Privacy

Fazoh is responsible for the personal data processed on Fazoh ("we", "us"). We collect only what a social platform needs to work, we do not sell your data, and we do not build advertising profiles.

What we collect

• From Google when you sign in: your name, email address, profile picture link and Google account ID.
• From ORCID if you sign in or connect with it: your ORCID iD and the name on your ORCID record. Your ORCID iD is shown on your public profile, linked to your ORCID record.
• What you add to your profile: your nickname, and if you choose to add them, a photo, a short bio, your work, your country and links to other profiles. These are public.
• What you do on the site: your positions and receipts, the claims, questions, answers, rebuttals and quick takes you post and their revisions, the desks and claims you follow, your reviews and reports, and the answers you credited. Your contributions are public; follows, reports and notifications are not.
• Technical data: your IP address, browser details and the pages you request, in server and security logs. For the contact form we store a one-way hash of your IP address, not the address itself.
• Messages you send us through the contact form or by email, with the name and email address you give.

Why we use it

• To run your account and show your contributions under your nickname, which is the service you signed up for (performance of our agreement with you).
• To keep the platform safe and fair: moderation, spam and abuse prevention, scoring integrity and security logs (our legitimate interest).
• To improve the service and Faz: we study how claims, debates and Faz's rulings perform, mostly from public contributions (our legitimate interest).
• To answer your messages and handle legal notices (our legitimate interest, and our legal obligations).

We do not sell or rent personal data, we do not share it for advertising, and we do not use it to train AI models.

Who else processes it

These providers process data on our behalf, only for the purposes above:

• Cloudflare delivers and protects the site. It handles every request, including your IP address and browser details. Cloudflare Web Analytics also counts page visits for us, without cookies and without building a profile of you.
• Our hosting provider runs the servers that store the site, its database and backups.
• Google handles sign-in. For signed-out visitors, our pages load Google's sign-in script so that Google can offer one-tap sign-in; Google receives your IP address and browser details when it loads, and, if you are signed in to Google, shows you the prompt. We receive nothing from Google unless you choose to continue.
• ORCID handles sign-in for researchers who choose it.
• Our AI model providers run the language models behind Faz. Claims, questions and answers, with their sources, are sent to them for reading and source checks, without your name or email address. They process it only on our behalf.

YouTube videos shared as evidence show only a still image until you press play. Pressing play loads YouTube's privacy-enhanced player (youtube-nocookie.com), and from then on YouTube processes your viewing under Google's privacy policy.

We may also disclose data when the law requires it, for example in response to a valid court order, and we tell the person concerned where the law allows.

International transfers

Fazoh is used around the world, and the servers and providers that process your data may be in countries other than yours. Where data protection law restricts transfers, for example from the EU, the UK or Switzerland, we rely on standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards.

Cookies and browser storage

We use only what the site needs to work: a session cookie that keeps you signed in, a security token that protects forms, a small cookie that remembers which menu section you left open, and your light or dark theme choice stored in your browser. We set no analytics or advertising cookies. Google's sign-in prompt, shown to signed-out visitors, runs under Google's own privacy policy and may use Google's cookies. If that ever changes, we will ask for your consent first.

How long we keep it

• Account and profile data: while your account exists.
• Public contributions: kept as part of the public record; after account deletion they show as "Former member".
• Server and security logs: up to 30 days.
• Contact messages and emails: up to 2 years, longer if a legal matter requires it.
• Backups: up to 14 days.

Security

Traffic to the site is encrypted, access to servers and the database is restricted to the people who run them, and backups are kept on our own systems. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires. To report a vulnerability, see our security.txt.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you can see, correct, export and delete your data, object to processing, and ask us to restrict it. On your account page you can download all your data as a file and delete your account; deletion removes your name, email address, photo and Google ID immediately. If your posts contain personal data you want removed, tell us. We do not sell or share personal data as U.S. state privacy laws define those terms; California residents can read about their rights from the California Privacy Protection Agency. You can also complain to your data protection authority.

Children

Fazoh is not for people under 16 and is not directed to children under 13 as defined by COPPA. If we learn that an account belongs to someone younger, we close it and delete its personal data.

Governing law

This notice and our handling of personal data are governed by U.S. law, as set out in section 18 of the Terms of use. Where the law of your country gives you rights over your data, you keep them.

Changes

We update this notice when the service changes. The date at the top shows the last update; for important changes we tell signed-in members first.

Contact

Questions or requests about your data: use the contact form or write to [email protected].