FTC Harvest – Privacy Policy & Terms and Conditions

  • Effective Date: 11 February 2025
  • Version: 2.0 / 17 September 2026
  • Website: https://ftcharvest.org
  • Contact Email: office@ftcharvest.org
  • Location / Governing Law: Warsaw, Poland (European Union)

Part 1: Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

FTC Harvest (“we,” “our,” “us”) operates the website https://ftcharvest.org (the “Website”). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal data in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

2. Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data

Under EU GDPR standards, we process your data based on the following legal grounds:

  • Consent: When you opt-in to marketing newsletters, cookies, or account creation.
  • Contractual Performance: When we process account or contact form data to fulfill your requests or service provisions.
  • Legitimate Interests: When we analyze anonymized traffic data or run spam-detection tools to protect and improve website functionality.

3. What Personal Data We Collect and Why

  • Comments: When visitors leave comments, we collect form data, IP address, and browser user-agent strings for spam detection. An anonymized email hash may be sent to Gravatar (see Automattic Privacy Policy).
  • Media: If you upload images, please strip embedded location data (EXIF GPS) first.
  • Contact & Accounts: We collect names, email addresses, usernames, encrypted passwords, optional birth dates/locations, and message contents to handle inquiries and account management.
  • Analytics: We use standard analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics) to capture anonymized usage metrics.

4. Cookies & Tracking

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users, providing a personalized browsing experience.

  • Essential & Functional Cookies: Remember login sessions, display preferences, and comment details (persisting from 1 day to 1 year).
  • Consent Management: Non-essential tracking and analytics cookies are initialized only after obtaining your explicit consent via our cookie banner.

5. Data Sharing & Retention

  • Third Parties: We do not sell your data. We share information only with trusted processors bound by data processing agreements, such as automated spam checkers and authorized email newsletter platforms.
  • Retention Period: Comments are retained indefinitely for automated moderation approval. Account data is stored until account termination, barring legally mandated retention obligations.

Part 2: Terms and Conditions

1. Age Restrictions

You must be at least 35 years old to create an account on our website. By registering an account, you represent, warrant, and agree that you meet this minimum age requirement. Proof of age may be requested when necessary.

2. Account Security & Termination

  • Security: You are responsible for safeguarding your account credentials. We implement industry-standard security safeguards including password hashing and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption.
  • Termination: You may terminate your account at any time via your user dashboard. Upon termination, personal profile data is purged from active systems, subject to legal archiving rules.

3. User-Generated Content & Moderation

  • License: You retain ownership of content you post, granting FTC Harvest a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to display and distribute it on our platform.
  • Zero-Tolerance Policy: We enforce strict content guidelines. Hate speech, harassment, spam, and unlawful material are strictly prohibited and will result in immediate content removal and potential account termination.

4. User Rights (GDPR)

European residents and global users hold explicit rights over their data, including the right to access, correct errors, request data erasure (“right to be forgotten”), restrict processing, or request data portability. To exercise these rights, contact us at office@ftcharvest.org.

Cyber Guardians

5. Governing Law

These Terms and Conditions and any disputes arising out of them shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Poland and applicable European Union regulations, without regard to conflict of law provisions.