Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Loaf ("Loaf Social") is a small website for sharing photos and short videos of pets. It's run by Joseph Craig, an individual in the UK, who is the "controller" of your information under UK data protection law. In this policy, "we" and "us" means Joseph Craig, and the volunteer moderators who help keep Loaf safe.

Loaf is based in the United Kingdom, and UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018) applies to it wherever you live. Phone numbers in this policy are UK numbers.

To contact us about anything in this policy, email support@loafsocial.net or use Contact us in Settings > Help.

2. What we collect, and where it comes from

From you, when you join: your email address, a password (stored only in a scrambled form we can't read back), your username, display name and date of birth, and that you agreed to our Terms.

From Discord, if you join with Discord: your Discord account number, username, email address and profile picture. We copy the picture onto Loaf once, so Discord isn't contacted when people look at it. We don't keep Discord's sign-in keys, and we don't see your Discord password, friends or messages.

What you add: your profile picture, pronouns and bio; your posts (photos and videos, with captions, descriptions and hashtags); comments; likes; who you follow and who follows you; follow requests; people you block; your pets (name, species, breed, birthday, photo and bio, and if a pet has died, the date and whether new posts can still be tagged with them) and who shares them with you; and any reports or messages you send us.

Made by using Loaf: notifications, whether you've read them, and the dates things happened. When your browser is signed in, we keep a sign-in record so you stay logged in. It doesn't include your IP address or what device you use.

From other people: if someone reports something you posted, we keep their report. If a moderator makes a decision about your content, we keep a record of it, including a copy of the content as it was. If a moderator passes a report to an admin, we keep their note with it.

Your IP address (the number that identifies your internet connection) reaches our server with every visit. We use it for a short time, in memory only, to stop people flooding Loaf with requests, and we don't store it or write it into our logs. The companies that run our website and network see it too (see Other companies).

When you upload a photo or video, we remove its hidden details, including where it was taken and the camera used. If a video is longer than 10 seconds, we keep only the 10 seconds you choose; the rest is deleted with the original upload. We don't collect your location, contacts or anything from your device beyond what you choose to upload.

3. Why we use it, and the law that allows it

UK data protection law says we need a lawful reason for each use. Ours are:

• To run your account and Loaf itself (our contract with you, the Terms): signing you in, showing your posts to the people your settings allow, notifications, and emails about your account (confirming your address, password resets, security alerts and moderation decisions).
• To keep Loaf safe and working (our legitimate interests, and yours): checking reports, moderation decisions and their records, stopping spam and abuse (for example limits on how many emails or reports can be sent), keeping a banned person from rejoining, and keeping a log of what staff do.
• To check your age and protect younger people (our legal duties and legitimate interests): you must be 13 or older, and accounts of people under 18 start private.
• To meet our legal duties (legal obligation): for example reporting child sexual abuse material to the National Crime Agency, dealing with illegal content under the Online Safety Act, and answering lawful requests from the police or regulators.

You need to give us an email address, a password (or a Discord account) and your date of birth to have an account. Everything else is up to you.

We don't show adverts, we don't sell your information or share it for marketing, we don't track you around the web, and we don't build profiles of you. No decisions about you are made by computers alone: every report is looked at by a person.

4. Who can see what on Loaf

• Everyone, even people not signed in: your username, display name, profile picture, pronouns, bio and pets. If your account is public, also your posts, comments on public posts, and your followers and following lists.
• If your account is private: only followers you approve see your posts. Under-18s' accounts start private.
• Likes: everyone sees how many likes a post has; only the post's author sees who liked it.
• Blocking: you and the person you block can't see each other anywhere on Loaf. They aren't told. Nobody is told who reported them.
• Moderators can see reported content (even from a private account), the account it belongs to and its moderation history. They can't see email addresses or dates of birth.
• Admins (Joseph Craig, and anyone made an admin) can also see your email address and account details, to run Loaf and answer your messages. Nobody at Loaf can see your password or your date of birth, only whether you're under 18. Staff must use two-step sign-in.
• Your date of birth is only ever shown to you.
• Loaf asks search engines like Google not to list its pages.

