PRIVACY & COOKIES

1. WHO WE ARE

The data controller for Dragos.xyz is the site operator.

Controller: Dragos S, operator of Dragos.xyz, United Kingdom.
Contact: the protected contact link on the Contact page, for all privacy requests.

The operator's full identity and postal address have been verified by the domain registrar and hosting provider of dragos.xyz. They will be provided to competent authorities, or on a justified request made through the Contact page.

2. DATA WE PROCESS AND WHY

Feature	Data	Purpose	Legal basis
Account	First name, last name, nickname, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash), role, creation and update dates. If the administrator makes your account, the email address is optional — an account without one gets an address on the reserved domain “no-email.invalid”, which can never receive mail, and nothing is emailed to it. A temporary account also has its last day and who set it.	Create and manage your account, sign-in, moderation	Contract (Art. 6(1)(b))
Sign-in session	Session identifier, security (CSRF) token	Keep you signed in, protect forms against forgery	Contract; legitimate interest in security (Art. 6(1)(f))
Emails from us	Email address, nickname, first name, your email preferences (service notices on/off, newsletter on/off), date and source of your newsletter opt-in or withdrawal, and a record of each mailing (subject, text, date, and who it was sent to with the result for each member)	Send service notices and, only if you opted in, the newsletter; honour unsubscribes; prove consent; answer questions about a mailing	Service notices: legitimate interest in informing members (Art. 6(1)(f)). Newsletter: consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) and PECR regulation 22
Inside Mailer	Private messages between you and the administrator inside the site: subject, text, date, who wrote each message, read/unread and deleted status	Let you and the administrator communicate privately in the User Portal	Contract (Art. 6(1)(b))
Stock Control (Projects › Cyber)	Name of each stock list, its products and quantities (typed on the site or imported from a file or a Google Sheet), stock-take dates and who saved them, optional lines by date / variant (quantity, description, expiry date, barcode), product barcodes, count tasks (title, end time, which products, who was asked to count them, what each person counted and when, who marked them completed and who approved them), a history of changes (who, what, when), list members (nicknames), who may edit each list, count teams (team name and members), barcodes given out by the 🎲 RANDOM generator (the code, who asked for it and when — kept so that no code is ever given twice), each member's reminder choice (Inside Mailer / email), when reminders were sent, and — only if an editor links one — the address of the Google Sheet's import script	Show what must be ordered, counted or is expiring; organise count tasks; send the reminders and task messages (Inside Mailer / email) chosen by you or by the person who made the task	Contract (Art. 6(1)(b))
Password reset	Email address, hashed one-time token, expiry time	Send and verify the reset link	Contract
Chat	Account nickname (or a temporary Guest name for visitors who only read), optional chat profile photo and “about me” text (shown to everyone on the chat), public and private messages, voice messages, video clips and files you send, time sent, online presence, IP address and browser details (User-Agent) of each message and connection, moderation records (mute/ban, reason, duration)	Provide the chat, keep it safe	Contract; legitimate interest in moderation
Self-Disclosure & Diary Book	Title, text, voice recordings, optional memory picture, chosen display name (account / custom / anonymous), language, visibility, account link, dates	Moderate, store and, if public, publish your transmission	Contract; consent for voice recording (you start it)
Quotes & replies	When a member answers a public page by quoting it: the quoted words, which page they come from, the page that quotes them, and the date. The quote is shown as a box with the author name exactly as shown on the quoted page (pen names and “Anonymous” stay as they are; the account behind a pen name is never shown or searchable). The quoted page does not show who answered it: only the quoted member sees that, in NOTIFICATIONS in their User Portal. Private pages cannot be quoted. Quote suggestions (@member, @book, @page) are shown only to signed-in members and only list public pages.	Let members answer and discuss each other's public pages, with a link to the original	Contract (Art. 6(1)(b))
Notifications	For each member: who quoted one of your public pages (by their public name), the quoted words, the page and the answer, the date, and whether you have seen it. Administrators get a copy of every quote notification, which also names the account that wrote the answer, for moderation.	Tell you in the User Portal when someone answers you; help moderators spot harassment	Contract; legitimate interest in moderation (Art. 6(1)(f))
Games portal	Games you mark as “I play this”, your main game, posts, replies and GG reactions, games you add to the archive (title, developer, year, platform, description, the art and colour you chose), who invited whom through an invite link, nickname, dates. The administrator may change the art shown for any game; the game art generator used for this runs in the administrator's browser and does not use your personal data	Run the members' games portal and show your activity to other members	Contract
