Privacy

Privacy & anonymity

See also our Terms of Service and Content Guidelines.

Anonymous to the public vs. anonymous to us

When you choose "Post publicly as Anonymous," your username and display name are hidden from other visitors on that report or comment. This is not the same as technical anonymity. The platform's infrastructure still processes your submission, including whatever a web server ordinarily logs (e.g. request metadata) and the account record tied to your session, even when your public byline reads "Anonymous."

We do not publicly display: email addresses, IP addresses, authentication provider details, account identifiers, internal user IDs, or device details. We aim to minimize what we collect in the first place, and we do not run additional tracking beyond what's needed to operate the site (rate-limiting abuse, keeping sessions signed in).

If you have a threat model where infrastructure-level anonymity matters (e.g. concern about compelled disclosure), do not rely on this platform's "Anonymous" option as a guarantee against that. We'll never claim otherwise.

The anonymous tip line

The tip line is built for stronger anonymity than the regular submission form. It needs no account, and its pages don't set or read cookies. What you write, and any files, are encrypted in your browser before they're sent, to a key whose private half only the site owner holds, in a passphrase-locked file; our server and database store only the encrypted text. Our tip database doesn't record IP addresses, browser details, or time of day, only the date. Your reply code is never sent to us; we keep only a one-way fingerprint of it, so we can't recover it.

Its limits: like any web host's, our hosting provider's request logs record the network address and time of each visit, so use Tor Browser if that matters to you. Files can contain hidden details, so describing what happened or sharing a cleaned-up screenshot is safer than sending original documents. And because the encryption code is delivered by this site, a compromise of the site could change it.

We delete tip conversations once we've finished with them. You can ask us to delete yours at any time by saying so in the conversation.

What we store

• An account record (username, display name, role). Authentication itself (your email, sign-in sessions) is handled by our authentication provider, not stored in our own database.
• The content of reports, sources, and comments you submit.
• A session cookie so you stay signed in.

We do not sell your information, and we do not run third-party advertising trackers.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and content for as long as your account is active. If you delete a report or comment, we remove it from public view immediately; a copy may persist briefly in backups before it's fully purged. If you'd like your account and its data deleted, contact us (below).

Legal process

We may disclose account or content information if required by valid legal process (such as a subpoena or court order), or if we believe in good faith it's necessary to prevent harm, comply with the law, or protect the rights, property, or safety of the Site, our users, or the public. Where legally permitted, we'll attempt to notify the affected user before complying.

Questions or requests

Contact privacy@instrumental-convergence.com with any privacy question, including a request to access or delete your data.