Privacy policy
Last updated 2026. This is a demonstration publication, but the data handling described below is exactly what the software does.
The short version
- We run our own analytics. No third-party ad trackers, no data brokers.
- We never store your IP address. It is hashed with a secret salt on arrival.
- Analytics cookies are off until you accept them. Essential cookies always run.
- We honour Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control automatically — if your browser sends either, nothing is recorded and you are never shown the banner.
- Age and gender come only from what readers volunteer. We never infer them.
Cookies we set
| Cookie | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|
| volt_consent | Remembers your cookie choice | 180 days |
| volt_vid | First-party visitor identifier, used to tell a returning reader from a new one. Only its salted hash is stored server-side. | 1 year |
| volt_sid | Groups page views into a single visit, for bounce rate | 30 minutes |
| authjs.session-token | Keeps you signed in. Essential; set only when you have an account. | 30 days |
What we record when you read an article
With analytics consent, each page view stores: the path, the referring site, any UTM campaign parameters, an approximate location derived from your IP (country, region, city), your device type, browser and operating system, your screen width, how long the page was open and how far down it you scrolled.
Your IP address is never written to the database. It is used in memory to derive an approximate location, then hashed. Rotating our salt permanently disconnects all historical rows from any device.
Age and gender
Web traffic does not carry age or gender, and we do not infer either from browsing behaviour — that would be unreliable and, in the UK and EU, regulated profiling.
Our audience reports draw on three clearly-labelled sources:
- Self-declared — the optional birth year and gender fields on the registration and account pages. Accurate, but it only covers readers with accounts who chose to answer.
- Surveys — occasional one-question site polls, reported as a projection with a stated sample size.
- Third-party panels — modelled, aggregated estimates from providers such as Google Analytics 4. Never per-visitor.
Every demographic figure in our internal reporting is shown with the percentage of the audience it is based on. You can clear your demographic fields at any time from your account.
How long we keep it
- Raw page-view and session rows: 14 months, then automatically deleted.
- Daily aggregates (counts by day, country, article and so on): kept indefinitely. They contain no identifiers.
- Account data: until you delete your account.
- Newsletter subscriptions: until you unsubscribe.
Your rights
From your account you can export everything we hold about you as a JSON file, correct any of it, or delete the account entirely. Deleting detaches your comments, clears your demographic fields and unlinks every analytics row from you.
Contact
Questions about any of this go to privacy@voltv.example.