Privacy Policy

There are a number of unique privacy challenges that The Freedom Cell Network and its members face, not just on the website but in the real world. 

This privacy policy outlines these challenges, communicates steps we have taken to preserve the privacy of our members, and suggests strategies for individual members to take responsibility for their own privacy and data. 

The Freedom Cell Network site is designed to help change makers find each other and work together, especially in the real world.

There is no stringent screening process for joining The Freedom Cell Network, our goal is to remain open and accessible to all.  

There are parts of member’s profile that are visible to the entire network. This is used to help members find each other.

While the site was designed to limit serious exposure of personal information, members must still take responsibility for their own data by not uploading personally identifiable information, building connections off of the site, and protecting their internet connections & communications with encrypted messaging & VPNs. 

General Site Information

The Freedom Cell Network’s application servers are internally owned and operated in a private data center, there is no third party involvement in the core infrastructure. User data does not leave the network. We will never share, sell, or give away our information of our members. Keep in mind that the site does use third party services like CDNs to remain available to thousands of worldwide visitors, more details in the third party section.   

What Information Is Collected

In order to have a consistent experience on the site, we require information from each member.

It’s important to note that we encourage anonymizing this information to a degree so that it cannot be directly linked to your person. This means you could & should use a pseudonym, an unrelated username, and generalize your location. We have limited the profile location fields to a city for this reason. You don’t have to put your city, you can even put a nearby city. 

In addition to your account information (username, email, password) we require: 

• Name (can be pseudonym)
• Last Name (can be pseudonym)
• Acceptance of The Freedom Cell Pledge
• Roles
• Skills & Resources (can change visibility)
• Mission & Goals
• Willingness
• Country  (can change visibility)
• State (can change visibility)
• City (can change visibility)

To recap, we simply look for something to be submitted in these fields, they are not checked or screened for accuracy.

You may notice we do not ask for exact address, simply putting your city or a nearby city on the map provides you the benefits of meeting local members while preserving your privacy. 

Important: All the fields listed above (with the exception of name, last name) can be searched through by other members on the site. These fields are public unless you have explicitly set them to private. 

The levels of privacy are as follows:

Public: Visible to everyone 
All Members: Effectively the same as public
My Connections: Shown only to members you have connected with (done through their profile, or by accepting their requests) 
Only Me: Not shared with anyone 

If you do not want certain fields shared, please make sure their visibility is set to ‘Only Me’. If you do not want any accurate information shared across these fields, then do not put accurate information in the required fields. 

Third Party Services

In order to remain available and functional to thousands of users across the world, The Freedom Cell Network uses some third party services. These services are used only to serve critical functions of the site, and are configured to be as private as possible. Here is an outline of interactions with these services as well as precautionary measures you can take.

CDN Content Delivery Network & Image Hosting – (bunny.net): In order for the site to load quickly for thousands of visitors around the world, we serve static files and images (files that do not change) through a CDN. We have configured the CDN to strip/anonymize your IP address, although we must trust the service to do as they promised. Users may use a VPN as a precaution. If users distrust the image hosting service – do not upload pictures to the site. 

Email (Mailgun): In order to send you notifications about registration, site events, and more – we use a transactional mail service. This service will be responsible for delivering emails to you. They will have access to your email address, and the content of said emails. We have adjusted our email templates so that personal information or direct messages do not get leaked. Users may use an anonymous email and a VPN as a precaution. 

Real-Time Messaging Service (wordplus): In order to drastically speed up direct messaging on the site, we use a third party websockets service to notify you when you have a new message. This service does not have any access to your message content. The message is encrypted before it sent across the messaging service and is decrypted in realtime in your browser. The messaging service does store data required for the chat service to function. Users may use a VPN as a precaution. 

Bot/Captcha Protection (hCaptcha): In order to defend against automated bot operations we have implemented bot/captcha protection throughout the site. You may be asked to complete this captcha upon login, register, lost password, and commenting functions. Inherently, these bot prevention systems do capture personal data, such as your IP address, browser type, ISP, device, operating system, and date/timestamp. Users may use a VPN as a precaution. 

Privacy Strategies

Given the unique challenge of shared member data internal to the network, we have designed mechanisms to further enhance the privacy and your communications, and to provide alternatives outside of the official site, in case it is attacked or becomes unavailable. Responsibility for your data, communications, and relationships built on this site rests on your shoulders. Make sure to bring trusted connections onto communication channels outside of this website in case it ever goes down. 

• Use a VPN
• Use encrypted messaing like XMPP (not government funded Signal)
• Use an open-source operating system
• Use a degoogled phone
• Create a PGP key and use it for end to end encryption over messaging
• After an initial chat, create direct communication lines to FC members

For more privacy tips & tools, check out:

• https://takebackourtech.org
• https://abovephone.com