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Privacy policy

Last updated: June 25, 2026

1. Who is responsible for this platform

This Privacy Policy explains how the ET4D platform processes personal data and farm-related data. The platform is operated for project communication, data visualization, survey, alerting, and research-support purposes. Questions about privacy or data protection can be sent through the Contact page or, for registered users, through the internal communication tools.

2. Data we process

2.1 Account and profile data

  • Username, name, email address, phone number, password hash, account status, and role.
  • Account type, such as farmer, stakeholder, consumer, or administrator.
  • Registration, approval, profile update, deletion-request, and login/session information.

2.2 Farm, privacy, and device data

  • Farm names, countries, locations, descriptions, contact details, and assigned owners or managers.
  • Farm privacy settings, including choices to hide farm name, country, device identifiers, location, contact email, contact phone, and descriptions.
  • Device identifiers, metadata, and environmental sensor data such as CO2, ammonia, dust, humidity, and temperature where available.

2.3 Communication and contribution data

  • Internal private messages sent and received through the platform.
  • Contact-form submissions and support messages.
  • Community feedback, comments, likes, dislikes, and related moderation metadata.

2.4 Technical and security data

  • Session data, request logs, user-agent information, error logs, and security-relevant events.
  • Administrative activity required to maintain user accounts, farm links, backups, and platform settings.

3. Why we process data

  • Platform access: To create accounts, authenticate users, approve role-specific access, and keep the service secure.
  • Dashboards and alerts: To show environmental measurements, trends, threshold alerts, and exports according to each user's permissions.
  • Privacy controls: To apply farm-level visibility choices in public, farmer, stakeholder, and administrative views.
  • Communication: To deliver private messages, support replies, contact-form submissions, and notification emails where configured.
  • Research and analysis: To provide scenario exploration, aggregated reporting, and model-based analysis without replacing professional farm-management or veterinary advice.
  • Maintenance: To debug errors, prevent abuse, create backups, and operate the system.

4. Legal bases

Depending on the feature and user relationship, ET4D may process data to provide the requested service, to administer user accounts, to comply with legal or security obligations, to support legitimate project operations, or on the basis of consent where consent is requested. Users can withdraw optional consent or change privacy settings where the platform provides those controls.

5. Visibility and sharing

The platform does not make all farm data public by default. Visibility depends on account type, approval status, assigned farms, and the owner's privacy settings.

  • Farmers and administrators can see the real data needed to manage assigned accounts and farms.
  • Stakeholders and public users may see anonymized or privacy-aware labels where privacy settings require it.
  • Internal messages are visible to the sender, recipient, and administrators who need access for support or moderation.
  • Feedback, comments, likes, and dislikes may be shown in community or administrative views according to the feature design.

6. Data processors and hosting

ET4D may use hosting, database, email, storage, backup, and monitoring infrastructure to run the platform. These service providers process data only as needed to operate the service. Sensor files and derived records may also be processed by ET4D data-ingestion and modelling components.

7. Retention and backups

  • Account, profile, farm, privacy, message, feedback, and sensor records are retained while they are needed for platform operation, project documentation, security, or research-support purposes.
  • Users can request export or deletion of account-related personal data. Deletion may be delayed where retention is required for backups, auditability, security, or legal obligations.
  • Database backups may contain the full state of the platform at the time of backup, including users, profiles, farm links, privacy settings, messages, comments, likes/dislikes, activities, and settings.
  • Operational logs are kept only as long as needed for security, debugging, and maintenance, and may be cleaned or anonymized according to the platform maintenance policy.

8. Security

  • HTTPS is used for data transmission.
  • Passwords are stored as password hashes, not as plain text.
  • Role-based access controls restrict dashboards, admin tools, messages, exports, backups, and restore functions.
  • Backups, logs, and administrative tools are protected because they may contain sensitive data.

9. Your rights

Where applicable under data-protection law, you may request:

  • Access to your personal data.
  • Correction of inaccurate account or farm information.
  • Export of data available to your account.
  • Deletion or restriction of processing, subject to retention and security requirements.
  • Review or change of available privacy settings.
  • Objection to certain processing activities where legally available.

You may also have the right to contact a competent data-protection supervisory authority if you believe your data-protection rights have been infringed.

10. Research and model outputs

Data-analysis and prediction features are provided for scenario exploration and research communication. They do not replace veterinary, legal, financial, or operational farm-management advice. Users remain responsible for decisions made outside the platform.

11. Changes to this policy

ET4D may update this Privacy Policy when the platform, project requirements, or legal requirements change. Material changes will be communicated through the platform or other appropriate channels.