# Privacy Policy

Last updated October 27, 2026.

This policy explains what personal data Off the Clock handles, why, and what you can do about it. It's written in plain language.

## 1. Who is responsible

Off the Clock is run by Nick Gerakines (@ngerakines.me), based in Ohio, USA, through the community identity @off-the-clock.us. For the data in [section 3](#s3) and [section 4](#s4), that's who decides how and why it's used. Contact: @ngerakines.me or @off-the-clock.us on Bluesky.

> [!SUMMARY] We don't own your data. What you post lives in your own account, on your own provider, associated with the space you posted in. The community keeps a record of who may use which space, including who invited them and any note an admin added. Our services keep an index of what members post so other members can read it, a few cookies to keep you signed in, and minimal request logs for no more than 30 days. We don't track you, show ads, sell anything, or use your posts to train AI.

## 2. Your data is yours

Off the Clock doesn't host your account. When you sign in, you use an Atmosphere account hosted by your own provider (Bluesky, another provider, or your own server). Everything you create here, including posts, replies, likes, events, RSVPs, polls, votes, bookmarks, your community profile, and your acceptance of a space's policy, is a record in **your own repository on your own PDS**, associated with the space it belongs to.

That has two consequences:

- **If you leave or are removed, you keep it all.** The records stay in your account. Off the Clock stops showing them, and stops letting you read its spaces.
- **Managing it is between you and your provider.** Where your data is stored, how it's backed up, and how you export or delete it are governed by your provider and its policies, not ours.

Your drafts are kept in a private space in your own account that only you can read; Off the Clock's services never index them.

## 3. What the community keeps about membership

To decide who may read and write each space, the community keeps records about membership. They're written by admins, into the community's management spaces, and are readable by admins:

- **grants**: who may use which spaces, which admin added them, and when;
- **notes** an admin chooses to add to an invitation or a membership, such as "film club" or how they know you;
- who has been made an admin of a space or of the community;
- **labels** admins put on content or accounts ([section 7](#s7) of the Terms); and
- each space's settings, feeds, and policy.

Your own decision to join, and your acceptance of a space's policy, are records in your account, not ours.

## 4. What our services hold

Off the Clock runs three services. Here's what each holds about you and why.

| Service | What it holds | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **The website** (`off-the-clock.us`) | Your sign-in session (your handle, your account's address, and the access tokens your provider issued, encrypted); a cached copy of your avatar; previews of links people post | To keep you signed in and act for you when you post |
| **The index** (`api.off-the-clock.us`) | A copy of the records members write in the spaces, and their attachments; who is a member of which space; notifications; the text needed for search, and the numbers used for search by meaning; the browsers you turned notifications on for | To show each space to its members, search it, and notify you |
| **The feed service** (`feeds.off-the-clock.us`) | Which records each feed selects | To build feeds |

The index's copy follows your account: when you delete a record, the index drops it.

## 5. Logs

We keep minimal logs of requests to our services: which identity signed in from which IP address, and which requests were made, with the time and the response. We use them to keep the services secure, stop abuse, and fix problems. **We don't keep them past 30 days.**

## 6. Who else receives data

**Your provider.** When you post, the website writes to your account through your provider, using the access you granted when you signed in. What you can review and revoke is listed in our [docs](https://docs.off-the-clock.us/members/permissions/).

**Members of a space.** Everything you post in a space is readable by its members. That's the point of a space.

**Our service providers**, which process data only to run Off the Clock:

- **Railway** runs our servers and stores the services' data, in the United States (Virginia).
- **Cohere** turns the text of posts, events, and bookmarks, and the words of each search, into numbers for search by meaning. Cohere receives that text; it doesn't receive who wrote it.
- **OpenStreetMap's Nominatim** receives the addresses members search for when adding a place, and **OpenStreetMap's tile servers** send the map images drawn for places. Both receive these requests from our servers, not from your browser.
- **Browser push services** (Apple, Google, Mozilla) carry notifications to devices where you turned them on. Notifications are encrypted end to end; the push service sees only their timing and size.

**Pages and players you choose to open.** When someone posts a link, our server fetches the page to build a preview. Video and music players from providers such as YouTube or Spotify load only after you press play and allow that provider; from then on, that provider receives what any embedded player receives.

**Highport** serves this policies site and our docs site under [its own policies](https://policies.highport.space/).

**Legal requests.** We disclose data only when the law requires it, and we'll tell you first unless the law forbids it.

**Never.** We don't sell or rent your data, show ads, use analytics or tracking, or use your posts to train AI models.

## 7. How long we keep things

- **Request logs:** up to **30 days**.
- **Your session:** until you sign out, or up to 7 days.
- **The index's copy of a record:** for as long as the record exists in your account. If you're no longer a member of its space, it's hidden from everyone.
- **Grants, notes, and labels:** until an admin removes them. Removing someone from a space deletes the grant that let them in, along with its note.
- **Link previews and other caches:** days, then refreshed or dropped.

## 8. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to tell you what we hold about you, correct it, delete what we can delete, or stop using it. For your posts and everything else in your own account, use your provider's tools; that data is yours and theirs, not ours. For anything we hold, message @ngerakines.me.

If you're in the EU or UK, you can also complain to your data protection authority. We'd rather you came to us first.

## 9. Children

Off the Clock is for adults. We don't knowingly hold data about anyone under 18. If you believe a child is a member, tell an admin and we will remove them.

## 10. Changes

When we change this policy in a significant way, we'll post about it in general before the change takes effect and update the "Last updated" date.