Ratings, reviews & comments	Page, rating, text, nickname, account link, dates	Publish your rating or comment, moderation	Contract; legitimate interest in moderation
Mood	The mood you choose for today and the date (only the latest one is kept)	Show your mood on the site	Contract
Profile photo	The picture you upload as avatar (resized; hidden photo data removed)	Show it next to your nickname	Contract
Blinker	Website domain, owner name, renewal costs and expiry dates, verification token, page style choices; for each donation or credit gift: donor name as entered, amount, fee, payment method, optional message and whether it may be shown publicly	Run Blinker pages, keep the credit balance, pay renewals, show public supporters, keep financial records	Contract; legal obligation to keep accounting records (Art. 6(1)(c)); consent for showing your name publicly
Projects access	Access requests and access granted to private projects (nickname, date)	Decide and manage who can open private projects	Contract
Backups	Full copies of the database and site files, which include all the data above	Restore the site after a failure or attack	Legitimate interest in security and availability (Art. 6(1)(f))
News submissions	Name, email, title, content, images, confirmation token	Confirm your email, moderate and publish submissions	Contract / pre-contract steps
Contact form	Chosen channel, name or nickname, email address, message, optional link, account nickname if signed in, ticket number, date	Answer your message, handle reports, appeals against moderation decisions, copyright claims and privacy requests	Legitimate interest in replying (Art. 6(1)(f)); legal obligation for privacy requests (Art. 6(1)(c))
Security & abuse prevention	IP address, stored only as a one-way SHA-256 hash for rate limiting; technical server logs kept by our hosting provider	Prevent spam, brute force and abuse	Legitimate interest in security
Chat log (administrator only)	A record of chat activity: public messages and private messages as sent, edits (the previous and the new text), deleted messages (the deleted text and who deleted it), the name and type of attached files (not the files), replies and forwards, mutes and bans (reason and duration), and — if switched on — when you enter and leave the chat. Each record has your nickname, the time, your IP address and browser details. Deleting a message removes it from the chat, but its record stays in the chat log until the period in section 11 ends. Only the administrator can read the chat log; it is not public and not included in site backups.	Investigate abuse, harassment, spam and reports between members; keep evidence for complaints or requests from the authorities; keep the chat safe	Legitimate interest in security and moderation (Art. 6(1)(f))
Reports	When you report something (with the shield button next to SHARE, the REPORT link in the footer, or from the chat): the reason you chose, the details you write, the page, and a copy of what you reported — for example the text of a chat or private message, who sent it and when, the attached picture, video or file, a review, or a member's profile photo and “about me”. We also record your nickname if you are signed in (or “visitor”) and a one-way hash of your IP address, used only to stop the same report being sent again and again. The administrator's decision (resolved or dismissed), notes and any action taken — for example a deleted message, a mute or a ban — are kept with the report. Only the administrator can see reports. The member you report is never told who reported them. If you appeal a moderation decision (Contact → Appeal a decision, within 14 days, see the Community Rules), your appeal is kept as a contact message, for the period in section 11.	Deal with spam, scams, harassment and illegal content; keep evidence of what was reported even if it is later changed or deleted; keep the site safe	Legitimate interest in safety and moderation (Art. 6(1)(f)); legal obligation where the law requires us to act on illegal content
Activity log (administrator only)	When you do something on the site — register, post, comment, review, edit, delete, report, send a contact message, change your mood, etc. — we note what happened together with your IP address, the operating system, browser and browser version and device type your browser reports, and, when needed, the country looked up from the IP address. It also notes what the administrator does to your account — for example making it, adding or removing its email, making it temporary or permanent, making you a new password (the password itself is never written down) or giving you EDITOR / TEAMS rights in Stock Control. Only the administrator can see it. The log keeps the most recent 1,000 events; older ones are deleted automatically.	Investigate abuse, spam, fake accounts and reports; keep the site secure	Legitimate interest in security and moderation (Art. 6(1)(f))
Online counter & page views	A random browser id (dxOnlineId, local storage), a one-way SHA-256 hash of your IP address and the time; kept about 90 seconds for the online counter and 30 minutes for view counting. Only totals are kept after that.	Show how many visitors are online and how often a page was read, without counting one visitor many times	Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f))
Statistics (optional)	See section 5	Understand site usage	Consent (Art. 6(1)(a))
Advertising (optional)	See section 6	Show ads that fund the site	Consent

