Privacy Policy

sk8tags.com (“sk8tags”, “we”, “us”) is a community-maintained directory of the world’s skateparks. This policy explains what information we handle and why.

We have deliberately built sk8tags to collect as little personal data as possible. The vast majority of people who use the site — anyone browsing or searching for skateparks — do so anonymously, with no account and no personal information collected at all.

This policy is organised by who you are:

• Everyone — visitors who browse, search, and look up skateparks, and anyone who submits a park change request.
• Trusted reviewers — trusted members of the skate community who sign in with Google to edit park data.

Everyone: visitors and the public directory

Browsing and searching

You do not need an account, and you do not provide any personal information, to browse the map, search for skateparks, look up a sk8tag, or use any of the public directory features. We do not require sign-in, and we do not run in-browser activity tracking — there is no logging of scrolling, hovering, mouse movement, or similar behavioural analytics.

Park change requests

Anyone can submit a change request to suggest a correction to a skatepark — for example, a new park, a corrected park location, a closure, or a note about a listing. A change request is about a place, not about you. When you submit one, we store:

• the details of your suggestion: the type of change, the park it relates to, the suggested skatepark location (the coordinates of the park — we do not capture your device’s location), and any note or supporting detail you add; and
• your IP address and browser user-agent string, recorded solely to help us detect and prevent abuse of the submission system (for example, spam or malicious bulk submissions).

The change-request form does not ask for, or store, your name, email address, phone number, or any other contact detail. Submissions from the public are anonymous apart from the IP address and user-agent noted above, which we keep only for abuse prevention.

Server logs

Like all websites, our server processes standard technical information — such as IP addresses, requested URLs, timestamps, and user-agent strings — in its ordinary operation. We use this for security, reliability, and to understand how the site is used in aggregate.

How we understand site usage (analytics)

We measure how the site is used by analysing our own server logs and database records on our own systems. This helps us understand usage patterns in aggregate — for example, which areas see the most activity, and how people search the directory — so we can improve and develop the service. This analysis is about patterns, not about identifying individuals.

We do not embed third-party analytics or advertising trackers. We do not share this information with third parties. If that ever changes — for instance, if we were to share anonymised, aggregated insights with others — we would update this policy to describe exactly what is shared and with whom before doing so.

Reviewers: Google sign-in

This section applies only to reviewers — trusted members of the skate community who sign in to edit park data. Signing in is entirely optional and is not required to use the public directory.

Reviewer access is invite-only. Reviewers are individuals we have already identified and invited, and whose authorised email addresses we already hold as one-way hashes. We use Google sign-in solely to verify that a person signing in is one of these pre-authorised individuals. We do not use Google sign-in to find, solicit, or acquire new users, and there is no way to create an account simply by signing in with Google.

What we receive, and how we use it

We maintain a secured list of pre-approved reviewer email addresses, held only as one-way hashes — never as readable addresses. We use Google sign-in purely to verify that someone attempting to log in is on that list. We do not request or use your name, profile picture, gender, age, location, contacts, calendar, files, or any other Google account data.

We do not store the email address Google provides in readable form. Once a reviewer has been verified, we identify them on future sign-ins by an opaque Google account identifier — a value that contains no name, email, or other readable personal detail and is meaningful only within sk8tags. This is the entire purpose for which we use Google sign-in data: verifying and recognising authorised reviewers. We do not email maintainers, build profiles, advertise, or use it for anything else.

Reviewer attribution

When a reviewer makes an edit, the public handle they have chosen to display (for example, an Instagram username) may be attached to that edit. This is information the reviewer has chosen to make public; it is not data obtained from Google.

Limited use

sk8tags’ use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Our use of Google sign-in data is limited entirely to providing the reviewer authentication feature described above. We do not use it for advertising, profiling, training machine-learning models, or any purpose beyond providing and securing this feature.

How we share data

We do not sell, rent, or disclose personal data — whether from public visitors or from reviewer sign-in — to any third party for their own purposes. There are no advertising partners, analytics brokers, or data resellers involved, and Google sign-in data never leaves our own systems.

The site runs on infrastructure operated by our hosting provider; this is ordinary hosting and does not involve sharing data for any third party’s own purposes. We may disclose information where required by law, or where strictly necessary to investigate abuse or protect the security of the service.

Data retention and deletion

• Reviewer sign-in data. The only data we hold from Google sign-in is a one-way hash of the email address (never the address itself) and an opaque account identifier — neither readable personal information on its own. We keep these for as long as you remain an authorised reviewer. If your access is removed, or on request, we delete your reviewer record (including the email hash and stored identifier).
• Change requests. We retain submitted change requests and their associated abuse-prevention data (IP and user-agent) only for as long as needed to process the request and guard against abuse, after which they are removed or anonymised.
• Server logs. Standard technical logs are retained only as long as needed for security and operational purposes, then deleted or overwritten in the normal course of server operation.

How we protect your data

• One-way hashing. Reviewer email addresses are stored only as one-way hashes, protected by a secret held outside the database. A breach of the database alone yields no readable email addresses.
• Opaque identifiers. The Google account identifier we store contains no readable personal detail and is meaningful only within sk8tags.
• Encryption in transit. The site is served exclusively over HTTPS.
• Minimal collection. We collect only what each feature needs and nothing more, reducing what could ever be exposed.
• Access control. Reviewer functions are limited to authenticated, authorised reviewers, and access can be revoked at any time.

Cookies and on-device storage

We use very little on-device storage, and none of it is for tracking or advertising:

• A login session cookie — set only for signed-in reviewers, to keep them logged in during a session. It is strictly necessary to provide the reviewer area you have asked to use, so it does not require consent.
• Local storage on your own device — we use your browser’s local storage to remember things like your options and your progress through training tasks. This stays on your device and is never sent to our servers; it exists only to make the features you are using work for you. The "My trips" data (lists of preferred skateparks) is held in local storage and can be exported by deliberate sharing actions initated by the user.

We do not use cookies or any other storage technologies for advertising, cross-site tracking, or behavioural profiling, and we do not embed third-party trackers. If we ever introduce storage that relies on the statistical/analytics exemption under the applicable rules, we will provide a simple, free way to opt out.

Who is responsible for your data

The data controller for sk8tags is Mark Harwood. If you have any question about this policy or about how your data is handled, you can get in touch at privacy@sk8tags.com.

Your rights

You have rights over any personal data we hold about you. You can ask us to:

• confirm what personal data we hold about you, and get a copy of it (access);
• correct it if it is inaccurate or incomplete (rectification);
• delete it (erasure);
• restrict or object to how we use it; and
• receive it in a portable form, where that right applies.

Given how little we hold — and that reviewer emails are kept only as one-way hashes — there may be cases where we genuinely cannot identify a specific individual from what we store, and so cannot action a request without further information. Where we can, we will respond to reasonable and proportionate requests. To exercise any of these rights, contact privacy@sk8tags.com.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, you can complain to us directly at privacy@sk8tags.com. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, take appropriate steps to resolve it without undue delay, and let you know the outcome.

You also have the right to complain to the UK’s data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. If you are in the EU, you may instead contact your local data protection authority.

Children

sk8tags is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect personal information from children, nor request Google sign-in from them. Browsing the public directory requires no account or personal information.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we change how we handle personal data — and in particular Google user data — we will update this page and revise the “Last updated” date above before the new practice takes effect. Where appropriate, we will seek renewed consent.

Contact

For anything relating to this policy, your data, or your maintainer record, contact the data controller, Mark Harwood, at privacy@sk8tags.com.