Privacy at ArtConnect

Who ArtConnect is for

ArtConnect is for student artists ages 13 to 17, plus the parents and legal guardians who confirm their accounts. You may not create an account if you are under 13, and we don't knowingly collect anything from anyone under 13. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 13, we will close it, delete its data, and tell the Guardian on File. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, email privacy@artconnect.studio.

Adults don't get member accounts. A guardian's role is oversight — and throughout this site, the parent or legal guardian who confirmed an account is called the Guardian on File.

How sign-up works, and where your guardian fits

1. You sign up with your first name and last initial, your birth month and year, your email, and your guardian's email. Nothing is public yet.
2. We email your guardian a confirmation link.
3. Your guardian reviews what you entered — including your birth month and year — and confirms that you are between 13 and 17 and that they approve the account. We record their name, their relationship to you, and their confirmation as the consent record.
4. Only after that confirmation can you post. If your guardian doesn't confirm within 14 days, the whole sign-up — including their email address — is deleted automatically.

Your Guardian on File can view your account, pause it (which hides everything immediately), or delete it, at any time.

What we collect, and why

• The display name you invent — public; it's how everyone knows you here.
• Your first name and last initial — private; seen only by your Guardian on File and our moderators, so a real person is accountable for each account without exposing who you are.
• Your birth month and year — private. We deliberately don't ask for the day. It's used for exactly two things: checking you're 13–17 when you join (your Guardian on File confirms it), and knowing when you turn 18 (see "When you turn 18," below).
• Your email address — private; used to sign you in and send account messages. Your password is handled by our sign-in provider in hashed form — we never see it.
• Your guardian's email address — you give it to us at sign-up so we can ask them to confirm your account. When they confirm, we also record their name and their relationship to you, kept as the consent record.
• Artwork you post, alt text, critiques and discussions you write — this is the site.
• A log of moderation and consent actions — who approved or returned what, and when — kept so decisions can be reviewed and so your guardian's confirmation can be proven.
• Basic technical data. Like every website, the servers that run ArtConnect briefly log standard request data (such as an IP address) for a limited time to keep the site working and secure. We don't use these logs to track or profile you.

That's the whole list. If we ever want to collect something new, we'll update this page first — and if it's a meaningful change, we'll email every Guardian on File before it happens (see "Changes," below).

Keep personal details out of what you post

The alias-only design only works if the words and pictures stay alias-only too. Don't put personal information — your full name, school, town, address, phone number, email, or social handles, yours or anyone else's — in your bio, artwork, titles, notes, critiques, or discussions. Moderators check for this, and content that includes personal details is returned to you rather than published. That's protection, not punishment.

What's public and what's never public

Public: your invented display name, bio, avatar colour, approved artwork, and approved critiques and discussions.

Private, always: your real name, your birth month and year, your email, school, region, town, address, phone number, follower list, your Guardian on File's details, anything still waiting for moderation, and anything a moderator returned to you.

What we never do

• We never sell your personal information, and we never share it for advertising or marketing — no ads, no ad networks, no tracking cookies, no profiling. (Our hosting provider shows us basic aggregate visit counts — see the next section — but nothing tied to who you are, and never for advertising.)
• We never use your artwork or writing to train AI models, and we don't let anyone else do it either. Your art is yours — see Our promises.
• We never make you trade privacy for features, and we will never punish or limit an account for exercising any right on this page.

Who helps us run the site

A few companies process data on our behalf, under terms that only allow them to use it to provide their service to us:

• Supabase hosts our database, sign-in, and artwork storage. Artwork files live in a private bucket; only approved pieces are publicly viewable. Data is stored in the United States.
• Resend delivers guardian and account emails (like the confirmation email), sent through our host Lovable's email gateway. They handle those addresses and messages.
• Lovable Cloud hosts the site itself. As part of hosting, it gives us basic, aggregate visit statistics — how many visitors, which pages — not tied to your name, profile, or account, and never used for advertising. That is the only analytics ArtConnect has.
• Google Fonts serves our typefaces, and YouTube serves video thumbnails on the Resources page.

About third parties generally: when a third party's content loads (a font, a video thumbnail), that third party receives standard web-request data such as an IP address — that's how the web works. And when you click through to a third-party site — for example, watching a video on YouTube — everything you do there is governed by their privacy policy, not ours. We chose link-outs over embedded players precisely so nothing like that happens silently in the background here. If we change or add a provider, we'll update this list before the change takes effect.

