Privacy Policy

Last updated: March 19, 2026

This Privacy Policy describes how Popular POEM (“we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, and shares information when you use our website at popularpoem.com (the “Service”). By using the Service you agree to the practices described here.

1. Information We Collect

Account information

When you create an account we collect your email address and a hashed password. We do not collect your name.

Identity verification

To post messages you must complete identity verification through our third-party provider, Persona. Persona collects your government-issued ID and a selfie directly. We do not receive or store your ID documents or biometric data. We receive only: a confirmation of approval or denial, a unique persona_account_id that identifies your real-world identity across our platform, and (where provided by the ID document) your country of residence.

Payment information

Subscription payments are processed by Stripe. We do not receive or store your card number or full billing details. Stripe provides us with a customer ID, subscription status, and subscription dates.

Usage data

We store whether you have posted today (posted_today), your current posting streak count, and your language preference.

IP address and location

We collect your IP address for rate limiting and to detect your approximate country. On your first visit, your country is used to automatically select a matching display language. We use a local GeoIP database (DB-IP) for this lookup — your IP is not sent to any external service for language detection.

Cookies

We use the following cookies:

  • Session cookie — keeps you logged in during your visit.
  • CSRF token — a security cookie that protects form submissions from cross-site request forgery.
  • Language preference — remembers your chosen display language across visits.

We do not use advertising cookies or cross-site tracking cookies.

2. How We Use Your Information

  • To operate and maintain your account
  • To verify that you are a real, unique individual (one account per person)
  • To process subscription payments
  • To enforce daily posting limits and track streaks
  • To display the Service in your preferred language
  • To protect the Service against abuse, fraud, and automated attacks
  • To send transactional emails (account verification, password reset, subscription receipts)

3. How Messages Are Handled

Popular POEM is a dynamic art installation. When you submit a message, it is processed and its contribution is folded into a shared poem. Private messages are destroyed immediately after processing. The resulting public poem lines are convolutions of many contributions and cannot be attributed to or deconvolved into any individual message. Public poem content persists indefinitely.

4. One Identity Per Account

We store your persona_account_id to enforce the rule that each real-world person may hold only one account. If you attempt to verify a second account using the same identity, that attempt will be blocked. This identifier cannot be linked back to your name or ID document by us.

5. Third-Party Services

We share data with the following third parties as necessary to operate the Service:

  • Stripe — payment processing. Stripe receives your email address and payment details. See stripe.com/privacy.
  • Persona — identity verification. Persona collects your government ID and biometrics directly. We receive only your verification result and a pseudonymous account ID. See withpersona.com/legal/privacy-policy.
  • Google reCAPTCHA v3 — invisible bot detection on signup and contact forms. Google collects behavioral signals from your browser to distinguish humans from bots. See policies.google.com/privacy. By using these forms you are subject to Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
  • Email provider — our SMTP provider delivers transactional emails on our behalf.
  • jsDelivr CDN — delivers Bootstrap CSS/JS and the Hack font from cdn.jsdelivr.net. Your browser connects to jsDelivr when loading these assets. See jsdelivr.com/privacy-policy-jsdelivr-net.

We do not sell your personal information to any third party.

6. Data Retention

  • Account data — retained while your account is active. Deleted upon request (see §8 below).
  • Private messages — destroyed immediately after processing. Not stored.
  • Verification result and persona_account_id — retained for the life of your account to enforce the one-identity rule.
  • Subscription records — retained for as long as legally required for financial record-keeping.
  • Unverified accounts — accounts that have not verified their email address are automatically deleted after 30 days.

7. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights regarding your personal data, including the right to access, correct, or delete it. This includes rights under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at contact@popularpoem.com. We will respond within 30 days. Note that deleting your account will not affect public poem content, which cannot be deconvolved.

8. Account Deletion

You may request deletion of your account and associated personal data at any time by emailing contact@popularpoem.com. Upon deletion we will remove your email, verification status, subscription records, and usage data. Your persona_account_id will be retained in anonymized form solely to enforce the one-identity rule.

9. Children

The Service is not directed to anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from minors. If you believe a minor has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify registered users of material changes by email. Continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Governing Law

This policy is governed by the laws of the State of Kansas, USA.

12. Contact

Questions about this policy? Email us at contact@popularpoem.com.