Privacy Policy

1. Scope

This policy covers the website at state-of-emergency.com, including the Live Emergency Map. It describes what the site actually does today. Where a common practice does not apply to us, this policy says so plainly rather than reserving the right to do it later.

Why this policy is unusually specific

Most privacy policies are written to reserve every right a publisher might one day want, which is why they describe data practices the site does not have. That is legally cautious and practically useless — a reader cannot tell what is actually happening.

This one describes the site as it is. It was written after auditing the production site directly: response headers, page source, network requests and third-party connections. Where the honest answer is nothing, the policy says nothing rather than reserving the option.

The trade-off is that this policy has to change when the site changes. That is the intended behaviour, not a maintenance problem.

What server logs actually contain

Every web server keeps request logs; a site cannot be operated or defended without them. For clarity, a typical entry records the IP address making the request, the date and time, the URL requested, the HTTP response code, the number of bytes sent, the browser user-agent string, and the referring page if the browser sent one.

An IP address can be personal information under several state laws, so we name it explicitly rather than hiding it inside the phrase technical data.

These logs are used to serve pages, keep the site available, investigate faults and identify abuse. They are not used to profile readers, and they are not combined with any other dataset — because there is no other dataset.

The Live Emergency Map, specifically

The map is the one place where the site's data flow is worth describing in detail, because it is the only page that behaves differently from the rest.

• Hazard data is fetched server-side. Your browser asks our server for hazard data; our server asks the National Weather Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. Your browser never contacts those agencies directly, so they do not see your IP address or your visit.
• Basemap tiles are fetched by your browser. The map background comes directly from CARTO. That request does expose your IP address and user agent to CARTO, in the same way as loading an image from any third-party domain.
• No location is requested. The map does not ask for, use, or store your device location. It opens on a national view.

This split is deliberate. Fetching hazard data server-side is better for privacy and lets us cache responses; the basemap has to be tiled to the browser to be usable.

Third parties we do not use

Listing absences is unusual in a privacy policy, but it is the most useful thing we can tell you. As of the last update, this site runs:

• no Google Analytics, and no analytics platform of any kind
• no advertising network, ad exchange or header bidding
• no remarketing, conversion or social media pixels
• no A/B testing, session recording or heatmap tools
• no comment system, chat widget or embedded social feeds
• no third-party fonts — typography uses fonts already on your device
• no consent management platform, because there is no consent to manage

You do not have to take our word for it. Open your browser's developer tools, load any page on this site, and look at the network tab and the cookie store.

2. What we collect

State of Emergency does not set cookies. The site is served as static pages with no analytics platform, no advertising network and no tracking pixels. We verified this on the production site rather than assuming it.

What does get processed:

• Server logs. Our host records standard web-server data — IP address, request time, URL requested, response code, user agent, referrer. This is ordinary infrastructure logging used for delivery, security and abuse prevention.
• Content delivery. Pages and assets are served through our host's content delivery network, which processes the same connection data in order to deliver them.
• Map tiles. On the Live Emergency Map only, your browser requests basemap tiles directly from CARTO. That request necessarily exposes your IP address and user agent to CARTO. No other page on the site loads third-party resources.

We do not operate analytics, advertising, remarketing, fingerprinting or cross-site tracking.

3. How it is collected

• Automatically, by the web server and CDN when your browser requests a page.
• From a third party, in the single case of CARTO basemap tiles on the map page.
• Directly from you, only if and when a form on this site is actually connected to a service that receives it. See section 4.

4. Forms on this site

This section exists because it would be easy — and wrong — to describe data flows that do not exist.

The newsletter form is not yet connected to an email service. Submitting it does not create a subscription, does not transmit your address anywhere, and does not store it. Nothing is collected. When a provider is connected, this section and the disclosure next to the form will be updated before the change goes live.

The site search box is not yet connected to a search backend. It does not record queries, because it does not process them.

5. How information is used

• delivering pages and assets you requested
• keeping the site available and secure, and investigating abuse
• diagnosing technical faults
• meeting legal obligations

Server log data is not used to build profiles, target advertising or identify individual readers.

