Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 2025

Who We Are

Starquest Evolution is a hobbyist astronomy platform run by Timtek Systems for the benefit of an informal community of amateur astronomers. We are not a commercial business and do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information.

What We Collect

When you create an account we store:

• Your chosen display name and email address (for login and account recovery).
• A hashed version of your password — we never store your password in plain text.
• Observations, journal entries, and mission progress you choose to submit.

We do not collect financial information, location data beyond what you voluntarily include in an observation, or data from third-party trackers.

Cookies

This site uses only strictly necessary cookies that allow the application to function (session authentication and anti-forgery tokens). We do not use analytics, advertising, or social-media tracking cookies.

How We Use Your Data

• To authenticate you and maintain your session.
• To record your observing journal, mission progress, and badges.
• To enable community features such as observation verification and events.

Data Sharing

We do not share your personal data with any third party. Aggregated, anonymised statistics (e.g. “42 observations logged this month”) may be displayed publicly, but these cannot identify any individual.

Data Retention

Your account data is retained for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, all personally identifiable information is removed within 30 days. Anonymised observation records may be retained for community statistics.

Your Rights

You can, at any time:

• Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct — update your profile information through your account settings.
• Delete — request deletion of your account and associated data.
• Export — request a machine-readable export of your observations and journal.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at the email address listed below.

Security

We use industry-standard measures to protect your data, including HTTPS encryption in transit, hashed passwords, and secure session management. However, no system is perfectly secure, and we encourage you to use a strong, unique password.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated via a notice on the site. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page indicates when the policy was last revised.

Contact

If you have questions about this policy or your data, please email privacy@starquest.example.com.