When we would share information beyond that

We built ArtConnect so the honest answer is "almost never." The complete list:

• With your Guardian on File. They confirmed your account; they can see what you post and what happens to your account.
• When the law requires it. If we receive valid legal process (like a subpoena or court order), we comply — after checking it's genuine, and sharing only the minimum it requires. Where the law allows, we will tell the Guardian on File that it happened.
• To keep someone safe. If we believe a member or another child is in real danger, we may contact the Guardian on File and, where appropriate, the proper authorities. U.S. law also requires online services to report child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC); we would comply.
• If ArtConnect ever changes hands or closes. Your data would either be deleted, or transferred only to a successor who agrees in writing to honour this policy. Either way, we would email every Guardian on File before anything moved, with a clear option to delete the account first.

That's it. There is no "business partners," "affiliates," or "select third parties" paragraph here, on purpose.

How long we keep things

• When you (or your Guardian on File) delete your account, your profile and content are hidden immediately and permanently removed from our live systems within 30 days.
• Copies in our encrypted backups are isolated from use and rotated out within 90 days.
• Your guardian-consent record is kept while your account is active, and for up to 2 years after it closes, for recordkeeping and audit purposes — so that if a question is ever raised, we can prove consent was given, by whom, and when.
• Moderation logs are kept while your account is active and for up to 2 years after it closes, for recordkeeping and audit purposes — so safety decisions can be reviewed if a question is raised later.
• If your account closed because you turned 18 and your work is still on display, we keep your account record — your email, and your first name and last initial — for as long as the work stays up, solely so we can verify it's really you if you later ask for its removal. Once your work comes down, the schedules above apply.
• If a guardian doesn't confirm an account within 14 days, the account — including the guardian's email address — is deleted automatically.

When you turn 18

ArtConnect is only for ages 13–17, so membership ends when you turn 18.

• Because we have your birth month and year, we know when that is. Before your birthday month, we'll email you and your Guardian on File to explain exactly what happens next. (You always own your work, and you can download your pieces at any time.)
• In the month you turn 18, your account is disabled: sign-in stops, and you can no longer post or critique.
• Your approved artwork and posts stay on display under your display name, under the same limited licence and the same promises as before (see the Copyright page). Your alias reveals nothing about you, so nothing personal stays public. We'll email you to confirm your account has closed — and that email includes a removal link.
• Don't want it kept up — then, or any time later? Use the link in that email, or write to privacy@artconnect.studio from the email address that was on your account, and we'll remove your work on the same schedule as a deleted account (above). It's your call alone now — no guardian needed.
• If you think our date for you is wrong, or you have questions, email privacy@artconnect.studio any time.

How we protect it

Traffic is encrypted, passwords are hashed by our sign-in provider, pending artwork is stored privately rather than at a guessable public address, and moderation tools are restricted to named, accountable staff. And honestly: no small site can promise perfect security. What we promise is care, minimal data worth stealing in the first place, and telling you the truth fast if something goes wrong.

Your rights and choices

• See and fix your details any time in your profile settings.
• Get a copy of your data. Email privacy@artconnect.studio from the email address on your account (guardians: from the Guardian on File email). We'll verify it's really you before sending anything — for a minors' site, that check matters — and respond within 30 days.
• Delete your account yourself, any time, from your settings. Your Guardian on File can also pause your account (which hides everything immediately) or delete it from theirs.
• Complain. Email us first — we aim to reply within five working days and to resolve things properly. You can also raise concerns with the Federal Trade Commission or your state Attorney General.

Guardians have the same rights over their own information (their email, name, and relationship record).

If something goes wrong

If personal data is ever exposed, we will investigate and fix the problem as soon as possible. We will notify affected students and their Guardians on File as soon as reasonably practicable and within any timeframe required by applicable law. We will also notify authorities where the law requires it, and publish a plain-language explanation of what happened, what we did, and what (if anything) you should do. We will never wait to be asked.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that matters — new data collected, a new use, a new provider handling more than today's do — we will email every Guardian on File and post a notice on the site before the change takes effect, and update the effective date above. Quiet edits that expand what we do with your data are not a thing we do. If a change would use already-collected data in a genuinely new way, we'll ask for fresh guardian consent rather than assume it.

Where we operate

ArtConnect is run from the United States, for students in the United States, and sign-up is limited to the U.S. Our providers store data in the U.S. We don't direct the service to other countries; if that ever changes, this policy will be updated first to cover the additional rights involved.

Contact

Questions, requests, or worries: privacy@artconnect.studio. We aim to reply within five working days, and answer data requests within 30 days.