Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 7, 2026

This policy explains what personal data Sparkea collects, why we collect it, and what rights you have over it. We collect the minimum we need to run a community platform — we do not sell your data and we do not run third-party advertising.

1. What we collect

Account data (you provide it at registration)

Email address — required; used for login, verification, password resets, and activity digests.
Username — required; shown publicly next to your ideas and comments.
Country, age, gender — optional; country is shown on your public profile, age and gender are never public.
Password — stored only as a bcrypt hash; we cannot see it.

Content you create

Ideas, comments, votes, and bookmarks. Ideas and comments are public; votes and bookmarks are not shown publicly per-user.

Technical data

Standard server logs (IP address, timestamps, requested pages) kept for security and abuse prevention — e.g. our rate limiting uses your IP address.
Anonymous usage statistics — we run a self-hosted analytics tool (Umami) that counts page views and referrers. It uses no cookies, collects no personal data, and cannot identify you; the aggregated statistics never leave our own infrastructure and are not shared with any third party.

2. Cookies

Sparkea sets one strictly necessary cookie: an httpOnly authentication token that keeps you signed in for 24 hours. We use no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, and our usage analytics is cookieless (see above), which is why you do not see a cookie consent banner. Your theme preference (dark/light) and your last-used idea filters are stored locally in your browser and never sent to us.

3. Why we process your data

To provide the service — accounts, publishing, voting, notifications (contractual necessity).
To secure the service — abuse prevention, rate limiting, moderation (legitimate interest).
To email you — verification and password-reset emails are transactional; activity digests are sent at most once per day and every email contains an unsubscribe link. You can also turn digests off in your profile.

We use a small number of service providers to operate Sparkea: hosting infrastructure, Cloudflare (network infrastructure — DNS, traffic routing, and delivery of email sent to our contact addresses), and Resend (email delivery — they process your email address to deliver our messages). Our emails contain no tracking pixels and no click-tracking redirects. We share data with no one else, unless required by law.

5. How long we keep data

Account data is kept while your account exists. Server logs are kept for a limited period for security purposes. When you delete your account (see below), personal data is removed immediately.

6. Your rights

Depending on where you live (including under the GDPR), you have the right to:

Access the data we hold about you — your profile shows almost all of it;
Correct inaccurate data;
Delete your data — self-service, see below;
Object to processing and withdraw consent (e.g. unsubscribe from digests);
Complain to your local data protection authority.

To exercise any of these rights, use the self-service options or contact us.

7. Account deletion

You can delete your account anytime from your profile (password confirmation required). Deletion is immediate: your email, username, country, age, gender, and password hash are erased or replaced with anonymous values. Your published ideas and comments remain on the platform under an anonymous name — they are part of community discussions that other people contributed to — but nothing on them points back to you.

8. Children

Sparkea is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, please contact us and we will remove it.

9. Changes to this policy

If we materially change this policy, we will notify registered users by email or an in-app notice before the change takes effect.

10. Contact

Privacy questions and data requests: see the contact page.