Privacy policy

Who we are

Ghost Map is operated from Illinois, United States. For privacy questions write to legal@ghostmap.us. If you are in the EEA, UK, or Canada, that address is also the contact for access and deletion requests.

What we collect

Account. Sign-in currently uses Google or X (Twitter). We receive the identifier, display name, and email those services share with us. We do not see your password at those providers.

Membership desk. Name you put on cases, whether you are an individual or a team, bio, roster, service area, website, optional public email and phone, whether you accept inquiries, and the city / region pin for your desk.

Cases. Site name, city, region, country, coordinates, investigation sheet fields, still photographs you upload, short audio clips you upload (up to five per case, ninety seconds, stored as MP3), links you provide to longer audio, video, and PDFs, visibility (public, unlisted, private), and the date you filed.

WHISPERS. If you post, we store the text, the name on your desk, the time, the topic, and the account it came from. Anyone can read a post. Do not put a phone number, email, address, social handle, a client’s name, or a private street address in one.

Inquiries. If someone writes a team through Ghost Map, we store the sender name, contact they give, the message, and which desk it went to. That record is for the member. We may also keep it to deal with abuse.

Technical. Session cookies needed to keep you signed in. Basic server logs (time, path, coarse network address) to run and protect the site. We do not sell lists of visitors. Banner ads on Ghost Map are slots we operate. We do not run a third-party advertising pixel. If you follow an ad or another outside link, that site’s policy applies.

How we use it

To operate the map, the docket, and WHISPERS. To show public cases and public desks. To let a member manage their own filings and inquiry inbox. To take membership payment (when billing is live, through Stripe). To prevent spam, impersonation, and illegal use. To answer a lawful request.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not rent investigator or client lists.

What is public

If you file a case as public, the pin, stills, sheet, and your team name are visible to anyone with the site. Unlisted cases are visible to anyone with the link. Private cases are limited to your account.

Your contact page is public if you list the desk. Email and phone appear only if you turn that display on. Inquiries are not published on the map.

A WHISPERS post, and the desk name on it, is public. The account behind it is not published as an email address.

Private residences: the public map shows a city-level coordinate, not the point you dropped. Exact coordinates remain in our database so the case stays attached to the right site for members who file later. That is still location data. Do not put a street address in a field that you mark public.

Who we share with

Stripe, when you pay, for the charge and the receipt. The sign-in providers you choose (Google or X). Hosting and database providers that run Ghost Map. An investigator, when you send them an inquiry. A court or agency if the law requires it. We will not hand a private residence coordinate to the public map.

Audio, video, and PDF hosts are yours. When a visitor follows your link, that host’s privacy policy applies.

Retention

Filed cases are part of the Ghost Map database. Public and unlisted filings are kept as a permanent docket record. You may ask us to hide a public case from the map or to close an account; hiding is not erasure. We keep what we need to run the registry, to honor pins other members have filed onto the same site, and to stand behind the license in the Terms of use (use on the site and to promote Ghost Map). WHISPERS posts may be kept. We may remove one that breaks the board rules. Removal is not a promise the words are gone from every place they were already seen. Private cases stay with the filing account and are not used in promotion. Write legal@ghostmap.us; we will need enough information to find the record and to know it is you.

Photographs and short audio clips live in our database so the case can render. Ghost Map is not an archival vault. Keep original files.

Your choices

You can edit your desk, change visibility on a case you filed, and turn public contact off. You can ask us to hide a case or close an account at legal@ghostmap.us. We will need enough information to find the record and to know it is you.

If you are a California resident, you may request a copy of the personal information we have, ask us to delete it subject to legal exceptions, and ask us not to sell it (we do not sell it). If you are in the EEA, UK, or Canada, you may also object to or restrict certain processing and ask for a portable copy of account data we hold.

Children

Ghost Map is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. Do not upload images of minors.

Changes

If we change this policy in a material way, we will post the new text here with a new effective date. Continued use after that date is acceptance.