5. Where it's kept, and how we protect it

Your information, photos and videos are stored on a server run by Joseph Craig at home in the UK. Only Joseph Craig can log in to it. Loaf's files and settings are kept in folders that aren't shared on the home network, and the database can only be read by the database itself. Remote access to the server needs two-step sign-in.

Photos and videos from private accounts are only sent to people allowed to see them, checked every time. Passwords are stored in a scrambled form. Connections to Loaf are encrypted (HTTPS).

No system is perfectly secure. If something went wrong that put you at risk, we would tell you and, where the law requires, the Information Commissioner's Office.

6. Other companies that handle your information

We use a few companies to run Loaf. They only use your information to provide their service to us:

• Vercel hosts the website. It sees your IP address and the pages you open, in its own short-lived logs.
• Cloudflare carries traffic between you and our server, and forwards emails sent to support@loafsocial.net. It sees your IP address and what passes through.
• Resend sends our emails. It sees your email address and the email's contents.
• Discord, only if you choose to sign in with it (see What we collect).

These companies are based in the United States, so your information may be handled there. When that happens, it's protected the way UK law requires: either the company is certified under the UK-US "data bridge", or we rely on the UK's approved data transfer agreements.

We'll also share information with the police, the National Crime Agency, Ofcom or a court if the law requires it, or to protect someone from serious harm. When we report illegal content, we may not tell the person involved.

Donations through Ko-fi happen on Ko-fi's website, under Ko-fi's own privacy policy. Loaf doesn't receive your payment details.

7. How long we keep it

• Your account and everything on it: until you delete it. Deleting hides your account straight away and deletes it for good after 30 days (logging in before then cancels it).
• A post or comment you delete: the photo, video, caption or words are deleted straight away. We keep a note that it existed (who and when, nothing else) until your account is deleted. Copies already in other people's browsers or in internet caches expire within 72 hours.
• Moderation records (reports, decisions, notes passing a report to an admin, and the copy of the content involved): while your account exists, then for one year after it's deleted, in case of appeals or someone coming back under a new name. Records about suspected illegal content are kept until the matter is dealt with, as the police or the National Crime Agency may need them.
• Staff activity log: what staff did and when is kept. Details naming you are wiped one year after your account is deleted.
• A banned email address (after a third strike) is kept as a scrambled fingerprint, which can't be turned back into the address, for as long as Loaf runs, so it can't be used to join again.
• Messages and appeals you send us: one year after we close them.
• Email sending records (a scrambled fingerprint of the address, to stop anyone flooding an inbox): 2 days.
• Sign-in records: until you log out, or 7 days after you last used Loaf on that device. Password reset links work for an hour.
• Server logs: the page addresses requested, without IP addresses, and only the most recent ones (older entries are overwritten).
• Backups (copies kept so Loaf can be restored if something breaks): kept for no more than 30 days, so anything deleted is gone from them within 30 days.

8. Your rights

You have the right to:

• get a copy of the information we hold about you;
• have anything wrong corrected (you can change most of your profile yourself in Settings);
• have your information deleted (you can delete your account yourself in Settings > Delete your account);
• object to how we use it, or ask us to limit it;
• get your information in a format you can take elsewhere.

To use any of these, use Contact us (choose "My data or privacy") or email support@loafsocial.net from the address on your account. We'll reply within one month. It's free. Some rights have limits: for example, we may keep moderation records for the time above even if you ask us to delete them.

9. Children and young people

You must be 13 or older to use Loaf. We ask for your date of birth to check, and to keep under-18s safer: their accounts start private, and they're shown extra information before choosing to go public. If we find out an account belongs to someone under 13, we suspend it and delete it.

Parents and carers can contact us about a child's account at support@loafsocial.net.

10. Complaints

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, tell us first, using Contact us or support@loafsocial.net. We'll confirm we've received your complaint within 30 days (usually much sooner) and aim to reply fully within 14 days.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by phone on 0303 123 1113 (a UK number; from outside the UK, call +44 303 123 1113).

11. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you on Loaf and ask you to read and agree to it again. The date at the top shows when it last changed.