Privacy Policy

Honest about what we collect

Introduction

Welcome to the SOCION Research Program website. We take your privacy seriously — not just as a legal obligation, but as a core value. This page explains what information is collected when you visit our website, why, and how it is used.

We have made deliberate choices to keep this as simple and privacy-friendly as possible. This policy is written to be understandable by everyone, not just lawyers.

What is a Privacy Policy?

A privacy policy is a document that explains what data a website collects about its visitors, how that data is stored, and whether it is shared with others. Under the European GDPR regulation, websites are required to be transparent about this — but more importantly, we believe you simply deserve to know.

The Three Common Categories of Cookies

Most websites use a combination of three types of cookies (small pieces of data stored in your browser):

  • Necessary cookies — Essential for the website to function. These cannot be turned off and do not collect personal data for tracking purposes.
  • Functional / Analytics cookies — Used to understand how visitors use the website (e.g. which pages are popular). These often involve third-party services that collect and store your behaviour data.
  • Marketing / Advertising cookies — Used to track you across websites and show you targeted advertisements. These are the most privacy-invasive type.

Our choice: We have made a conscious decision to only use strictly necessary cookies. We do not use marketing cookies, advertising trackers, or any service that builds a profile of your behaviour. We do not show cookie banners asking for your consent to tracking — because we simply don’t track you.

Analytics: Plausible

We use Plausible Analytics to understand how many people visit our website and which pages are most visited. We chose Plausible specifically because it is:

  • Cookie-free — it does not set any cookies in your browser
  • Privacy-first — it does not collect or store any personal data or identifiers
  • GDPR compliant by design — no consent banner is required
  • Open source — the code is publicly auditable
  • EU-hosted — data is stored on servers within the European Union

The data we see is entirely aggregated — for example, “200 people visited the homepage this week.” We cannot identify you individually in any way.

We Do Not Share or Sell Your Data

We do not sell, rent, or share any visitor data with third parties. Full stop. There are no advertising partners, no data brokers, and no analytics platforms that build profiles of your behaviour on this website.

Third-Party Services

Our website uses Cloudflare as a security and performance layer. Cloudflare may process your IP address to protect the website from abuse (e.g. DDoS attacks). Cloudflare’s data processing is governed by their own privacy policy. By default, some data may be processed on servers in the United States, though Cloudflare operates under Standard Contractual Clauses for GDPR compliance.

Aside from Cloudflare and Plausible, we do not load any third-party scripts, social media trackers, or advertising networks on this website.

Your Rights (GDPR)

As a resident of the European Union, you have the right to access, rectify, or request deletion of any personal data we hold about you. Since we collect no personal data, there is in practice nothing to request — but if you have any questions or concerns, you are always welcome to contact us.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, please reach out via the contact form on this website or by email at the address listed on our contact page.