Privacy Policy

Effective date: April 3, 2026

1. Introduction

Paranormal Observer ("we," "our," or "us") operates paranormalobserver.com, a community platform dedicated to the documentation, analysis, and investigation of paranormal phenomena. We are headquartered in Wyoming, USA. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect information about you when you use our website, submit reports, upload evidence, or subscribe to Observer+.

We take your privacy seriously. Paranormal Observer is a community platform — not an advertising network or data broker. We collect only what we need to operate the service and we do not sell your data. If you have questions about this policy, contact us at privacy@paranormalobserver.com.

2. Information We Collect

We collect the following categories of information:

• Account information. When you create an account, we collect your email address and display name. This information is stored securely via Supabase and is used to identify your account and communicate with you about the service.
• User-submitted content. This includes paranormal sighting reports, evidence media (photos, video, audio), comments, and any other content you submit to the platform. Reports include location information you provide; we automatically fuzz precise coordinates before storage to protect your privacy.
• Technical usage data. We collect your IP address and basic request logs for security monitoring, spam prevention, and platform operation. We do not use this data to build advertising profiles.
• Payment information. Observer+ subscriptions are processed exclusively by Stripe, Inc. When you subscribe, Stripe collects and stores your payment card details directly. We never see, receive, or store your full card number, CVV, or raw bank account information. We receive only a Stripe customer ID and subscription status.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Operate, maintain, and improve the paranormalobserver.com platform.
• Authenticate your account and manage your session securely.
• Process Observer+ subscription payments and communicate subscription status.
• Send service-related emails, including account confirmation, subscription receipts, password reset links, and security alerts. We do not send unsolicited marketing emails to free users without consent.
• Moderate submitted reports and user content to maintain community standards.
• Assign and manage investigation cases with authorized investigators.
• Improve our product based on aggregated, anonymized usage patterns.
• Run our own advertising campaigns on other platforms, using first-party data with your consent (see Cookies section below). We do not share your data with third-party advertisers for this purpose.

4. Cookies and Tracking

We use two categories of cookies:

Strictly necessary cookies. These are required for the website to function and cannot be disabled. They include:

• The Supabase authentication session cookie, which keeps you logged in during your visit.
• Stripe payment session cookies, used during the checkout flow to process your subscription securely.

These cookies do not require your consent under applicable law because they are essential to delivering the service you request. They do not track you across other websites.

Advertising measurement cookies. With your consent, we use first-party cookies to measure the performance of our own advertising campaigns. These cookies help us understand how users who click on a Paranormal Observer advertisement find and interact with the site, so we can improve our campaigns. We do not use third-party advertising networks, do not display ads from external ad networks, and do not sell your data to advertisers or data brokers.

5. Data Sharing

We share your personal data only with the following service providers, strictly for the purpose of operating paranormalobserver.com:

• Supabase, Inc. — Provides our authentication system and database hosting. Data is stored on Supabase-managed infrastructure in the United States. Supabase is SOC 2 Type II certified. Our use of Supabase is governed by a Data Processing Agreement.
• Stripe, Inc. — Processes all Observer+ subscription payments. Stripe operates independently under PCI-DSS Level 1 certification, the highest level of payment security certification available. Stripe's privacy policy governs data Stripe collects during payment processing.

We do not sell, rent, license, or share your personal data with advertisers, data brokers, marketing platforms, social networks, or any third party for their own commercial purposes. All emails and notifications you receive from paranormalobserver.com are sent by Paranormal Observer directly — we do not white-label your contact information to third-party email marketing services.

We may disclose your information if required by law, court order, or valid legal process, or if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Paranormal Observer, our users, or the public.

6. Evidence and Media

When you upload evidence media (photos, video, or audio files) as part of a report, you control whether that media is displayed publicly. When you check the display consent box on the evidence upload form, you grant Paranormal Observer a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to display that media on the platform and to use it in Paranormal Observer's own editorial and marketing materials. You retain full ownership of your media at all times.

Media uploaded without display consent is stored privately in our secure storage and is accessible only to you and, where relevant, to authorized investigators assigned to your case. It is not displayed publicly and is not used in marketing. Please see our Terms of Service for the full terms of the media license.

7. Reports and Case Files

Sighting reports you submit are associated with your account. If you delete your account, your reports are deleted along with it — unless a report has been formally escalated into an active investigation case.

When a report is escalated to an active case — meaning it has been assigned to a credentialed investigator or a dedicated case page has been created — that case file is retained by Paranormal Observer per our Terms of Service, to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations and the work of investigators who have taken on the case.

If your report has been escalated and you wish to remove personally identifying information from the case file, you may submit a request to privacy@paranormalobserver.com. We will redact your personally identifying details (such as your name and contact information) from the case file without triggering full case deletion.

8. Your Rights (EU/EEA Residents — GDPR)

If you are located in the European Union or European Economic Area, you have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

• Right of access. You may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification. You may request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
• Right to erasure (right to be forgotten). You may request deletion of your personal data, subject to our legal retention obligations and case escalation terms described above.
• Right to restriction of processing. You may request that we limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to data portability. You may request your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Right to object. You may object to processing of your data where we rely on legitimate interests as our legal basis.

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@paranormalobserver.com with a description of your request. We will respond within 30 days. We may ask you to verify your identity before processing your request.

9. California Residents (CCPA)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grants you additional rights:

• Right to know. You have the right to request disclosure of the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources from which it was collected, the business purposes for collecting it, and the categories of third parties with whom it is shared.
• Right to delete. You have the right to request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain legal exceptions.
• Right to opt out of sale. You have the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information. We do not sell personal information.

To submit a CCPA request, email privacy@paranormalobserver.com. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights.

10. Data Retention

• Account data is retained until you delete your account. You can delete your account from your account settings at any time.
• Payment records are retained for 7 years as required by applicable financial and tax law. This obligation is independent of account deletion.
• Case files that have been assigned to investigators are retained indefinitely by Paranormal Observer per our Terms of Service. You may request redaction of personally identifying information within a case file as described in Section 7.
• Server logs (IP address and request logs) are retained for 90 days and then automatically purged.

11. Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data:

• All data transmitted between your browser and our servers is encrypted using HTTPS/TLS.
• Supabase implements row-level security (RLS) policies on our database, ensuring that users can only read and write their own data. Cross-account data access is blocked at the database level.
• All payment data is handled by Stripe under PCI-DSS Level 1 certification. We do not store payment card data on our servers.
• Location data included in sighting reports is automatically fuzzed (rounded to a reduced precision) before storage to protect the precise location of witnesses.

No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure. If you become aware of a potential security issue, please contact us at privacy@paranormalobserver.com.

12. Children's Privacy

Paranormal Observer is not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account or submitted personal information, please contact us at privacy@paranormalobserver.com and we will promptly delete the relevant information and account.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. For material changes — changes that significantly affect how we collect, use, or share your data — we will notify all registered users by email at least 30 days before the changes take effect. The updated policy will also be posted on this page with a revised effective date. Your continued use of the platform after the effective date of a revised policy constitutes your acceptance of the changes.

14. Contact

For privacy-related questions, requests, or concerns, contact us at:

• Email: privacy@paranormalobserver.com
• Mailing address: Paranormal Observer, Wyoming, USA