Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 1, 2024.

Your privacy is critically important to us. At Rough Drafts, we have a few fundamental principles:

We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our services.
We store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
We aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what information is shared publicly (or kept private), indexed by search engines, and permanently deleted.
We help protect you from overreaching government demands for your personal information.
We aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your personal information.

Below is our Privacy Policy, which incorporates and clarifies these principles.

Who We Are and What This Policy Covers

We are a small startup in Seattle, Washington trying to make it easier to read, write, and share the stories of adventurers and athletes.

This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use:

Our website: roughdrafts.app;
Our mobile applications.

Throughout this Privacy Policy we’ll refer to our websites, mobile applications, and other products and services collectively as “Services.”

Below we explain how we collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.

Information We Collect

We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so—for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.

We collect this information from three sources: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.

Information You Provide to Us

It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us directly. Here are some examples:

Basic account information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account. For example, we require individuals who sign up for an account to provide an email address and password, along with a username or name—and that’s it. You may provide us with more information—like your address and other information you want to share—but we don’t require that information to create an account.
Public profile information: If you have an account with us, we collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, if you have an account, your username is part of that public profile, along with any other information you put into your public profile, like a photo or an “About Me” description. Your public profile information is just that—public—so please keep that in mind when deciding what information you would like to include.
Content information: You might provide us with information in draft and published content, such as posts, comments, likes, photos, videos, routes, and other content you share on the Services. In some cases you can limit the visibility of this content to certain groups (e.g., the public, your followers, or only you).
Information from connected devices and apps: We collect information from devices and apps you connect to the Services in accordance with the consent you give when you authorize the connection. For example, you may connect your Garmin watch to interact with the Services, providing us with information about your activities (e.g., via .fit files), which can include precise time and location data, your pace and exertion, and heart rate data (if you have consented to processing of health information). You may update your connected devices and apps preferences at any time in your settings.
Communications with us: You may also provide us with information when you respond to communicate with us about a support question or sign up for a newsletter. When you communicate with us via form, email, or otherwise, we store a copy of our communications.

Information We Collect Automatically

We also collect some information automatically:

Log information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, including the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information. We store log files that include this information, which may be associated to usernames and session IDs.
Usage information: We collect information about your usage of our Services. For example, we collect information about the actions that users perform on our Services like who did what and when (e.g., [username] deleted “[title of post]” at [time/date]). We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, get insights on how people use our Services so we can make our Services better, and understand and make predictions about user retention.
Location information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Services from certain geographic regions.
Information from cookies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. We use cookies to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our Services.

Information We Collect from Other Sources

We may also get information about you from other sources. For example:

Third Party Login: If you create or log in to your account through another service (like Google) we’ll receive associated login information (e.g. a connection token, your username, your email address)

The information we receive depends on which services you use or authorize and what options are available.

How and Why We Use Information

Purposes for Using Information

We use information about you for the purposes listed below:

To provide our Services. For example, we provide you the ability to track your progress in certain activities. We may use the GPS track of an activity to compare your effort to other users and to gather information about the route. We may also use GPS tracks to help you and other users explore new places to go (e.g., by visualizing data in a personal or global heatmap).
To ensure quality, maintain safety, and improve our Services. For example, by providing automatic upgrades and new versions of our Services. Or, for example, by monitoring and analyzing how users interact with our Services so we can create new features that we think our users will enjoy and that will make our Services easier to use.
To protect our Services, our users, and the public. For example, by detecting security incidents; detecting and protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; fighting spam; complying with our legal obligations; and protecting the rights and property of Rough Drafts and others, which may result in us terminating Services.
To fix problems with our Services. For example, by monitoring, debugging, repairing, and preventing issues.
To customize the user experience. For example, to personalize your experience by serving you relevant notifications and recommending content for your feed.
To communicate with you. For example, by emailing you to ask for your feedback or keep you up to date on Rough Drafts. If you don’t want to hear from us, you can opt out at any time (we’ll still send you important updates relating to your account).

Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information

A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that our use of your information is based on the grounds that:

The use is necessary in order to fulfill our commitments to you under the applicable terms of service or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account—for example, in order to enable access to our website on your device or charge you for a paid plan; or
The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
We have a legitimate interest in using your information—for example, to provide and update our Services; to improve our Services so that we can offer you an even better user experience; to safeguard our Services; to communicate with you; and to understand our user retention and attrition; to monitor and prevent any problems with our Services; and to personalize your experience; or
You have given us your consent—for example before we place certain cookies on your device and access and analyze them later on.

We never directly sell your personal information and we do not share your information for advertising purposes.

We share information about you in limited circumstances, and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy. These are spelled out below:

Subsidiaries and independent contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries and independent contractors who need the information to help us provide our Services or process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for any personal information that we share with them.
Third-party vendors: We may share information about you with third-party vendors who need the information in order to provide their services to us. This includes vendors that help us provide our Services to you (like cloud storage services and email delivery services that help us stay in touch with you); those that help us understand and enhance our Services (like analytics providers); and other third-party tools that help us manage operations. We require vendors to agree to privacy commitments in order to share information with them.
Legal and regulatory requirements: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
To protect rights, property, and others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Rough Drafts, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
Business transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Rough Drafts goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
With your consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, we may share your information with third parties when you authorize us to do so.
Aggregated or de-identified information: We may share information that has been aggregated or de-identified, so that it can no longer reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services.