Why we process what little we process

Server logs and content delivery data are processed because a website cannot be served, kept online or defended against abuse without them. That is the entire justification, and it is the only one we have.

We do not process reader data for marketing, profiling, personalization, measurement or resale, because none of those activities happen here.

Readers outside the United States

This site is written for a U.S. audience, but it is reachable from anywhere. If you are reading from outside the United States, your connection data is processed on infrastructure that may be located in the U.S. or in other countries where our host and its content delivery network operate.

We do not target readers in the EU, the UK or other regions with their own comprehensive privacy regimes, and we do not run the advertising or profiling technology those regimes are principally concerned with. If you are in such a region and want to exercise a right, write to us and we will deal with the request on its merits rather than on a jurisdictional technicality.

How to make a privacy request

Use the privacy route on the contact page. To act on a request we need to understand it, so tell us which right you are exercising and which state or country you are writing from.

Because we hold no reader accounts, no mailing list and no profiles, most requests will have a short answer: we do not hold personal information about you beyond transient server logs, which are not indexed by identity and cannot be searched for an individual reader.

That is a genuine answer rather than an evasion. A site that collects nothing has very little to give back, and we would rather explain why than manufacture a process that implies otherwise.

Version history

This is the first published version of this policy, dated at the top of the page. Future material revisions will be dated, and the nature of the change described rather than silently swapped in.

6. Cookies and similar technologies

No cookies are set by this site. Details, including what would change if that ever stops being true, are in the Cookie Policy.

7. How information is disclosed

• Service providers. Our hosting and CDN provider processes connection data in order to serve the site.
• CARTO, for basemap tiles on the Live Emergency Map only.
• Legal and compliance recipients, where disclosure is legally required or necessary to protect rights and safety.

We do not disclose reader information to advertisers, data brokers or analytics companies, because we do not work with any.

8. Sale, sharing and targeted advertising

Several U.S. state privacy laws define sale and sharing broadly enough to include ad-tech arrangements that involve no money changing hands.

State of Emergency does not sell personal information, and does not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, under those definitions. We can state this because there is no advertising technology on the site at all — not because we have simply chosen to say it.

If advertising or affiliate tracking is introduced, this section will be rewritten and opt-out mechanisms provided before those technologies are deployed.

9. Your privacy rights

Privacy rights in the United States depend on where you live. Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws — including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah and a growing number of others — generally have rights to access, correct, delete and obtain a portable copy of personal information, and to opt out of sale, sharing or targeted advertising.

Not every right applies in every state, and some depend on thresholds a publisher of this size may not meet. Rather than claim otherwise, our practice is simple: if you make a request, we will honor it where the law applies and tell you plainly where it does not.

Requests go through the privacy route on the contact page.

10. Privacy choices

Because the site sets no cookies and runs no advertising technology, there is no targeted-advertising opt-out to offer and no consent banner to configure — there is nothing to consent to.

Global Privacy Control. We do not operate the tracking that a GPC signal is designed to stop. If tracking is ever introduced, GPC will be honored as an opt-out signal from the outset.

11. Data retention

Server logs are retained by our host for a limited operational period and then discarded on their normal cycle. Since we do not maintain a reader database, a mailing list or user accounts, there is no other reader data to retain.

12. Security

The site is served over HTTPS. Configuration files that could contain credentials are blocked at the server, and the map's API key material — when configured — stays server-side and is never sent to the browser.

No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise.

13. Children

This site is written for adults making household preparedness decisions. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

14. External links

We link to official agencies, manufacturers and retailers. Once you follow a link, you are on their site and their privacy practices apply. Linking is not an endorsement of their data handling.

15. Changes to this policy

When practices change, this page changes with them, and the last-updated date at the top moves. Material changes — particularly the introduction of analytics, advertising or affiliate tracking — will be reflected here before the technology is deployed, not after.

16. Contact

Privacy questions and requests go through the privacy route on the contact page.