Privacy Policy

Our Commitment

Europe Social is built on a simple principle: your data belongs to you. We collect the minimum data necessary to operate the Service, we store it in the EU, and we never sell it or use it for advertising.

What We Collect

We collect only what is necessary to provide the Service:

Account information — Email address, handle, display name, and profile information you choose to provide
Content — Posts, replies, likes, and other content you create, stored in your AT Protocol personal data repository
Zone membership — Your home zone selection (e.g., "Barcelona" or "Germany"), used to personalize your feed
Device information — Basic device type and OS version for app compatibility and on-site attestation

What We Don't Do

No behavioral tracking — We do not track your browsing behavior, build interest profiles, or monitor your activity across the platform for targeting purposes
No advertising profiles — We do not create advertising profiles or sell your data to advertisers. Europe Social has no ads.
No data sales — We never sell, rent, or trade your personal data to third parties
No precise location storage — We never store your precise GPS coordinates. Location data is used transiently to resolve your zone and then discarded. Only the coarse zone identifier is retained.

EU Data Residency

All Europe Social infrastructure is hosted on Hetzner servers in Germany. Your personal data repository, account information, and all service data are stored within the European Union.

We do not transfer personal data outside the EU/EEA except in the following limited cases:

AT Protocol federation — Public posts may be relayed to other AT Protocol services, some of which may be hosted outside the EU. This is inherent to the federated protocol.
Translation APIs — Post text may be sent to translation providers (DeepL, Mistral) for real-time translation. This data is transient and not stored by providers.

Location Data

Europe Social uses location for zone-based features. Our approach is privacy-first:

GPS coordinates are used transiently only to resolve your current zone
Coordinates are sent to our zone resolution API and immediately discarded after the zone is determined
Only the zone identifier (e.g., "Barcelona"), a verified boolean, and a timestamp are stored
We use 4-character geohash precision at most, which represents an area of roughly 40km x 20km
You can use Europe Social without ever enabling location services

Translation Data

When you view a translated post, the original text is sent to a translation provider. This data is:

Used only for the purpose of translation
Not stored permanently by translation providers
Cached by Europe Social (in EU-hosted Redis) to reduce repeated API calls
Cached translations are automatically deleted after 30 days

Your Rights (GDPR)

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to:

Access — Request a copy of all personal data we hold about you
Rectification — Correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data
Erasure — Request deletion of your personal data ("right to be forgotten")
Data portability — Export your data in a machine-readable format. The AT Protocol makes this a first-class feature: your entire data repository is portable.
Restriction — Request restriction of processing of your personal data
Objection — Object to processing of your personal data
Withdraw consent — Withdraw any previously given consent at any time

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@europesocial.org. We will respond within 30 days.

Data Retention

We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account:

Account information is deleted within 30 days
Your AT Protocol data repository is removed from our PDS
Cached translations referencing your posts are deleted
Zone membership records are anonymized

Note: Due to the federated nature of the AT Protocol, copies of your public posts may exist on other services in the network. Europe Social cannot control data held by third-party AT Protocol services.

AT Protocol Federation

Europe Social is part of the AT Protocol network. When you interact with accounts on other AT Protocol services, those services may collect and process data according to their own privacy policies. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of other services you interact with.

Changes to This Policy

We will notify you of material changes to this Privacy Policy via the Service or by email at least 30 days before changes take effect. We will never retroactively weaken our privacy commitments.