Information Shared Publicly

Information that you choose to make public is—you guessed it—disclosed publicly. That includes information like your public profile and profile photo, public activities/posts, and your “likes.” This information may be indexed by search engines.

Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share publicly.

How Long We Keep Information

We generally discard information about you when it’s no longer needed for the purposes for which we collect and use it—described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information—and we’re not legally required to keep it.

For example, we keep web server logs that record information about a visitor, like the visitor’s IP address, browser type, and operating system, for approximately 60 days. We retain the logs for this period of time in order to, among other things, analyze traffic and investigate issues if something goes wrong on one of our websites.

As another example, when you delete a post or comment, it stays in your Trash folder for thirty days in case you change your mind and would like to restore that content. After the thirty days are up, the deleted content may remain on our backups and caches until purged.

Security

While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so. All data is encrypted using TLS when transmitted from our servers to your browser. We encrypt database backups. We monitor our Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.

To enhance the security of your account, we encourage you to enable two factor authentication.

Choices

You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:

Limit the information that you provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide optional account information and you choose what gets uploaded to our Services (e.g., posts, GPS tracks, photos).
Limit access to your profile and content: We provide you the option to make your profile visible to everyone or only to followers (who you must approve). You can also limit access to individual posts/activities to certain users (e.g., everyone, followers, or only you). Within a post/activity you can further hide certain details like portions of the GPS track and heart rate data.
Delete your data: You can delete individual posts/activities, GPS tracks, comments, photos, and videos. This information is subject to the retention policy described in How Long We Keep Information above.
Close your account: You can close your account if you no longer want to use our Services by emailing us. Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information above—for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for our legitimate business interests.

Your Rights

If you are located in certain parts of the world, including some US states and countries that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (aka the “GDPR”), you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, like the right to request access to or deletion of your data.

If you are located in a country that falls under the scope of the GDPR, data protection laws give you certain rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:

Request access to your personal data;
Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
Request portability of your personal data.

You also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.

US Privacy Laws

Laws in some US states require us to provide residents with additional information about the categories of personal information we collect and share, where we get that personal information, and how and why we use it. You’ll find that information in this section (if you are a California resident, please note that this is the Notice at Collection we are required to provide you under California law).

In the last 12 months, we collected the following categories of personal information, depending on the Services used:

Identifiers (like your name, contact information, and device and online identifiers);
Internet or other electronic network activity information (such as your usage of our Services);
Geolocation data (from GPS tracks or based on your IP address);
Audio, electronic, visual or similar information (such as your profile picture, if you uploaded one); and
Inferences we make (such as likelihood of retention or attrition).

You can find more information about what we collect and sources of that information in the Information We Collect section above.

We collect personal information for the business and commercial purposes described in the How and Why We Use Information section. And we share this information with the categories of third parties described in the Sharing Information section. We retain this information for the length of time described in our How Long We Keep Information section.

In some US states you have additional rights subject to any exemptions provided by your state’s respective law, including the right to:

Request a copy of the specific pieces of information we collect about you and, if you’re in California, to know the categories of personal information we collect, the categories of business or commercial purpose for collecting and using it, the categories of sources from which the information came, and the categories of third parties we share it with;
Request deletion of personal information we collect or maintain;
Request correction of personal information we collect or maintain;
Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information;
Receive a copy of your information in a readily portable format; and
Not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your rights.

Contacting Us About These Rights

You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using your account settings and tools that we offer, but if you aren’t able to or you’d like to contact us about one of the other rights, email us at [email protected]

When you contact us about one of your rights under this section, we’ll need to verify that you are the right person before we disclose or delete anything. For example, if you are a user, we will need you to contact us from the email address associated with your account. You can also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf by giving us written authorization. We may still require you to verify your identity with us.

Appeals Process for Rights Requests Denials

In some circumstances we may deny your request to exercise one of these rights. For example, if we cannot verify that you are the account owner we may deny your request to access the personal information associated with your account. As another example, if we are legally required to maintain a copy of your personal information we may deny your request to delete your personal information.

In the event that we deny your request, we will communicate this fact to you in writing. You may appeal our decision by responding in writing to our denial email and stating that you would like to appeal. All appeals will be reviewed by an internal expert who was not involved in your original request. In the event that your appeal is also denied this information will be communicated to you in writing.

If your appeal is denied, in some US states you may refer the denied appeal to the state attorney general if you believe the denial is in conflict with your legal rights. The process for how to do this will be communicated to you in writing at the same time we send you our decision about your appeal.

How to Reach Us

If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please email us at [email protected].

Other Things You Should Know

Transferring Information

Because our Services are offered worldwide, the information about you that we process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who work for us, other members of our group of companies, or third-party data processors. This is required for the purposes listed in the How and Why We Use Information section above.

When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, we will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy as required by applicable law. These measures include entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with entities based in countries outside the EEA.

You can ask us for more information about the steps we take to protect your personal information when transferring it from the EU.

Privacy Policy Changes

If we make changes to the Privacy Policy, we will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice (like adding a statement to our homepage or sending you a notification through email). Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.

November 1, 2024: Privacy policy first published.

The first draft of this privacy policy was forked from Legalmattic.