Privacy

Last updated: 19 October 2026

BirchCamp is built to know as little about you as possible. This page lists, item by item, what the site handles, why, and for how long. Where we say “we” or “the BirchCamp team”, we mean the people who run this site.

The short version

• Reading needs no account and sets no cookies.
• There are no ads, no analytics, no tracking pixels and no third-party scripts.
• A reply stores the name you type and the text you write, nothing else.
• Contact messages are deleted automatically after 90 days.

When you read

Like almost every web server, ours keeps standard access logs: your IP address, the page you asked for, your browser’s user agent and the time. We use these logs only to keep the site secure and running. They are rotated and deleted after about two weeks.

Readers receive no cookies. The site does not run analytics, advertising or tracking code of any kind.

When you reply to a post

A reply stores the name you enter and the text of your reply. We do not ask for an email address. Your reply is held for review, and it appears publicly next to the post only after a moderator approves it. Replies that are never approved are deleted automatically after 30 days. Approved replies stay with the post until the post is removed or you ask us to remove the reply.

When you use the contact form

The contact form collects your name, your email address, the topic you choose and your message. We use them only to read and answer your message and to handle what you asked for. Contact messages are deleted automatically after 90 days.

Spam protection

When you send a reply or a contact message, the site uses your IP address briefly, in memory, to limit how many messages can be sent in a short time. The address is not written to the site’s database.

Cookies

There is exactly one cookie on BirchCamp: a session cookie for the site’s administrators when they sign in to moderate. Readers and people who reply never receive it.

Other services your browser talks to

• Google Fonts (fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com) serves the typeface the site uses.
• Unsplash (images.unsplash.com) serves some of the photographs on the site’s own pages, such as the home page.

When your browser fetches those files, the provider receives your IP address and browser information, as with any web request. Images inside writers’ posts are hosted on BirchCamp itself. The site is served over HTTPS with certificates from Let’s Encrypt.

Writers

Writers publish under an invitation. What a writer puts on their profile, such as name, portrait, bio, website and location, is public by design. Writers can ask for any post, or their whole blog, to be removed.

Your requests

You can ask to see, correct or delete what we hold about you, for example a reply you posted or a message you sent. Use the contact page and choose Privacy request. Tell us enough to find it, such as the post and the name you used. We may ask a question to make sure the request is yours.

Changes to this page

If what we collect or how we use it changes, we will update this page and the date at the top.