We do not sell personal data. We do not use your data for automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

3. EMAILS FROM DRAGOS.XYZ & INSIDE MAILER

We send four kinds of email. Each is sent from dragos@dragos.xyz through our hosting provider's mail server, to the address of your account.

• Emails you ask for — for example a password reset or a submission confirmation. These are always sent; they are part of the service.
• Service notices — occasional messages to members about the site itself: new features, rule or policy changes, planned downtime, security matters or your account. They never contain advertising. They are on by default for members, and you can turn them off at any time.
• Stock Control messages — only if you are in a stock list (Projects › Cyber › Stock Control): reminders about what to order, count or what is expiring, sent the way you chose in that list's MY REMINDERS; and count-task messages — when someone gives you products to count, when the end time of your count passes, when your count is approved and, to whoever made the task, when a count is marked completed. For count tasks, the member who makes the task chooses Inside Mailer and/or email. They are about the work in that list, never advertising, and they stop when you leave the list or it is deleted. You can ask through the Privacy / GDPR request channel not to get count-task emails.
• Newsletter — news and offers from Dragos.xyz, its projects and partners (for example Blinker, the shop or sponsors). Sent only if you opted in by ticking the box when you registered or in the User Portal. Opting in is never required to use the site. We record the date and where you opted in, so we can show your consent.

Unsubscribing: every service notice and newsletter has a one-click unsubscribe link, and supports the unsubscribe button of Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail. You can also change both settings in User Portal › Email preferences, or ask through the Privacy / GDPR request channel. Unsubscribing takes effect immediately, including for a mailing that is already being sent.

We do not share your email address with advertisers or partners, do not buy or rent email lists, and do not use tracking pixels or tracked links to see whether you opened an email.

Records: for each mailing we keep, for 12 months, the subject, text and date, and the list of members it was sent to (nickname, email address, whether it was sent, failed or skipped, and the time). This lets us answer questions and complaints, show that unsubscribes were respected and fix delivery problems. Only the administrator can see it. After 12 months the record and the list are deleted automatically.

INSIDE MAILER — MESSAGES INSIDE THE SITE

Inside Mailer (User Portal › Inside Mailer) carries private messages between you and the administrator. They stay on Dragos.xyz and are not sent by email, so they are not marketing emails and are not affected by your email preferences. Only you and the administrator can read your conversations. The administrator may send the same message to many members at once; each member still gets a private conversation of their own and can reply.

When you delete a conversation it disappears from your Inside Mailer. It is erased for good once the administrator has deleted it too, or when your account is closed. The administrator can also erase a conversation for both sides at once. You can ask for it to be erased earlier through the Privacy / GDPR request channel. To prevent spam, a member can send a limited number of messages per hour.

STOCK CONTROL, FILES AND GOOGLE SHEETS

Stock lists are kept on Dragos.xyz: the products, quantities, stock-take dates and a history of who changed what. Members of a list can download it as an .xlsx or .csv file; what you do with a downloaded file (for example uploading it to Google Drive) is up to you. Editors can import an .xlsx or .csv file; the file is read once and not kept. The 📷 button next to a barcode field uses your camera only after you press it and your browser asks for permission; the picture is read inside your browser to find the barcode and is never sent to Dragos.xyz or stored — only the number goes into the field. On browsers without a built-in barcode reader (for example on iPhone) the free ZXing scanner library is downloaded once from jsDelivr for this.

Linking a Google Sheet is optional. If an editor links one, the site reads it only when the editor presses IMPORT, through a small Google Apps Script that the sheet's owner adds to their own sheet and runs under their own Google account. The script gives the site read-only access to one tab, and only together with a secret key made for that list; the site cannot change, delete or share the sheet, and no Google password or API key is stored on the site. Google processes these requests under its own terms as the provider of Google Sheets and Apps Script. Do not put personal data of other people in a stock list or sheet. To stop the link, remove it in the list's IMPORT / EXPORT panel or archive the script's deployment in Apps Script. Deleting a list removes its products and history from the site.

