Your words are held to produce and support your map, and for nothing else. They are not sold, not rented, and not used for advertising. We do not train AI models on them. The company whose model runs the conversation has its own terms on that, set out below.
What is collected
what you write to vera
The full transcript of the investigation, exactly as you typed it. This is the material the map is written from, so it is kept rather than discarded at the end of the conversation.
how you responded
The instruments running alongside the conversation record how you answer, not only what you answer: the timing of a response, a hesitation, a sentence rewritten before it was sent. These measurements are taken because they cannot be performed, and they are held with the transcript.
your email address
You give it, with a first name if you like, before the conversation begins, so the findings have somewhere to arrive. It is used to send your findings, your map, a receipt if you buy, and one quiet email if you do not. There is no newsletter, and no sequence of reminders.
Your findings, the free first pages of your Shadow Map, are sent to the address you gave within 10–15 minutes after the conversation ends. After receiving it, you can choose to buy the full Shadow Map for a one-time fee.
where you came from
The page you started the investigation from, the name of the site that sent you there (such as google.com, never the full address, which can hold what you searched for), any campaign labels in the link you followed, and your country. These are kept with your conversation so we can see which pages and sources lead to an investigation, and whether any of them bring people who arrive in distress. They need no cookie, are not sent to Google, and are deleted with your conversation. If you allow measurement and arrived from one of our ads, the ad’s click identifier is kept with them.
a session id
An unguessable identifier that joins your conversation to your report. It is what the private link to your findings is built from. It is not a sequential number, and it expires.
payment details
Handled entirely by Stripe. Your card number never reaches this site and is never held here. What comes back is the fact of a payment and a reference for it.
What it is used for
- To write your map, and the findings that precede it.
- To let the operator check a map before it goes out, or read it when you write about it. When that happens, a person reads your material.
- To deliver both by email, and to answer you if you write about them.
- To honour a refund, which requires holding a record that you paid.
- To keep the service working: errors, delivery failures, and abuse.
- To measure which ads lead to investigation visits, unless you reject it.
Nothing you write is published, quoted, or shown to anyone else without your explicit permission, asked for separately.
Who else touches it
This is a one-person business built on other people’s infrastructure. Each of these processes some part of your material in order to do its job, and nothing beyond it.
- DeepSeekruns the model behind the conversation and writes the report. Its servers are in the People’s Republic of China, so your transcript is processed there. DeepSeek’s own terms do not rule out its using that material to improve its models. See DeepSeek’s privacy policy.
- Supabase is the database and file storage: the session, the transcript, the report.
- Hetzner hosts the private server that runs the report pipeline.
- Vercel serves the pages you are reading.
- Resend sends the email your findings and your map arrive in.
- Stripe takes the payment and processes the refund.
- Google Analytics counts visits and page views unless you reject measurement, and in Europe only once you allow it.
- Google Ads measures ad conversions unless you reject measurement, and in Europe only once you allow it. See Google’s privacy policy.
What never happens
- Your material is never sold or rented, to anyone, at any price.
- Your conversation, answers, and findings are never used to build an advertising profile or sent to Google.
- Beyond the companies named above, it is never handed to anyone, and it is never published with your name on it.
How long it is kept
Your transcript and your map are kept for 1 month unless you ask for them sooner, so that you can come back for your map and so that a refund can be honoured. Payment records are kept for as long as tax law requires, which is a separate obligation and cannot be waived.
You can end this at any point. See your data and deleting it for what to write and what happens when you do.
What you can ask for
- A copy of everything held about you.
- A correction, if something is wrong.
- Deletion, which is honoured and is not argued with.
- That your material stop being processed, which in practice ends the investigation.
- A complaint to your national data protection authority, if the answer you get here does not satisfy you.
The lawful basis is the contract between us for the material needed to produce and deliver your map, and your consent for the email address. Consent can be withdrawn.
Age
The investigation is for adults. It is not built for anyone under eighteen, and it should not be used by them.
Changes to this page
If what is described here changes, the date at the top of this page changes with it. Nothing is quietly rewritten underneath you.
Who to write to
hello@the-shadow-map.com. The controller of this data is The Shadow Map Private LTD, 20 Collyer Quay, #09-01, Singapore 049319.