Privacy Policy
Last updated 10 October 2026
This policy explains what personal data Pixquilt keeps, why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and the rights you have. It applies to members and to visitors without an account. It is written for the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
1. Who is responsible
The data controller is [operator name], [postal address]. For anything about your data, email [contact email].
2. What we collect
When you create an account
- Your username, email address and password. Passwords are stored only as a secure one-way hash; we can't read them.
- Whether your email address is confirmed, when you joined and when you last logged in.
What you add
- Profile: your name, bio, profile picture, and whether your account is private.
- Posts and stories: pictures and videos, captions, hashtags, people you mention, albums, highlights, pinned posts, and whether each post is private or has a share code. We remove hidden metadata from every upload, including camera details and GPS location.
- Comments you write, and the posts you like or save.
- Who you follow, follow requests, and the people you block.
- Direct messages you send and receive, including pictures, videos and posts shared in them.
- Reports you make: what you reported, the reason and any details you give.
When you comment as a guest
- The name you type, your comment, and your IP address. The IP address is never shown on the site; staff use it to deal with spam and abuse.
When anyone visits
- Our web server records each request: your IP address, the date and time, the page asked for, and what your browser says it is. This is normal for any website and is used to keep the site running and secure.
- To stop abuse, we briefly count actions per IP address or account, such as login attempts, wrong share codes, comments and reports. These counters disappear by themselves after minutes to hours.
- When you report something, we keep the IP address it came from with the report.
- View counts. When someone opens a post or story, we add one to a counter: one per post per day, and one per story. We store only the totals, never a record of who viewed what. To count each person once a day, a short-lived token is kept in memory for about 26 hours: your member number if you're logged in, otherwise a one-way scrambled code (a salted SHA-256 hash) made from your IP address, browser and the date, which can't be turned back into either. The owner's own views, staff, search engine bots, link previews and browser prefetches aren't counted.
What we create
- Notifications about follows, comments, likes and mentions, and counts of unread messages.
- A log of staff moderation actions (for example, "removed comment"), with the reason given.
Apart from the view counts above, which we work out ourselves, we don't use analytics or advertising tools, we don't load anything from other companies' servers, and we don't buy or sell personal data.
3. Why we use it
| What for | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Running your account and showing your content to the people you choose: profile, posts, stories, comments, likes, follows, messages, notifications, your data download | Performing our contract with you (the Terms) |
| Confirming your email address and resetting your password | Performing our contract with you |
| View counts: showing post and story owners how many people saw their posts and stories | Our legitimate interest, and the owner's, in knowing how their posts do, using totals only |
| Guest comments: showing your comment with the name you gave | Our legitimate interest, and yours, in letting visitors take part |
| Keeping the site secure: server logs, rate limits, IP addresses on guest comments and reports, blocks | Our legitimate interest in protecting members and the site |
| Moderation: reviewing reports (including reading a reported conversation), removing content, suspending accounts, keeping a record of what we did | Our legitimate interest in enforcing the Terms and keeping people safe |
| Backups | Our legitimate interest in not losing your data |
| Answering legal requests and keeping records the law requires | Legal obligation |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object (see your rights). We don't use your data for automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
4. Who can see what
- Everyone can see your username, name, profile picture and bio, and whether your account is private.
- Private account (the default): only followers you've accepted see your posts, stories, followers and following. Public account: everyone can see them, and once the site is open to search engines, public pages may appear in search results.
- Private posts are hidden from everyone except you, unless someone has the post's share code.
- Comments are seen by everyone who can see the post. Likes: everyone sees the count; only the post's owner sees who liked it. Saved posts are only visible to you.
- Messages, including pictures, videos and posts shared in them, are seen only by the two people in the conversation, unless one of them reports it, in which case staff can read what was sent up to the report (not anything sent afterwards). A post shared in a message is still only shown to people allowed to see that post.
- View counts are seen only by the owner of the post or story.
- Your email address is never shown to anyone.
- Staff (the people who moderate Pixquilt) can see private accounts and posts, guest IP addresses and reports when they need to for moderation or support. The operator can technically access everything stored on the server, and does so only when needed to run or fix the site or when the law requires it.
5. Who we share it with
- Our hosting provider, [hosting provider and country], runs the server where all of the site's data and backups are stored. They process it only on our behalf.
- An email delivery service, once we use one to send confirmation and password reset emails. We'll name it here before we start. Until then, these emails are written to our server log instead of being sent.
- Authorities, when the law requires it, or to protect someone from serious harm. Content that sexually exploits children is reported.
- A new operator, if Pixquilt is ever transferred. This policy would continue to apply, and we'd tell members first.
If data is ever stored or processed outside the UK and the European Economic Area, we'll make sure it is protected by an adequacy decision or standard contractual clauses.
6. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept until |
|---|---|
| Your account, profile, posts, comments, likes, follows and messages you sent | You delete them, or delete your account. Deleting your account removes all of these straight away, including messages you sent in other people's conversations. |
| Stories | 24 hours after posting, unless you keep them in a highlight |
| A conversation you delete | It disappears for you; the other person keeps their copy |
| Guest comments and their IP address | The comment is deleted by the post's owner, staff, or along with the post |
| View counts | The post, story or account is deleted. Your posts' view totals are included in "Download your data". |
| Tokens used to count each viewer once a day | About 26 hours, in memory only |
| Notifications | You delete your account, or the post, comment or follow they're about is deleted |
| "Download your data" files | 24 hours after they're made |
| Reports and the staff moderation log | Kept as a record of moderation, even after the content or account is deleted, with only a short description of what was reported. Reports of direct messages are deleted with the reporter's account. |
| Server logs | Up to 14 days |
| Backups | Up to 14 days. Something you delete may stay in a backup until that backup expires; it isn't used for anything else. |
7. Cookies and browser storage
We only use what's needed for the site to work, so we don't ask for cookie consent. There are no tracking or advertising cookies.
| Name | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
| sessionid | Keeps you logged in. For visitors, also remembers share codes you've entered, guest comments you wrote (so you can delete them) and stories you've seen. | 30 days |
| csrftoken | Protects forms against cross-site request forgery | 1 year |
| messages | Shows a one-off notice, such as "Saved", after you do something | Until you close the browser |
| theme | Remembers light or dark mode if you choose one. Stored only in your browser (local storage) and never sent to us. | Until you clear it |
8. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to:
- Access and portability: get a copy of your data. Members can download everything, including all their files, from account settings.
- Correction: fix data that's wrong. Most of it you can edit yourself in your settings.
- Erasure: have your data deleted. Members can delete their account at any time.
- Restriction and objection: ask us to stop or limit using your data, including where we rely on legitimate interests.
- Complaint: complain to a data protection authority, such as [data protection authority], or the one where you live. We'd appreciate the chance to put it right first.
For anything you can't do yourself, including guest comments you want removed, email [contact email]. We answer within one month. We may need to check it's really you first.
9. Security
Passwords are hashed; uploaded files are only handed out after the site checks you may see them; logins, share codes and comments are rate-limited; the server only accepts the connections it needs and is updated automatically. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts your data at risk, we'll tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
10. Children
Pixquilt is not for children under 16. If we learn that an account belongs to someone younger, we'll delete it. If you think a child has an account, please tell us.
11. Changes to this policy
We'll update this page when what we do with data changes. The date at the top shows the latest version. If a change matters, we'll tell members on the site before it takes effect.