4. VOICE RECORDINGS & TRANSCRIPTION

The microphone is used only after you press START VOICE and your browser asks for permission. Recording stops when you press STOP.

• Transcription happens on your device. The open-source Whisper speech model runs inside your browser. Your audio is not sent to any speech-recognition service for transcription.
• To run, your browser downloads the speech library from jsDelivr and the model files from Hugging Face once, then caches them. These providers receive your IP address and browser information, as with any file download.
• When you submit, the recording is uploaded to our server together with your text and kept with it so it can be played back (by moderators and, if published, by visitors).
• Recordings can contain your voice and anything audible in the background. Voice may reveal sensitive information; only record what you are comfortable sharing.
• Memory pictures are resized and re-saved before storage: location (GPS), camera and other hidden photo data are removed. Private pictures are visible only to you and the administrators.
• Automatic transcription can be inaccurate. You are responsible for reviewing the text before submitting.

5. STATISTICS

We may use a statistics (web analytics) tool to understand how the site is used, for example pages visited, time on page, device and browser type, referring site and approximate location (country or region). Statistics are used in aggregated form to improve the site.

Statistics tools are loaded only if you accept the “Statistics” category. Where possible we configure them to shorten or anonymise IP addresses. When a tool is added, its name, provider and cookies will be listed in section 8.

6. ADVERTISING

Dragos.xyz may display advertising to fund the site. Ads may be served by us or by third-party advertising networks.

• Advertising technologies are loaded only if you accept the “Advertising” category.
• If you accept, advertising partners may use cookies, device identifiers, your IP address, approximate location and browsing behaviour to show, personalise, limit the frequency of and measure ads, and to prevent ad fraud. These partners may act as independent controllers under their own privacy policies.
• If you refuse, no advertising cookies are set. Where supported, only non-personalised ads based on the current page may be shown.
• Ads are not intended to target minors. We do not knowingly allow personalised advertising for users under 18.
• The list of advertising partners will be published here before any advertising is enabled.

7. GEOLOCATION

• Approximate location: your country, region or city can be derived from your IP address. We, our hosting provider and (only with your consent) statistics and advertising partners may use it for security, legal compliance, statistics and ad selection.
• Country lookup for the activity log: when the administrator opens the details of an event in the activity log, the IP address may be sent to the free geolocation service ipwho.is to find its country. The answer is kept for up to 30 days. If the site runs behind Cloudflare, the country supplied by Cloudflare is used instead and no lookup is made.
• Precise location (GPS/device location): never collected without your permission. The site does not currently use it. If a feature ever needs it, your browser will ask first, and you can refuse or revoke permission at any time in your browser settings.

8. COOKIES & LOCAL STORAGE

Category	Name / key	Purpose	Duration
Strictly necessary	PHP session cookie (PHPSESSID)	Sign-in and form security	Until you close the browser
Strictly necessary	dragosxyz_cookie_consent_v2 (local storage)	Remembers your cookie choices	Until you clear it or change your choice
Strictly necessary	dx_age (cookie)	Age check before the chat and games for visitors without an account: remembers only whether you said you are 18 or over (“ok” / “no”), signed so it cannot be changed. Your date of birth is not stored.	30 days
Strictly necessary	dxOnlineId (local storage)	Random id so the online counter and page views count each browser once; contains nothing about you	Until you clear it
Functional	sdVoiceLang (local storage)	Remembers the voice language you selected	Until you clear it
Functional	spx-words, spx-off (local storage)	Words you added to the spell checker, and whether you switched it off	Until you clear it
Functional	dxChatClosed, dxChatIgnore (local storage)	Remembers chat windows you closed and members you chose to ignore, on this device only	Until you clear it
Functional	dx_car_best (local storage)	Your best score in the Car Arcade game on the maintenance page, on this device only	Until you clear it
Functional	dbkMode (local storage), dx-main-menu (local storage), dxProjMenu (session storage)	Remembers how you view the diary book and the state of the menus	Until you clear it (session storage: until you close the tab)
Functional	Browser cache of the speech model	Avoids downloading the model again	Until you clear site data
Statistics	None active yet	Will be listed here when added	—
Advertising	None active yet	Will be listed here when added	—

Choose ACCEPT ALL, REFUSE, or pick categories in SETTINGS. Refusing is as easy as accepting, and you can change or withdraw your consent at any time with the button at the top of this page. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that happened before.

