What we collect, why, and how to have it removed

The organisation responsible for your information

FirstCiv is operated by INNOVA CONSULT LTD., a federal Canadian corporation (Canada Business Corporations Act, corporation number 1522612-1) based in Ottawa, Ontario. Its founder and director, Maksym Stepanenko, is accountable for how the site handles personal information.

Questions and requests about your information go through the contact page. We answer every request personally.

Information you give us through the forms

Contact form

Your name, email address, the type of request, an optional reference and your message. We use them to reply to you.

Contributing a recording

Your name and email, the names of collaborators you list, the title, place and date of the recording, your note, the consent record (the name and role of the community representative who gives consent, their consent statement, the allowed uses and the licence) and the media file you upload. We use them to review the contribution and, only within the consent you gave, to publish it.

Community claim

Your name, role, organisation, email and your statement about your relationship with the community. We use them to verify the claim with a person.

When a form is submitted, the server records your IP address with the submission in an internal audit log and counts submissions per address for one hour to stop abuse. Nothing else about you is attached to a submission.

Google Analytics runs only after you allow it

On your first visit the site asks whether it may count visits with Google Analytics 4. Until you choose Allow, analytics storage stays switched off and no analytics cookie is set. Advertising storage is always off: the site runs no advertising and builds no advertising profiles.

Your choice is kept in your own browser (local storage, key fc_consent). To change it, clear this site's data in your browser and the question will appear again on your next visit.

Where the information is kept and who sees it

• Our own servers

  Form submissions, consent records and uploaded media are stored in a database and a private file store on servers that INNOVA CONSULT LTD. operates, rented from a hosting provider in the United States. Media are served only through short-lived signed links and only within the consent scope you chose.

• A notification copy

  When a form is submitted, a copy of its fields is emailed to the founder through the Resend email service, and a short alert is sent to the founder's internal messaging channel, so that requests are answered quickly.

• Who has access

  The founder and the moderators who review contributions. We do not sell, rent or trade personal information. Beyond the service providers named on this page, we share it with no one unless the law requires it.

• The public ledger

  The decision record at /api/ledger holds non-personal fields only (title, culture, category, licence and allowed uses). Names, emails and notes are never written to it.

How long we keep it

• Messages

  Kept while the conversation is useful and deleted on request.

• Contributions and consent records

  Kept for as long as the material is in the archive. If you withdraw consent, the material is unpublished and its media are removed from public access.

• Abandoned uploads

  Files uploaded without a finished submission are deleted automatically by a scheduled clean-up.

• Abuse counters

  Per-address submission counters cover a one-hour window.

Access, correction, deletion and withdrawal of consent

You can ask what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, or withdraw consent for a contribution at any time. Send the request through the contact page and choose the matching request type; withdrawal of consent has its own option. We act on requests in line with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca).

When this policy changes

We update this page when the way the site handles personal information changes, and the date at the top shows the last revision. Related rules for cultural material are in Data sovereignty and Governance.