Last updated: 15 October 2026
Closet Republic exists for people who have had to hide who they are. Being linked to a queer community can put someone at real risk, so we treat privacy as a safety feature, not a legal formality. This policy lists everything we collect, and nothing in it is hidden in vague wording.
The short version
- No tracking. No analytics, advertising, tracking pixels, fingerprinting, social media widgets or third-party fonts. The Site sends no telemetry.
- Data minimisation. We collect only what a feature needs to work, and most of the Site needs nothing at all.
- Pseudonyms welcome. You never need to give your legal name. Any name, and an email address you control, is enough.
- Your passport stays on your device. The passport generator runs entirely in your browser. We never receive what you type into it.
- No card or bank details. Donations are handled by the payment provider you choose. We only learn what they tell us, listed below.
- We never sell or share your data for advertising, and never give it to anyone except the service providers listed here or when the law forces us to.
- You're in control. You can see, correct or delete your data at any time by emailing [email protected].
1. Who is responsible for your data
The controller of your personal data (the "data fiduciary" or "organisation" under some laws) is the founders of Closet Republic, who runs Closet Republic. Contact us about anything in this policy at [email protected].
2. What we collect, why, and for how long
Reading the Site
The Site's own code does not record your visits, IP address or what you read.
| What | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Standard web server logs (IP address, date and time, page requested, browser type) kept by our server | Keeping the Site secure and working, and stopping abuse | Deleted after at most 14 days |
| Your IP address, held only in the server's memory when you submit a form | Limiting each visitor to a few form submissions an hour, to stop spam bots | Never written to disk; forgotten within 1 hour or when the server restarts |
If you browse with a VPN or Tor, the Site works normally.
Cookies
We use only these cookies, and none of them tracks you. Because each is needed for something you ask for, they don't require a consent banner under UK and EU law.
| Cookie | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
cr_nature |
Remembers whether you turned Nature mode on or off | 1 year, or until you clear it |
cr_discord |
Remembers which Discord account you signed in with while you link it on the Discord link page | 30 minutes |
cr_discord_state |
Protects the Discord sign-in from forgery | 10 minutes |
cr_admin |
Keeps site administrators signed in to the admin page. Never set for visitors | Until the admin session ends |
The passport generator
Everything you put into the passport form, including any photo, is turned into a PDF inside your browser. None of it is sent to us or stored by us.
The Lifeline (emergency mailing list)
| What | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Your email address, an optional name, whether you are subscribed, the date you joined, and a random unsubscribe code | To email you if the Site is taken down or moves, with the new address, the code repository and donation links, plus one welcome email | Until you unsubscribe. Your details are permanently deleted 30 days after you unsubscribe (the delay lets you undo a mistaken click) |
Because the Lifeline exists for when our server is unavailable, the founders keep an encrypted copy of the subscriber list off the server. It contains the same details, is refreshed regularly, and anyone who has unsubscribed is removed from it at the next refresh.
Contributor sign-ups (Public Works)
| What | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Name (any name you choose), pronouns (optional), email, a link to your public work, which area you signed up for, the date | To verify that the linked work is yours or commissioned by you, and to contact you about contributing | While you are an active contributor, or until you ask us to delete it |
| Our verification status and a private note about your sign-up | To keep track of verification | As above. Declined sign-ups are deleted automatically 90 days after the decision |
We never ask for or accept uploads, photos, or copies of your work.
Discord membership roles
If you are a Buy Me a Coffee member and want your class role in our Discord server, you can link the two on the Discord link page or with /link in Discord.
| What | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Your Discord user ID, and the email you use on Buy Me a Coffee once you have confirmed it with a code | To give your Discord account the class role your membership pays for | Until you type /unlink or /forget-me in Discord, or ask us to delete it |
| From Buy Me a Coffee: your membership's level, status, dates and subscription ID, and your email | To know which class you have and when it ends | While the membership is active, then deleted 90 days after it ends |
| Your settings (discreet mode, being thanked by name), the class we last gave you, and the membership messages the bot sent you | To apply your choices and avoid repeating messages | Messages: 90 days. The rest: until /forget-me |
| A 6-digit code we email you, stored only in scrambled (hashed) form | To check the email is yours | 15 minutes, or until used |
| If you pay with crypto: your Discord ID, the class and number of months you chose, and a random order code | To give your Discord account the class you paid for | The order is deleted as soon as the payment is confirmed (or 7 days after an unpaid order). The class itself is kept until it ends plus 90 days |
Signing in with Discord only tells us your Discord ID and display name; we show the name on the page during sign-in and never store it, and we hand Discord's access back straight away. Our Discord bot reads your roles in our server and changes only class and lounge roles. If you join our forum with Discord, the forum uses the same Discord ID. Discord's own handling of your data is covered by Discord's privacy policy.
Emails we send
We send emails through an email delivery service. We keep a short log of each email (recipient, subject, date, and whether it was delivered) so we can tell if messages are failing. The log is deleted after 12 months. If an email fails, the recipient's address may also appear in our server's error log, which follows the 14-day limit above.
Donations and sponsorships
We never receive or store card numbers, bank details or billing addresses. The provider you choose handles your payment under its own privacy policy and shares a few details with us:
| Provider | What it tells us | What we keep |
|---|---|---|
| Buy Me a Coffee | The name you entered, the amount, currency and a transaction ID. For one-off donations it may also send your email address, which we discard. For memberships, see "Discord membership roles" above | Name (as you entered it), amount, currency, date and transaction ID in our treasury ledger |
| GitHub Sponsors | Your GitHub username, your tier and amount, whether your sponsorship is public or private, and when it started or ended | The same. Public sponsors are thanked by username on the funding page; private sponsors are recorded as "Private sponsor" and never named |
| Crypto (BTCPay Server, run by us) | The invoice, the amount and, on a public blockchain, the transaction. We never ask for or receive your name or email, and we see no wallet identity beyond what the blockchain shows | Amount, currency and date in our treasury ledger, with no name. BTCPay keeps the invoice, which is archived monthly |
| UPI | Whatever your bank shows on our bank statement, usually your name or UPI ID | Only the amount and date are entered in the ledger, unless you ask to be thanked by name |
Crypto payments to Bitcoin addresses and most other blockchains are public and permanent: anyone can see the amount and the addresses involved. Monero and Lightning hide most of this. Choose the network that matches how private you need to be.