9. WHO RECEIVES DATA

• Our hosting provider, which stores the site, database, files and server logs.
• Email delivery through our server's mail service, for account, password, submission and contact emails, service notices and the newsletter. The receiving mail provider (for example Gmail or Outlook) processes the email under its own terms.
• Google (Google Sheets / Apps Script), only when a Stock Control editor imports from a Google Sheet they linked.
• Anyone on the internet, including search engines and link previews, for what you choose to publish. A published news story, Self-Disclosure post, diary page or public Diary Book can be read by anyone, found through search engines such as Google and Bing, and shown as a link preview (title, short summary, picture) when someone shares it in apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook, X, Telegram or Discord. To help with this, each public page also carries the same details in a machine-readable form (title, short summary, the author name exactly as shown on the page, date and picture). Nothing that is not already visible on the page is added. If you do not want your account nickname on a page, publish it under a pen name or as Anonymous. The site also keeps a list of its public pages for search engines (a sitemap, at /sitemap.xml); the administrator chooses which public pages are on it. You can ask us through Contact to take your page off that list — note that this only stops us recommending it to search engines; to remove it from search results, delete or unpublish the page. Search engines and these apps keep their own copies for a while; when you delete or change a page, those copies may stay until they next visit it. We cannot delete them, but you can ask Google to refresh or remove an outdated copy with its Remove Outdated Content tool, and we can help — use Contact.
• Payment providers, when online payments for Blinker or the shop are switched on: you give your payment details directly to the provider; Dragos.xyz does not see or store full card numbers. The providers will be named here before payments go live.
• jsDelivr and Hugging Face, when your browser downloads the voice transcription files; jsDelivr also when a browser without a built-in barcode reader downloads the barcode scanner (Stock Control).
• Statistics and advertising partners, only after your consent.
• Site administrators and moderators, who review submissions, chat and recordings. Only the administrator can read the chat log, which includes private messages.
• Public visitors, for content you choose to publish. Private transmissions are not published.
• Authorities, where required by law. When a report concerns illegal content or a child at risk, we may pass the reported content and the information needed to identify the person who posted it to the police or the relevant authority (in the UK, for example, the police, CEOP or the Internet Watch Foundation). We do not share who made a report unless the law requires us to.

10. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

Some providers (for example content-delivery networks and advertising partners) may process data outside the EU/EEA or UK. Where this happens, transfers rely on an adequacy decision or on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

