What This Policy Covers
- This policy explains how steups.io collects, uses, stores, and protects information when you use the site.
- It applies to the public website, signed-in experiences, leaderboards, submissions, feedback, and related analytics.
- The data controller responsible for your information is Marc Stampfli, operating steups.io from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. For privacy inquiries, contact privacy@steups.io.
Legal Basis for Processing
- We process your information based on: your consent when you provide it; the necessity to perform our contract with you (operating signed-in features); our legitimate interests in running, improving, and securing the service; and legal obligations where applicable.
- Where consent is the basis, you may withdraw it at any time by contacting privacy@steups.io. Withdrawal does not affect processing that already took place.
- We assess each processing activity against applicable data protection requirements before implementation.
Information We Collect
- Account data such as your email address, account identifier, username, and profile customization when you sign in.
- Usage data such as pages visited, interactions, device/browser metadata, and feature events used to understand how the product performs.
- Content you submit voluntarily, including polls, battle prompts, feedback, generated inputs, or other text you choose to send through the app.
How We Use Information
- To operate the app, personalize signed-in features, maintain streaks, XP, leaderboard entries, and saved activity.
- To moderate abuse, investigate product issues, enforce rate limits, and protect the service from spam or misuse.
- To measure product health, understand what people actually use, and decide what to improve or remove.
Cookies and Similar Storage
- Essential cookies: used for authentication, session continuity, streaks, app state, and abuse controls. These are necessary for the service to function.
- Analytics cookies and similar storage: used to understand aggregate traffic and feature usage. These are not used for ad targeting.
- If you block essential cookies, some signed-in or personalized features may stop working correctly.
Analytics
- steups.io uses product analytics to understand visits, performance, and feature interaction patterns.
- Analytics data is used for product improvement, launch monitoring, and abuse detection rather than ad targeting.
- Analytics is used to operate, measure, and improve the service.
AI and Third-Party Providers
- steups.io relies on third-party providers for hosting, authentication, database infrastructure, analytics, and AI-backed feature delivery.
- If you use a feature powered by an AI provider, the prompt and related context may be processed to generate a response.
- Where third-party services are involved, their own terms and privacy policies also apply.
Cross-Border Data Transfers
- steups.io and its providers may process or store data outside of Trinidad and Tobago, including in jurisdictions with different data protection laws.
- When data is transferred across borders, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses or the provider's compliance certifications to help protect your information.
Automated Decision-Making
- Some features involve automated processing, such as scoring, ranking, and AI-generated content.
- These automated outputs are service features and do not produce legally significant decisions about you.
- If you believe an automated process has produced an unfair or incorrect result, you may contact privacy@steups.io for review.
Children's Privacy
- steups.io is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
- If we learn that we have collected personal data from a child under 13, we will take steps to delete that information promptly.
- If you are between 13 and 18, you must have parental or guardian consent before using the service or submitting personal information.
User Content and Shared Links
- If you create or submit content, that content may be stored, displayed, moderated, or shared according to the feature you use.
- Share links and public challenge pages should be treated as potentially visible to anyone with the URL.
- Do not submit sensitive personal, medical, financial, or confidential information unless absolutely necessary.
Your Rights
- Access: You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Rectification: You can ask us to correct inaccurate personal data.
- Erasure: You can request deletion of your account and associated personal data by contacting privacy@steups.io or using account settings where available.
- Portability: Where technically feasible, you can request your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
- Restriction and objection: You can request that we restrict certain processing or object to processing based on legitimate interests.
- Withdrawal of consent: Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out beforehand.
- Complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in your jurisdiction if you believe your data protection rights have been violated.
Account Deletion
- You can request deletion of your account and personal data at any time by contacting privacy@steups.io.
- Upon request, we will delete your account and associated personal data within a reasonable timeframe, except where retention is required by law or necessary for legitimate business purposes such as fraud prevention.
- Some anonymized or aggregated data may be retained for analytics and service improvement.
Retention and Security
- We keep information for as long as reasonably necessary to operate the service, prevent abuse, comply with legal obligations, or resolve disputes.
- Account data is retained for the duration of your account; usage and analytics data is typically retained for up to 24 months before aggregation or deletion.
- We use technical and operational safeguards designed to reduce unauthorized access, misuse, or accidental exposure.
- No internet service can promise absolute security, so you should use the platform with appropriate caution.
Your Choices
- You can stop using the service at any time.
- You can limit what information you submit through public or shareable features.
- You can manage your account data or request deletion by contacting privacy@steups.io.
Policy Updates
- We may update this policy as the product evolves.
- When changes are material, we will update the effective date on this page.
For the rules that apply to use of the service, submissions, AI-generated features, and public share links, read the Terms of Use. For privacy or account questions, contact privacy@steups.io or use the contact page.