Privacy policy
Last updated: April 2026
What we collect and why
This app is a research exercise, not a commercial product. We collect the minimum necessary to run the study and improve it over time.
| Data | Purpose | Stored |
|---|---|---|
| Your survey answers (phrase + percentage) | Aggregate visualization; research into linguistic meaning | Indefinitely, always aggregated — individual responses are not surfaced |
| Optional demographics (age range, country, occupation) | Slice aggregate data by group (e.g. "how does 'soon' differ by country?") | Indefinitely; entirely optional, no pressure to provide |
| Hashed IP address | Spam and abuse detection only | Stored as a one-way cryptographic hash — the original IP cannot be recovered |
| Session cookie | Remember your owned sessions and recent submission (so we can show your results) | Your browser only; expires after one year of inactivity |
| Session creator email (optional) | Recovery of a named session if you lose the link | Only if you voluntarily provide it when creating a session |
What we don't do
- We don't sell, share, or rent your data to anyone.
- We don't run advertising or use advertising trackers.
- We don't use analytics cookies or third-party tracking scripts.
- We don't attempt to identify you personally.
Cookies
We use one cookie: a signed session cookie that stores your recent submission ID and any session tokens you've created. This cookie is strictly necessary for the app to function and does not track you across other sites. No consent popup is required for strictly-necessary cookies under GDPR, but we're disclosing it here in plain terms.
Your rights
Because survey responses are stored without any link to your identity (and IP addresses are one-way hashed), we cannot retrieve or delete a specific person's responses — we genuinely can't tell which rows are yours. If you provided an email address when creating a session and want it removed, contact us at shared.meaning.app@gmail.com.
Data retention
Survey responses are retained indefinitely to build a long-term aggregate picture of how language meaning shifts over time. Demographics and session data may be pruned periodically. There is no automated deletion schedule.
Hosting
This app runs on Render (United States). Data is stored in a PostgreSQL database on Render's infrastructure. Render's privacy policy applies to their infrastructure layer.
Changes
If this policy changes materially, we'll update the date at the top of this page. For a research tool of this scale, changes are unlikely.