11. HOW LONG WE KEEP DATA

• Account data: while your account exists (a temporary account too: after its last day you cannot sign in, but the account is kept until the administrator deletes it or makes it permanent again). It is deleted after you ask us to close your account, except where the law requires us to keep it.
• Self-Disclosures and Diary Book pages (text and recordings): until you or an administrator delete them. Deleting a transmission also deletes its recordings. An administrator may delete a whole Diary Book that breaks the Terms or the Community Rules — all its pages, pictures, recordings and its cover — at once; it is deleted for good, does not go to your bin and can only come back from our backups.
• Quotes: a quote is part of the page that contains it and is kept as long as that page. If the quoted page is deleted or made private, the box no longer shows the author's name or a link: only the quoted words remain, inside the other member's page. You can ask the author, or us through Contact or REPORT, to remove a quote of your words.
• Notifications: until you press CLEAR ALL in the User Portal or your account is closed; only the newest 200 are kept for each member.
• Chat: only the most recent 500 public messages and 3,000 private messages are kept; files attached to a message are deleted with it. Online presence expires after about 45 seconds of inactivity. IP address and browser details are visible only to administrators, for moderation. Chat log: kept for up to 12 months (365 days) at most — the exact period is set by the administrator and never exceeds this — then deleted automatically, day by day. It is not included in site backups, so nothing is kept beyond this period (see section 2).
• Reports: kept while they are open; once resolved or dismissed, deleted automatically 12 months after closing (see section 2). A report that is needed for a legal claim or a request from the authorities may be kept until that is finished.
• Contact messages: up to 12 months, then deleted automatically. They are deleted earlier once handled, on request.
• Password-reset tokens: until used or expired.
• Stock Control: products, lines by date, count tasks, count teams and the history of a list are kept until the list is deleted by its owner or the administrator, or the owner's account is closed. Barcodes given out by 🎲 RANDOM (code, who, when) are kept after that, so that the same code is never given out again.
• Inside Mailer conversations: until both you and the administrator delete them, or your account is closed.
• Email preferences and newsletter consent record: while your account exists. Mailing records, including who each mailing was sent to: 12 months, then deleted automatically.
• Games portal posts, ratings and comments: until you or an administrator delete them, or your account is closed. Mood: only the latest choice.
• Blinker: while the Blinker page exists; donation and payment records afterwards only as long as accounting and tax law requires.
• Backups: only the most recent backups set in the admin panel are kept; older ones are deleted automatically, so data you deleted disappears from backups within that cycle.
• Online counter and view counting: about 90 seconds and 30 minutes respectively, then only totals remain.
• Rate-limit records (hashed IP): evaluated over a one-hour window.
• Server logs: according to our hosting provider's retention period.
• Consent records: stored in your browser until you change or clear them.

12. YOUR RIGHTS

Where GDPR applies, you have the right to access your data, rectify it, have it erased, restrict or object to processing (including at any time to processing for direct marketing), data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time where consent is the legal basis. European Commission — GDPR information.

Chat log: you can ask for a copy of your chat log records or for them to be erased. We may keep a record for longer only where it is needed for an open abuse report, a legal claim or a request from the authorities, and we will tell you if so.

An account the administrator made for you: you have the same rights — ask for a copy of what we hold, to add or correct your email, to remove the temporary end date, or to close the account.

Stock Control: you can download any list you are in yourself, as .xlsx or .csv (IMPORT / EXPORT), which also gives you your data in a portable form. You can leave a list at any time (MEMBERS › LEAVE THIS LIST); its owner or the administrator can delete it. The list's HISTORY and finished count tasks keep your nickname next to the changes and counts you made, as the record of that list; you can ask for your name to be removed from them through the request channel below, unless it is needed for a legal claim.

You can stop service notices and the newsletter yourself at any time — see section 3. Your right to object to direct marketing is absolute: once you object, we stop.

To exercise these rights, use the Privacy / GDPR request channel on the Contact page. We may need to verify your identity, and we reply within one month. Separately from these data-protection rights, if we removed your content or muted, banned or closed your account, you can appeal within 14 days through Contact → Appeal a decision (see the Community Rules). You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority, for example the one in the country where you live or work. In Romania this is the ANSPDCP (dataprotection.ro); in the United Kingdom it is the ICO (ico.org.uk).

13. AGE

Age check: before the chat and the games, visitors without an account are asked for their date of birth. We use it only to work out whether they are 18 or over and do not store it; only the answer is kept (cookie dx_age, 30 days, see section 8). Someone under 18 is not let in. Members confirmed they are 18 or over when they registered. Like on most sites, this is a self-declaration, not a proof of age.

Dragos.xyz is for adults aged 18 and over only. Some content is created by users and may contain adult themes or strong language. You must be at least 18 to create an account or submit content, and people under 18 should not use the site. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If we learn that we hold personal data of someone under 18, we will close the account and delete the data, except a record we must keep by law or to deal with a safety report.

14. SECURITY

We use HTTPS, password hashing, CSRF protection, rate limiting, access control for moderators and randomised file names for recordings. A password the site makes for you (a new account or GENERATE PASSWORD) is random, shown once to the administrator to give to you privately, stored only as a hash and never written to any log or email; change it after you first sign in. Accounts without an email cannot use “Forgot password” — ask the administrator for a new password. No online service is completely secure. If a data breach is likely to put your rights at risk, we will notify you and the authorities as required by law.

15. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We will update this page when the site changes, for example when a statistics, advertising or payment partner is added. If the changes are significant, we will show a notice or ask for your consent again.