Legal
Privacy Policy
This policy explains what personal information Sustainable Crafting collects, why we collect it, and what rights you have over it. It applies to this website and to the accounts, artisan profiles, craft records and story films created through it.
Last updated: 28 August 2026
Who we are
Sustainable Crafting is a research project website produced and managed by the University of Brighton. The project is funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council under the India-UK research into creative industries and cultural heritage, grant number OPP080. For the purposes of UK data protection law, the University of Brighton is the data controller for personal information processed through this website.
How to contact us
If you have a question about this policy, or you want to exercise any of the rights described below, write to us at privacy@PLACEHOLDER.invalid.
The information we collect
Account information. When you create an account we store your name, your email address and a hash of your password. If you sign in with Google we store the account identifier, name, email address and profile image that Google provides. We never receive or store your Google password. Artisan profile. If you create an artisan profile we store the first and last name, country and region you enter, together with anything else you choose to add: a biography, years of experience, how you learned your craft, a website, social media handles and hashtags. You may also record the approximate latitude and longitude of where you work. Craft records. Titles, descriptions, materials, techniques, measurements, photographs and videos of the pieces you document, and optionally the place where a piece was made. My Story. Your written answers to the story questions, the audio and video you record or upload, photographs and videos of your workshop, tools, materials and process, and the short summary that introduces your story. From this material we generate English captions, a transcript and an assembled story film. Communities. Your membership of any community on the site, and the role you hold in it. Technical information. A session cookie that keeps you signed in, a cookie that remembers your language choice, and ordinary server logs recording requests made to the site.
Recordings and sensitive information
Story recordings carry your face and your voice, and they often describe your family, your community, your traditions and your beliefs. Depending on what you choose to say, a recording may reveal information that data protection law treats as a special category, such as ethnic origin or religious belief. We process this material only because you have chosen to provide it and have consented to it being published. You can withdraw that consent at any time by unpublishing your story or by asking us to delete it.
Why we process your information
To provide your account and the service you asked for, we process your account and profile information because it is necessary to perform our agreement with you. To publish your craft records, your story and your film, we rely on your consent, which you give when you choose to publish. Published material is visible to anyone who visits the site. To generate captions, transcripts and draft summaries from your recordings, we rely on your consent, which you give when you choose to record or upload. To keep the site secure and working, including rate limiting and error logging, we rely on our legitimate interest in operating a safe service. As a research project we may report anonymous or aggregated statistics about how the site is used. That material does not identify you.
Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal information and we do not use it for advertising. Automated transcription. Audio and video from your story recordings is sent to Groq, a service provider in the United States, which produces the English captions and transcripts and drafts summary text. Only the media needed for that task is sent. Sign in with Google. If you choose this option, Google processes the sign in under its own privacy policy. Maps and embedded video. Craft pages can show a map from OpenStreetMap and video embedded from YouTube. Neither loads until you choose to open it. When you do, that provider receives your IP address and may set its own cookies. Some pages also display images hosted by Wikimedia. Hosting. The site, its database and its media storage are operated for the project rather than on a public cloud bucket.
Information leaving the UK
Groq processes recordings in the United States. Where personal information leaves the UK we rely on the safeguards required by UK data protection law, including the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum where these apply.
How long we keep it
Account and profile information is kept for as long as your account is open. Deleting your artisan profile deletes the crafts and the story attached to it. Deleting a media file removes both the database record and the stored file. Unpublished drafts stay in your account until you delete them. Server logs are kept only for as long as they are needed to operate and secure the site.
Access to what you upload
Published material is public by design and can be seen by anyone visiting the site. Material you have not published is not listed anywhere public and is not linked from any page. Media files are served from an address containing a long random identifier, and anyone holding that address can open the file. Please treat an unpublished upload as unlisted rather than as private, and do not upload anything you would not want seen if its address were shared.
Security
Passwords are stored only as hashes and never in a readable form. The keys held in the credential vault are encrypted before they are stored. Content credentials are signed with certificates issued for your artisan identity, so a file can be checked for alteration after signing. No website can promise perfect security. If a breach affects your rights we will tell you and the Information Commissioner’s Office as the law requires.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct information that is wrong, ask us to delete information, ask us to restrict or stop using it, and ask to receive certain information in a portable form. Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. To exercise any of these rights, write to privacy@PLACEHOLDER.invalid. If you are unhappy with our response you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.
Cookies
This site sets only the cookies it needs in order to work. There are no analytics cookies, no advertising cookies and no third party tracking on the site. A session cookie is set when you sign in. It identifies your session so that you stay signed in, and it is cleared when you sign out. A language cookie records the language you selected, so the site appears in that language when you return. Because both are strictly necessary for functions you have asked for, we do not ask for consent before setting them. You can clear cookies in your browser at any time, though the site cannot keep you signed in without the session cookie.
Children
This site is intended for adults. If you are under 18, please use it only with the involvement of a parent or guardian.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy we will update the date shown at the top of this page. Where a change materially affects how we use your information, we will bring it to your attention when you next sign in.