Privacy Policy

01 The short version

We collect very little: your email, the apology you write (which, for a public record, is published on purpose), an optional display name, and the technical data any website logs. We don't run ads, analytics, or trackers, and we never sell or share your personal information. Paid records are permanent by design — that's the one place where 'delete my data' has limits, and we explain it plainly below.

02 What we collect

Email address — to send your record link and let you sign in by magic link, and to send receipts and important notices.

Your apology text — the words you write. For a public record this is published on a public, crawlable record page on purpose; that is the Service.

A display name or alias — optional. You can publish as a name, an alias, or 'Anonymous'.

Payment information — handled by Stripe when you buy a paid record. We never see or store your full card number; we keep the transaction details (tier, amount, Stripe reference).

An optional identity 'fingerprint' — if you choose the provable-but-private option, your device turns your name and a passphrase into a one-way hash. We store only the hash, never your name or passphrase. See 'The identity fingerprint' below.

Technical and log data — your IP address, browser and device type, and basic request logs, collected automatically to run and secure the site.

03 Your apology is public and permanent

If you choose a public record, the words you write are published on a public page that search engines and AI crawlers can read, and — for paid records — copied to the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine). Paid records are kept permanently; this is the service you are buying. Once a record has been copied to an independent archive, we cannot guarantee its removal from every copy everywhere.

We don't ask for sensitive information, and you shouldn't include any you wouldn't want permanently public. Your apology is a free-text field — please don't write things about your health, beliefs, relationships, or other people's private details that you wouldn't want on the permanent public record.

04 How we use your information

To provide the Service — to publish and seal your record, run your account, and keep the permanence chain (timestamp, Proof Code, archive) intact. To take payment and manage your orders. To respond to you and send service emails. To keep the Service secure and prevent fraud and abuse. To run and improve the Service using operational, non-tracking information such as totals and error logs. And to meet our legal obligations. We do not run analytics or trackers, and we do not use your information for advertising or to build a profile of you.

05 Our legal bases (EU / UK users)

If you are in the EU or UK: we process your information to perform our contract with you (providing the Service you asked for, including publishing your record), for our legitimate interests (running, securing, and improving the Service), to comply with legal obligations, and, where relevant, with your consent. Where you make your apology public, you are choosing to make that information public yourself.

06 Who we share it with

We don't sell or share your personal information for advertising. We do use a small set of service providers to run the Service, and share only what each needs: Stripe (payments); Supabase (our database, accounts, and backend, hosted in Sydney, Australia); Cloudflare (website hosting and content delivery); Resend (sending service emails); Discord (community access for The Hundred); Google Fonts and jsDelivr (delivering fonts and code to your browser — these receive your IP address when the page loads); FreeTSA (an independent timestamp authority that receives a hash of your record, not the words); and the Internet Archive (public archiving of record pages). We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or in connection with a sale or transfer of the business.

07 Where your data is held

Our database is hosted in Australia (Sydney); some providers above are in the United States. So your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your own. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards (such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses) for international transfers.

08 Cookies and similar technologies

We keep this minimal. We don't use analytics, advertising, or cross-site tracking cookies. We use your browser's local storage to keep you signed in, and our providers (such as Cloudflare and Stripe's checkout) may set strictly-necessary cookies for security and to make the site and payments work. Because we only use strictly-necessary technologies, there's nothing here to opt out of for advertising.

09 How long we keep it

It depends on the type of data. Account and contact data: while your account is active, then deleted on closure (we may keep limited records where the law, tax, or fraud-prevention requires). Free records: removed when you delete them, and they fade after 30 days. Paid records: kept permanently — that permanence is the contracted service, and it is the main exception to deletion (see your rights below). Transaction records: kept as long as tax and accounting law requires.

10 How we keep it safe

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures: encryption in transit (HTTPS), encrypted storage at our database provider, and payment data kept at Stripe rather than with us. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't guarantee absolute security, but we take it seriously.

11 Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you can ask to access, correct, or delete your personal information, object to or restrict some processing, get a copy of your data, and withdraw consent where we relied on it. The easiest way to manage your records is in your account; for anything else, email [email protected] and we'll act within the time the law requires.

The permanence limit, stated plainly: you can fully delete a paid record within its 24-hour window. After that, because the record is permanent by design and that permanence is what you paid for, we can't fully delete the published words — but you can ask us to anonymise the record (remove your name and contact details). We remove your name from our own pages and index going forward, but we cannot edit snapshots already taken by an independent archive such as the Internet Archive, so your name may remain in those past copies. Your account and contact details remain deletable. We'll always do as much as the law and the permanence promise allow.

12 The identity fingerprint

If you choose the provable-but-private identity option, your device computes a one-way SHA-256 hash of your name and a passphrase and stores only that hash on the record. We never receive or store your name or passphrase. Later you can re-enter the same name and passphrase to prove the record was yours. This is provable, not secret — and if you forget the passphrase it cannot be recovered.

13 Children

Atonr is for adults. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has used the Service, contact us and we'll remove the account and data.

14 US state privacy rights

If you live in a US state with a privacy law (such as California), you have rights to know, access, correct, delete, and to opt out of the 'sale' or 'sharing' of personal information and of targeted advertising and profiling. We do not sell or share your personal information and we do not run targeted advertising or profiling, so there is nothing to opt out of — but you can still exercise your other rights by contacting us. See also our Do Not Sell or Share page.

15 Australia

We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). You can ask to access or correct your personal information by contacting us, and if you believe we've mishandled it you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

16 Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the Service or the law changes. We'll update the 'Last updated' date, and for material changes we'll post a notice or contact you. Please check back from time to time.

17 Contact

Questions, or want to exercise a right? Email [email protected].