Treasury records are kept for as long as accounting and tax laws require (usually between 6 and 8 years). To avoid being named, use a nickname with Buy Me a Coffee or choose a private sponsorship on GitHub.
Messages you send us
If you email us, we keep the message and your address only as long as we need to deal with it, and delete mutual aid and safety-related messages as soon as the matter is closed.
Community spaces on other platforms
Our GitHub repository, Reddit community and forum are run on other platforms. What you post there is public and governed by those platforms' own privacy policies and controls.
3. Sensitive information
Being on our Lifeline or contributor list, or linking a Closet Republic membership to your Discord account, could suggest something about your sexual orientation, gender identity or beliefs. The law treats this as special category or sensitive information. We only collect it with your explicit consent, which you give by ticking the box on each form or by choosing to link your accounts, and you can withdraw that consent at any time by unsubscribing or asking us to delete your data. We never ask you to state your sexuality or gender identity, and pronouns are optional.
4. Our legal bases (UK and EU)
- Consent: the Lifeline, contributor sign-ups and Discord linking, including the sensitive information described above.
- Contract: keeping track of your Buy Me a Coffee membership so you get the Discord class it pays for.
- Legitimate interests: keeping the Site secure (server logs, rate limiting), verifying contributors' work, and keeping a record of emails sent. We have balanced these against your interests and kept them to the minimum.
- Legal obligation: keeping accounting records of donations.
You can withdraw consent at any time. This doesn't affect anything we did lawfully before you withdrew it.
5. Who we share data with
We share personal data only with:
- the company that hosts our server, which stores the database on our behalf;
- Discord, only if you link your membership: our bot tells Discord which class role your account should have, which other server members can see unless you turn on discreet mode;
- our email delivery service, which sends emails on our behalf;
- the founders and a small number of trusted volunteers who need access to run a feature, each bound to keep it confidential;
- authorities, only where the law genuinely requires it. We will challenge requests that seem unlawful or that would endanger our community, and tell you about any request unless we are legally prevented.
You can email us for the current names of these providers. We never sell, rent or trade personal data, and never share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.
6. International transfers
Our server is located in Germany, and the founders may access data from there. When data moves from the UK, the European Economic Area, Canada or Australia to another country, we protect it with the safeguards the law requires, such as adequacy decisions, standard contractual clauses or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, and by keeping data minimal and encrypted in transit.
7. Keeping data safe
- All traffic to the Site is encrypted with HTTPS.
- The admin area is protected by a secret token and only the founders hold it.
- We keep as little data as possible and delete it on the schedules above, because data we don't hold can't leak.
- We will notify you and the relevant regulators of any data breach that puts you at risk, within the time the law requires (72 hours for regulators in the UK and EU).
8. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- tell you what data we hold about you and give you a copy;
- correct it;
- delete it;
- stop using it, or restrict how we use it;
- give it to you in a portable format;
- withdraw your consent.
Email [email protected] from the address you used with us. We may ask a simple question to confirm the request is from you, but we'll never ask for ID documents. We reply within one month (30 days in Canada, Australia and the US), free of charge. We do not make decisions about you by automated means or profile you.
UK and European Union
You have the rights set out in the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation, including the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests. You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) in the UK, or to the data protection authority in your EU country. We'd appreciate the chance to fix the problem first.
United States
We don't sell or share personal information, use it for targeted advertising, or profile you, and we honour the Global Privacy Control signal and treat Do Not Track as a request not to track you (we don't track anyone anyway). Residents of California and of other states with privacy laws (such as Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Oregon and Texas) have the rights to know, access, correct, delete and opt out, and the right not to be discriminated against for using them. You can appeal any decision we make about your request by replying to our answer; if you're unhappy with the outcome you can contact your state attorney general.
Canada
We follow the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and, for Quebec residents, Law 25. Our privacy officer is the founders of Closet Republic, reachable at [email protected]. You may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca) or, in Quebec, the Commission d'accès à l'information.
Australia
We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988. You may use a pseudonym with us at any time. If you're not satisfied with our response to a complaint, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au).
9. Emails and anti-spam laws
We only email people who have asked us to. Every Lifeline email identifies Closet Republic and includes a working unsubscribe link, and you can also unsubscribe by replying "unsubscribe". This meets the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, the EU ePrivacy rules, the US CAN-SPAM Act, Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and the Australian Spam Act 2003.
10. Children
The Site is open to read for everyone, but we don't knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16. If you are under 16, please don't fill in our forms. If we learn that we hold data from someone under 16, we delete it. We don't use any features that profile, track or nudge young people.
11. Telemetry and self-hosting
The Site sends no telemetry, and there is nothing to opt out of. Anyone who runs their own copy of the Site from our open-source code can check this for themselves; the software that builds the Site (Next.js) collects anonymous build statistics by default, which we switch off with NEXT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1. GitHub, Reddit and payment providers have their own telemetry and settings, which we don't control.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use data you've already given us, we'll tell you by email or on the Site before it takes effect and, where needed, ask for your consent again.
Contact
the founders of Closet Republic
Email: [email protected]