The FreedomBox Foundation is committed to protecting the privacy of our forum users. In this policy, “the FreedomBox Foundation” or “We” refers to the FreedomBox Foundation Board of Directors, Management, staff, interns, volunteers, and consultants. As to all of the information described below, the FreedomBox Foundation will not give, sell, rent, or exchange the information with anyone else without your prior consent, except as compelled by law.

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 you visit our site, we may record the numerical Internet protocol address of the computer you are using, the browser software you use and your operating system, the date and time you access our site, and the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site, in addition to other information. We use this information to measure the number of visitors to different sections of the site, to diagnose and correct system errors, and to improve the site.

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. There is no requirement that you provide your real name and your primary email address. You may use a pseudonym and/or separate email address to stay anonymous.

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. You may use a VPN server or Onion Routing network to mask your real IP address and stay anonymous.

While you use our forum, we collect voluntarily submitted information, including which posts has a user read and not read, which topics and categories the user has subscribed to, posts, votes, bumps, etc. made by the user, user’s provided profile information and preferences, user’s invitations to other users, and user’s messages within the server.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways:

  • Public forum — your contributions to this forum are available publicly for others to see. This is in keeping with our Social Contract as part of the Debian project, in particular our statement that we will give back to the free software community (#2), and that we will not hide our problems (#3).
  • To personalize your experience — your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs.
  • To send periodic emails — The email address you provide may 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.

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, including key-only SSH authentication, firewall, using the HTTPS communication protocol on the forum’s website, automatic security updates, and rate limiting login attempts.

What is your data retention policy?

We will make a good faith effort to:

  • Retain server logs containing the IP address of all requests to this server no more than 90 days.
  • Retain other information for the purpose of maintaining basic operations of the forum and not for the purpose of sharing with any third-parties.

You may ask questions about and request the deletion of the information you have submitted to us by sending an email to privacy@freedomboxfoundation.org.

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.

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our site, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety.

Third party links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our site. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

Our site, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older. If this server is in the USA, and you are under the age of 13, per the requirements of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), do not use this site.

General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”)

The FreedomBox Foundation is required to comply with the GDPR because we (1) offer products or services to citizens of the European Union and (2) collect personal information from citizens of the European Union.

You may direct questions and requests regarding our privacy policy to privacy@freedomboxfoundation.org.

Managing Your Information

You may change, update, access, or delete the information you have submitted to us by sending an email to privacy@freedomboxfoundation.org. You may also send an email to this address to withdraw your consent or restrict our use and/or processing of your personal information. Additionally, you may submit a subject access request to this email address in order to receive a copy of any personal data pertaining to you.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our online forum and not to information collected offline.

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 update our privacy policy on this page.

This document is CC-BY-SA 4.0. It was last updated March 28, 2019.