Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible

The controller under Art. 4(7) GDPR for this website is:

E-mail: [email protected]

For any question about your data, or to use your rights (section 14), write to this e-mail address. No data protection officer has been appointed, as the law does not require one for this website.

2. Summary

• You can use Interactive World without an account and without giving your name.
• We use no analytics, advertising or tracking tools and set no cookies of our own.
• Your browser keeps a few entries in its local storage that the site needs for features you use (section 8).
• YouTube videos and the live ISS position come from other companies' servers. They load only after you allow “External media and services” in the cookie settings, or when you load a single video yourself (sections 6, 7 and 9).
• When you vote in a poll, we store your choice with two one-way hashes, so that each person votes once (section 5).
• The website and its database run in data centres in Frankfurt, Germany (sections 3 and 4).

3. Hosting and server logs

The website is a set of static files hosted on the App Platform of DigitalOcean, LLC (USA), in its Frankfurt, Germany region. Whenever your browser loads a page or file, the hosting servers necessarily receive and briefly log technical data: your IP address, the date and time, the address requested, the amount of data sent, the referring page and your browser's user agent.

Purpose: delivering the website, keeping it secure and stable, and finding errors. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our legitimate interest in a working, secure website). Retention: the logs are kept by DigitalOcean according to its own retention rules and are not combined with other data by us. DigitalOcean acts as our processor. Its privacy policy: digitalocean.com/legal/privacy-policy.

4. Database (Supabase)

Events that are switched on or off, video links, polls and votes are stored in a database run by Supabase, Inc. (USA) in the AWS region eu-central-1 (Frankfurt, Germany). On every visit your browser asks this database which events to show, and, when you open the “Vote” tab, which polls are running. Like any server, Supabase receives your IP address and browser details with these requests and keeps them in its request logs for a limited time. Supabase acts as our processor.

Purpose: showing the current events and polls, and counting votes. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. Supabase's privacy policy: supabase.com/privacy.

5. Polls and voting

Voting is voluntary. When you vote, we store:

• the poll and the answer you chose, with the date and time;
• a one-way hash (SHA-256) of the random voting id kept in your browser (section 8), so you cannot vote twice in the same poll;
• a one-way hash of your IP address combined with the poll and a secret value, so that no more than 25 votes per poll come from one network. Your IP address itself is not stored.

To stop automated mass voting, a counter keyed by a salted hash of your IP address also limits each network to 10 votes in 10 minutes; these counters are deleted after one day.

These hashes are pseudonymous, not anonymous: whoever knows an IP address or voting id and our secret value could check whether it matches. We do not do this and do not combine the votes with any other data. Results are shown only as totals.

Purpose: running fair polls. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our legitimate interest in polls that cannot easily be manipulated). Retention: until the poll is deleted on the admin page; deleting a poll deletes all its votes.

Some polls link to a poll on YouTube. You vote there, under YouTube's own terms, after following the link. To show the total number of votes, our server reads the public YouTube page itself; none of your data is sent to YouTube for this.

6. YouTube videos

Each story on the globe can show a history video from YouTube. The player comes from Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com).

The player is blocked until you agree: either by allowing “External media and services” in the cookie settings, or by pressing “Load video” for a single video. Only then does your browser connect to YouTube, which receives your IP address, browser details and the page you are on, and may store and read information in your browser (for example to remember settings and to measure playback). If you are signed in to Google, YouTube may link this to your account. Google may transfer data to Google LLC in the USA (see section 12).

Legal basis: your consent, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and § 165(3) TKG 2021. You can withdraw it at any time under “Cookie Settings”. The links “Watch on YouTube” and “Search on YouTube” simply open YouTube in a new tab. Google's privacy policy: policies.google.com/privacy.

7. Live position of the ISS

With your consent for “External media and services”, the International Space Station on the globe follows its real position. Your browser then asks the public service Where the ISS at? (api.wheretheiss.at) for it every 10 seconds while the page is open. This service receives your IP address and browser details with each request. We have no contract with it and no influence on what it logs. Without consent, no request is made and the ISS follows a simulated orbit.

Legal basis: your consent, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR. You can withdraw it at any time under “Cookie Settings”.

8. Cookies and local storage

Interactive World sets no cookies of its own. It uses your browser's local storage for the entries below. They stay on your device and are not sent to us, except the voting id when you vote (as a hash, section 5). You can delete them at any time in your browser's settings (site data); the site then starts fresh.

