Privacy & Cookie Policy

1. Introduction

Welcome to Riters Club ("we", "our", or "us"). We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you, in compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).

2. The Data We Collect About You

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data: Includes your chosen public author name ("pseudonym").
• Content Data: Any contributions, books, chapters, branches, or artwork you submit to the platform.
• Technical Data: Includes internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform.
• Transaction Data: If you use the Chapter Intervention feature, payment processing is handled entirely by our third-party provider (Stripe). We do not store your financial details.

3. How We Use Your Data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• Performance of a Contract: Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you (e.g., maintaining your author profile and contributions).
• Legitimate Interests: Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) to keep our platform secure, prevent abuse, and ensure the integrity of the collective narrative.

4. Cookie Policy (Essential Cookies Only)

We believe in privacy by design. Riters Club does not use invasive third-party marketing, tracking, or advertising cookies.

We use only Strictly Necessary Cookies (and local storage). These are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, secure authentication tokens that enable you to log into secure areas of our website (maintaining your author session).

Because these cookies are strictly necessary for the platform to function and provide the service you requested, they do not require prior consent under the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) or the EU ePrivacy Directive. This is why you will not see a disruptive cookie consent banner on our platform.

5. Data Retention & Immutable Content

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for.

Important note regarding literary contributions: By submitting a contribution to Riters Club, it becomes part of a collective, immutable narrative ("Canon"). While you reserve the right to delete your author account and pseudonym, the literary contributions themselves may be retained anonymously in perpetuity to preserve the structural integrity of the stories written by the community.

6. Your Legal Rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data, including the right to:

• Request access to your personal data.
• Request correction of your personal data.
• Request erasure of your personal data (subject to the immutable content terms above).
• Object to processing of your personal data.
• Request restriction of processing your personal data.