Who exactly administers locus and has access to my data?

This discourse is administrated by 3 individuals. We have no commercial goals with respect to the discourse. We created the discourse to facilitate discussions.

If you would like to contact us, please email us at locus_dc@protonmail.com – more directly, you can also message any of the moderators on this discourse.

The moderators are: @Gaffen, @PrivacyDingus and @themoonisblue

What information do we collect?

We collect information from you when you register on our site and gather data when you participate in the forum by reading, writing, and evaluating the content shared here.

When registering on our site, you may be asked to enter your name and e-mail address. You may, however, visit our site without registering. Your e-mail address will be verified by an email containing a unique link. If that link is visited, we know that you control the e-mail address.

When registered and posting, we record the IP address that the post originated from. We also may retain server logs which include the IP address of every request to our server.

We do not intentionally collect or process sensitive personal information, such as government identification numbers, information on racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, genetic data, biometric data, health data, or any of the special categories of personal data specified by the GDPR.

That said, by posting on this forum, you may inadvertently reveal sensitive information such as your political opinions. Your posts will be saved onto our server’s database, constituting a collection of personal information, even though we will not use it for any purpose.

We offer no means of avoiding that situation, except through explicit consent: We require that you explicitly consent to the possible collection of your sensitive personal information.

International Data Transfers

The forum is administered by residents of the UK. Our internet infrastructure is in the EU.

The UK and EU have an “adequacy agreement”, meaning that both recognise the adequacy of each others data protection regimes and data can flow freely between them.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you will be used in, at most, one of the following ways:

  • To sign up to the forum, you have to initially subscribe to an email digest and email notifications. The email address you provide will be used to send you information, notifications that you request about changes to topics or in response to your user name, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions. If you wish to be unsubscribed from any or all emails, please contact us or any of the forums’ moderators.
  • We need to ensure that the site is available. If we know which regions of the world account for most of the site’s traffic (through IP logs) then we can deploy internet infrastructure to make the site available in those regions.
  • By collecting IPs, we mitigate against denial of service attacks and account cracking attempts (if the attempts originate from a single IP).

What is the legal basis for this information collection?

  • (1f) of Article 6 of the GDPR explains that:

Processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that at least one of the following applies:

  • processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.

  • We collect IPs to ensure that our internet infrastructure can handle load in different parts of the world. We also collect IPs to prevent abuse (e.g. Denial of Service attacks).

  • If you wish to post on this discourse and if you wish to associate your posts with a username, then we need a reliable means of ensuring that:

    • The username is only assumeable by a single user (exclusive access).

      • This is facilitated by an email: on signing up, you receive a join link to your email. Any subsequent changes to your account (e.g. a password change) are mediated through links sent to your email inbox.

In acknowledgement of Article 6(1)(f), we believe that a balancing test justifies the collection of these IP addresses. We would be happy to elaborate on our reasoning, should you wish. If so, please email us: locus_dc@protonmail.com.

Do you disclose this data to any third parties or recipients?

We do not disclose your data to any third party or recipient. If a law enforcement agency subpoenas us for data, they can fuck off. We will go to jail if necessary.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you enter, submit, or access your personal information. For example, your data and any backups of it are encrypted.

What is your data retention policy?

  • Retain server logs containing the IP address of all requests to this server no more than 90 days.
  • Retain the IP addresses associated with registered users and their posts no more than 5 years.

Do we use cookies?

Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow). These cookies enable the site to recognize your browser and, if you have a registered account, associate it with your registered account.

We use cookies to understand and save your preferences for future visits and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future.

We use the same cookies as those programmed by default by the Discourse software. What these cookies are, what duration they live for and other details are explained here.

What are my rights under the GDPR?

The GDPR provides the following rights with respect to personal information about you that we collect or process:

  • the right to access your personal data

  • the right to rectification of inaccurate or incomplete personal data

  • the right to erasure of your personal data

  • the right to data portability

  • the right to restrict the processing of your personal data

  • the right to object to certain processing of your information, including automated decision-making and direct marketing

  • the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority

Information on how to exercise these rights is provided throughout this notice and linked above. While we strive to make these rights easy to exercise on your own through your account settings, for more complicated inquiries the best option will be to contact us.

Where can I access data about me?

You can see your account data at any time by visiting your account page on the forum. Your account page also lists your posts and other activity on the forum.

Your account activity page also includes a link to download all of your activity in standard comma-separated values format.

If you do not have account with us but have a data access request, please contact us.

How can I change or erase data about me?

You can change your account data at any time by visiting the profile settings page for your account. Settings for a particular forum also allow you to close your account, on the settings page for your account. Closing your account starts a process of erasing or anonymizing our records of data you provided for your account. Forum administrators can also erase and anonymize accounts.

Depending on the settings for your particular forum, you may also be able to edit, anonymize, or erase your posts. When you edit posts, we will keep all versions of your posts.

Automated Decision Making

We do not perform any automated decision making and, thus, do not use your data to this end.

How do I file a complaint?

If you wish to file a complaint, please contact us. If you are unsatisfied with our response, you may contact the UK ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office).

At the time of last update of this policy, their contact information is:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Fax: 01625 524510

Your Consent

By using our site, you consent to our web site privacy policy.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.

This document is CC-BY-SA. It was last updated September 27, 2022.