How Earthbook treats your data

Earthbook is a permanent, dignified record of humanity — one quiet page per person. This policy explains, in plain language, what we collect, why, who can see it, and what choices you have. It is written and maintained by the Earthbook team.

Earthbook ("we", "us") operates earthbook.app. You can reach the team for questions, data requests, or security reports via the contact link on the site.

Account data: your email address (for sign-in and transactional messages) and, if you sign in with Google, the basic profile information Google returns. Passwords are never stored or visible to us — authentication is handled by our backend provider.

Profile data you provide: name, year of birth, country, optional city, an optional short message, and your photo.

Payment data: when you pay $3.99 to edit a profile, Stripe processes the card. We only receive a receipt reference, the amount, currency, and timestamp — never card numbers or CVV.

Operational logs: minimal request and error logs needed to run the service securely.

We use your data only to:

• operate your account and profile;
• display public profiles in the directory and on the map at country level;
• process payments and send receipts;
• send transactional email such as sign-in confirmations and edit notifications;
• keep the service safe and reliable.

We do not sell your data. We do not run third-party advertising trackers. We do not share your email with other users. We do not use your profile to train external advertising or recommendation systems.

Profiles you mark as public appear in the directory and on the map at country level. Profiles you mark as private are visible only to you.

Internal moderation notes about a profile are never shown to other users or to the public — only the Earthbook team can read them.

Profile photos are stored in a private bucket. Public profile pages load them through short-lived signed links so the underlying file is not directly listable.

Editing an existing profile costs $3.99 USD, processed by Stripe. Each payment unlocks exactly one edit. Receipts are emailed to you and the edit is logged in your profile's history. We do not store full card details.

We send transactional email related to your account (sign-in, receipts, edit notifications). Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, and unsubscribes are honored immediately. Critical security messages (such as password resets) may still be sent after unsubscribing.

We use only the cookies and local storage needed to keep you signed in and to remember basic preferences. We do not use advertising cookies.

We keep profile and account data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your profile or account, we remove the associated personal data from active systems. Payment receipts and minimal audit logs may be retained as required for accounting and fraud prevention.

You can:

• manage what your profile shows and which emails you receive from Privacy preferences;
• edit, hide, or delete your profile at any time;
• request a copy of your personal data;
• ask us to correct inaccurate information;
• ask us to delete your account.

Depending on where you live, you may also have rights under laws such as GDPR or CCPA — we honor these requests regardless of location.

Earthbook is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your country). If you believe a child has created a profile, contact us and we will remove it.

We rely on a small set of providers to operate Earthbook: a managed database and authentication backend, Stripe for payments, and an email delivery provider for transactional messages. Each provider only receives the data needed to perform its function.

Access to profile data is controlled by row-level security rules on our database. Privileged operations require server-side verification of the signed-in user. Internal verification notes and full coordinates are not exposed to the public API. We review the service regularly and welcome responsible disclosure of security issues.

Our providers may process data outside your country of residence. Where required, we rely on standard contractual protections offered by those providers.

If we make material changes we will update this page and adjust the "last reviewed" date below. Significant changes affecting your account will also be communicated by email.

Questions, data requests, or security reports? Reach the Earthbook team and we'll respond. Read about our mission.