Legal basis: these entries are strictly necessary to provide features you actively use, so no consent is needed (§ 165(3) TKG 2021); any processing of personal data is based on Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

Once you allow external media, YouTube may store its own cookies or local storage entries in your browser (section 6). These are set by Google, not by us.

9. Your cookie choice

On your first visit a banner asks for your choice: Accept all, Reject optional cookies or Cookie settings. Optional categories are off until you switch them on, and rejecting is as easy as accepting. Your choice is kept in your browser for 12 months (entry interactive-world:consent); after that, or if the categories change, we ask again. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time with the “Cookie Settings” link at the bottom of every page; withdrawing does not affect what happened before.

Open cookie settings

10. Admin accounts

The admin page (/admin/) is only for the people who run this website. To sign in, Supabase Auth processes their e-mail address, a securely hashed password, sign-in times, the IP address and browser details of sign-ins, and keeps a session in the browser's local storage (world-history-globe-admin). Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (secure access to the site's settings). Admins also sign in with a one-time code from an authenticator app; Supabase stores the app's secret for this. Every change an admin makes is logged with the time, the admin's account and e-mail address and the changed values, to keep the site's settings traceable and secure; this log is kept for one year. Accounts are kept until they are deleted. Visitors of the website never need an account.

11. Fonts and other content

The font (Poppins) is stored on our own hosting and loaded from there, not from Google Fonts or any other external service. The pictures, maps and animations are part of the website itself. The site has no social media plugins, no comment function, no newsletter and no contact form.

12. Recipients and transfers outside the EU

Personal data is only shared with:

• DigitalOcean, LLC (hosting, processor, servers in Frankfurt);
• Supabase, Inc. (database and sign-in, processor, servers in Frankfurt);
• Google Ireland Limited / YouTube (videos, only with your consent; Google is a separate controller for what it does with the data);
• Where the ISS at? (api.wheretheiss.at, only with your consent).

DigitalOcean and Supabase are companies based in the USA, and Google may transfer data to Google LLC in the USA. Even when the servers are in the EU, access from the USA cannot be ruled out. Such transfers rely on the European Commission's adequacy decision for the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (for certified companies) or on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR) in the providers' data processing terms. Where the ISS at? may process data outside the EU without such safeguards; it is only contacted with your consent, which also covers this (Art. 49(1)(a) GDPR).

We do not sell personal data and do not share it for advertising.

13. How long data is kept

• Server and request logs: for the short period set by DigitalOcean and Supabase.
• Votes and their hashes: until the poll is deleted.
• Vote rate-limit counters (salted hash of the IP address): one day.
• Log of admin changes: one year.
• Admin accounts: until the account is deleted.
• Local storage entries: on your device until you delete them; the cookie choice for 12 months.
• Data that YouTube or Where the ISS at? collect: according to their own policies.

Data is also kept longer only where the law requires it.

14. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you (Art. 15);
• have it corrected (Art. 16) or deleted (Art. 17);
• restrict its processing (Art. 18);
• data portability (Art. 20), where processing is based on consent or a contract;
• object at any time to processing based on our legitimate interests (Art. 21);
• withdraw consent at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7(3)), under “Cookie Settings”.

Please note that we usually cannot link a vote or a log entry to you, because we do not know who you are (Art. 11 GDPR). If you can give us details that identify your data, we will help. To use your rights, write to [email protected].

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. In Austria this is the Datenschutzbehörde, Barichgasse 40–42, 1030 Vienna, www.dsb.gv.at. You may also turn to the authority where you live or work.

Visitors outside the EU (for example in the UK, Switzerland or the USA) have the same choices on this site; where local law gives you further rights, write to us and we will respect them.

15. Security

All connections use encryption (HTTPS). The database only allows what its access rules permit: visitors can read published content and vote through a checked database function with rate limits; changes are possible only for admins signed in with a password and a second factor, and every change is logged. The pages restrict which servers they may load from (Content Security Policy). Passwords are stored only as hashes, IP addresses of voters only as salted one-way hashes. No method is completely secure, but we keep the data we process as small as possible.

16. Children, automated decisions and changes

Children: Interactive World is made to be enjoyed by all ages and asks nobody for personal details. In Austria, children under 14 may give consent to online services only with a parent's agreement; we ask younger visitors to have a parent decide about “External media and services”.

Automated decisions: we make no decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, that have legal or similarly significant effects (Art. 22 GDPR). The only automatic check is that a poll accepts one vote per browser and at most 25 votes per network.

Changes: we update this policy when the website changes. The date at the top shows the current version.