Privacy Policy | The Human, Mined

The short version

No advertising, no tracking cookies, and your information is never sold or shared for advertising.
You can read everything here without giving any personal information.
If you write in, subscribe, or vote in a poll, only what is needed for that is kept, with the services named below.
You can ask to see, correct, or delete what is held about you at any time.

Who is responsible

The Human, Mined ("the publication", "we") is an independent essay publication at thehumanmined.com and is responsible for the personal data described here. Questions and requests: use the contact form or write to letters@thehumanmined.com.

What is collected, and why

If you use the contact form

Your name, email address, and message are sent to the publication's mailbox so the message can be read and answered, and you receive one automatic confirmation email. The mailbox and the sending are provided by Resend, an email service. Messages are kept only as long as needed to handle the conversation and are deleted on request. Please do not send anything sensitive, such as health, financial, or government ID information.

If you subscribe

The newsletter is run by Substack. The signup form sends you to Substack with your email address filled in, and Substack's own privacy policy covers your subscription there. A copy of your email address is also kept on the publication's own subscriber list, stored with Resend, so the list is not held in one place only and so newsletter emails you signed up for can still reach you if Substack is ever unavailable. New subscribers get one welcome email from this list, with a link to leave it. It is used for nothing else. It stays until you unsubscribe or ask for it to be removed.

If you vote in a poll

Your answer is added to that poll's totals. To allow one answer per reader, a one-way scrambled code (a hash) is made from your IP address and the poll's name, and stored with your answer. The IP address itself is not stored and cannot practically be read back from the code. The code is kept for as long as the poll exists.

When you visit any page

The site is hosted and protected by Cloudflare. Like every web host, Cloudflare processes technical information such as your IP address, browser type, and the pages requested, to deliver the site, keep it secure, and block abuse (including short-term limits on how often a form can be sent). Cloudflare may set a strictly necessary security cookie for this. The contact form also uses Cloudflare Turnstile to check that a person, not a bot, is sending a message; it does not use tracking cookies.

The site may use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits. It is cookieless, collects no personal profile, and does not follow you to other sites.

Saved only in your own browser

Some conveniences are remembered in your browser's local storage and are never sent to the site: your light or dark mode choice, where you stopped reading an essay, your audio speed, which poll answer you picked, and anything you type into "Questions to sit with". Clearing your browser's site data removes them.

Cookies

The site sets no advertising, analytics, or tracking cookies. The only cookies that may appear are strictly necessary security cookies set by Cloudflare. Because nothing is used to track you, there is nothing to opt out of; the site honours Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals by default.

Who processes the data

Cloudflare: hosting, security, spam protection (Turnstile), rate limiting, and poll storage. Privacy policy.
Resend: the contact mailbox, the confirmation email, and the copy of the subscriber list. Privacy policy.
Substack: newsletter subscriptions, comments, and the original essays. Privacy policy.

These providers handle data on the publication's behalf and under their own security commitments. Personal data is never sold, rented, or shared with advertisers or data brokers.

Legal bases

Where laws such as the GDPR apply: newsletter data is handled with your consent (you can withdraw it at any time); contact messages are handled to respond to your request; poll answers, security logs, and rate limits rest on the publication's legitimate interest in running a secure, fair site.

How long it is kept

Contact messages: as long as needed for the conversation, then deleted on request or during routine clean-up.
Subscriber copy: until you unsubscribe or ask for removal.
Poll codes and answers: for as long as the poll exists.
Hosting and security logs: for the short periods set by Cloudflare.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask to see the personal data held about you, to correct it, to delete it, to get a copy, to object to its use, or to withdraw consent. Residents of California and other US states with privacy laws have these rights too; the publication does not sell or share personal information as those laws define it, and will not treat you differently for using your rights.

To make a request, use the contact form or write to letters@thehumanmined.com. You may be asked to confirm the request from the email address in question. Requests are answered within 30 days. If you are in the EU, UK, or a similar jurisdiction, you may also complain to your local data protection authority.

International transfers

The providers above may process data in the United States and other countries. Where the law requires it, they rely on recognised safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses.

Children

The site is not directed at children under 16, and no one under 16 should submit personal information. If a child's information has been sent, get in touch and it will be deleted.

Security

Connections are encrypted (HTTPS), keys and passwords are kept out of the site's code, forms are protected against spam and abuse, and only the minimum data is collected. No method of storage or transmission is perfectly secure, so absolute security cannot be guaranteed.

Changes

This policy is updated when the site changes how it handles data. The date at the top shows the latest version. Significant changes will be noted on this page.