rights to know or access, correct, delete and obtain a portable copy of your personal information, and to opt out of its sale, of targeted advertising and of profiling with significant effects. We do none of those three things. You will not be treated differently for using your rights. If we refuse your request, you may appeal by replying to our answer; we will answer the appeal in writing within the time the law sets, and tell you how to contact your state attorney general.

Brazil

Under the LGPD, you have the rights to confirmation and access, correction, anonymization, blocking or deletion of unnecessary or unlawful data, portability, information about the entities with which we share data and about the consequences of refusing consent, revocation of consent, and review of automated decisions. You may also petition the ANPD.

Other countries

If you live elsewhere, you have the rights your local law gives you, and at least the rights described in this section.

13. How to use your rights

1. From your account: go to Account, Privacy to download a copy of your data or to delete your account. We ask you to confirm by email before we act.
2. With our form: use the privacy request form, which works without an account.

We confirm your identity before we act, usually by asking you to confirm the request from the email address on your account. We never ask for your password. You may use an authorized agent; we may ask the agent for proof of authority and ask you to confirm your identity directly.

We answer within 30 days. If the law allows more time for a complex request, we tell you why within those 30 days. Under the LGPD, we answer a request for a complete copy within 15 days. Using your rights is free, unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive. If we refuse a request in whole or in part, we explain why and tell you how to complain.

14. Your choices

• Cookies and similar tools: change your choices at any time in Privacy choices, also linked in the footer of every page.
• Global Privacy Control: if your browser sends this signal, we treat it as a refusal of the Marketing category and as a request to opt out of the sale and sharing of your personal information, record it with your choices and show you that we honoured it. In US states, the Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information link does the same in one step.
• Emails: news and digests are off unless you turn them on. Every one of them has a one-click unsubscribe link. Account and security emails cannot be turned off while your account is open.
• Profile: choose who sees each field, hide yourself from the member directory, and block people.
• Stations: choose each station's sharing tier (open, members only or private; new stations start private) and its public location precision (hidden, about 11 km by default, about 1 km, or exact only for public infrastructure). See the contributor terms.

15. Children

observatory.global is not directed to children. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child has given us personal information, write to contact@observatory.global (Privacy Officer) or our privacy request form and we will delete it.

16. Content you make public

Anything you post in a public place can be read, copied and indexed by others, and may remain in search engine caches or copies made by others after you delete it. Think before you share personal information in public posts, and never share someone else's personal information without their permission.

17. Notice for United States residents

This notice gives the information required by the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended, and similar state laws. In the past 12 months we collected the categories below, from the sources and for the purposes in sections 4 and 5, and disclosed them for business purposes only to the recipients in sections 7 and 8. We keep each category for the periods in section 10.

We do not sell or share personal information as those laws define these terms, and we have not done so in the past 12 months. We have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing personal information of consumers under 16. We use sensitive personal information only to provide the services you request, to keep them secure and for other purposes the law permits, so the right to limit its use does not apply. We offer no financial incentive in exchange for personal information: points, badges and trust levels are not given in exchange for it. California residents may also ask, once a year, whether we disclosed personal information to third parties for their direct marketing; we do not.

18. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The date at the top shows the latest version, and earlier versions are available on request. If a change materially affects how we handle your personal information, we tell account holders by email or on the site at least 30 days before it takes effect, and ask for your consent again where the law requires it.

19. Questions and complaints

Write to our Privacy Officer at contact@observatory.global (Privacy Officer) or our privacy request form or use the privacy request form. We will acknowledge your complaint, look into it and tell you the outcome. You may also contact a regulator at any time, for example:

• Canada: the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
• Quebec: the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec
• European Union and European Economic Area: your national data protection authority
• United Kingdom: the Information Commissioner's Office
• Switzerland: the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner
• Brazil: the Autoridade Nacional de Proteção de Dados
• United States: the attorney general of your state, or in California the California Privacy Protection Agency