Privacy Notice

Sunometer is a friendly, worldwide contest for home-grown sunflowers. This notice explains, in plain English, what information we collect, why, and the choices you have. We aim to collect as little as possible.

What we collect

• Your account: your email address, a grower name you choose (shown publicly on the boards), your town and country, and your password (which we store only in a scrambled, one-way "hashed" form — we never see or keep the actual password).
• What you post: sunflower photos, heights and measurements, variety, comments, and votes.
• Basic technical data: a single sign-in cookie to keep you logged in, and your IP address in short-lived logs to keep the site secure and prevent spam.

How we use it

• To run the contest — showing leaderboards, the map, profiles and the beauty contest.
• To send you account emails, such as password resets. These are sent on our behalf by Brevo (an email provider), from our address.
• To keep the site working, secure, and free of abuse.

We do not sell your data, and we don't use advertising or tracking cookies.

What's public

Because Sunometer is a public contest, your grower name, town/region/country, sunflower photos, heights, comments and badges are visible to others. Your email address and password are never shown publicly. Please only post photos you're happy to share.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of trusted providers purely to run the service: our host (DigitalOcean), our email sender (Brevo), and map imagery (Esri and OpenStreetMap). They process data only to provide their part of the service. We don't share your information for marketing.

Your choices and rights

• You can edit your location any time from your profile.
• You can delete individual sunflower entries you've posted.
• You can ask us to delete your account and associated data — just email us (below).
• If you're in the UK or EU, you have rights under data protection law, including to access or delete your data. Contact us to exercise them.

Keeping data safe

Passwords are hashed, the site is served over HTTPS, and we use a firewall, rate-limiting and routine backups. No online service can promise perfect security, but we take sensible care.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and posts while your account is active. Backups are kept for roughly two weeks. If you delete your account, we remove your personal data, though anonymised or aggregate figures may remain.

Children

Sunometer is a family-friendly contest, and children may take part with a parent or guardian's involvement. If you're a parent and would like your child's data removed, please contact us.

Contact

Questions, or want your data removed? Email [email protected].