Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 9, 2026

Polaris Global News (“we,” “us,” or “our”) respects your privacy and is committed to collecting only the information we genuinely need to deliver our journalism, sign you in, and improve the news we recommend. This Privacy Policy explains what we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights you have over it.

1. Who we are

The data controller for personal information collected through polarisglobalnews.com is Polaris Global News. You can reach us at polarisworldnews@gmail.com.

2. What we collect

Information you give us

• Account details — when you sign up, your name, email address, and a one-way hashed password. If you sign in with Google, we also receive a Google account ID and your display name and avatar URL from Google.
• Newsletter subscriptions — your email address and the lists you subscribed to.
• Submissions — tips, comments, photos, videos, or other content you send us, plus any context you provide.
• Correspondence — the content of emails and messages you send to our editors, support team, or social accounts.

Information collected automatically

• Device and browser data — your IP address (stored only as a salted SHA-256 hash, never as the raw address), user-agent string, accept-language, screen size, and referring page.
• Location — coarse country and city derived from your IP address, used to show region-relevant news and to detect fraud.
• Usage data (consent required) — if you accept the cookie banner, we record which articles you click, how long you spend on each, and the start and end of your sessions. We use this to personalize your homepage and to understand which stories resonate.
• Login events — successful and failed sign-in attempts, used for account-security throttling.
• Anonymized device fingerprint — a SHA-256 hash of your User-Agent, Accept-Language, and screen size. We use it to de-duplicate views across sessions without storing identifying data.

What we do not collect

• We do not sell your personal data.
• We do not run third-party advertising trackers (no Google Analytics, no Meta Pixel).
• We do not store raw IP addresses.
• We do not collect special-category data (race, religion, health, sexual orientation) unless you knowingly submit it to us as part of a tip or comment.

3. Why we use it (legal bases)

4. Cookies and similar technologies

We use a small number of first-party cookies. The full list and how to manage them is on our Cookies Settings page. In summary:

• Essential cookies — sign-in session, CSRF protection, and your theme preference. These are always on; without them the Site does not function.
• Analytics + personalization cookies — opt-in. Disabled until you accept the banner. You can change your choice at any time on the Cookies Settings page.

5. Who we share with

We share personal information only with parties who help us run the Site, and only to the minimum extent needed:

• Hosting and infrastructure — our VPS provider, who hosts the Site and stores its database.
• Sign-in providers — Google, when you choose to sign in with Google.
• Email delivery — the service we use to send newsletters and transactional emails (e.g. password-reset).
• Error monitoring — an error-tracking service used to detect crashes and fix bugs (no commercial profiling).

We never sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We may disclose it if required by valid legal process (subpoena, court order) and where lawful, will notify you so you can object.

6. International transfers

The Site is operated from the United States. If you visit from outside the U.S., your data is transferred to and processed in the U.S. We rely on Standard Contractual Clauses or your explicit consent (as applicable) for transfers from the EEA, UK, or Switzerland.

7. How long we keep data

8. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have any or all of the following rights. We honor all of them globally regardless of your jurisdiction:

• Access — download a copy of your activity via your account dashboard (the “Download” button).
• Correction — update your name or email from your account dashboard.
• Deletion — email polarisworldnews@gmail.com from the address on your account. We respond within 30 days.
• Withdraw consent — on the Cookies Settings page, click “Decline analytics.” Tracking stops immediately.
• Object / restrict — tell us if you don’t want us to process your data for a specific reason.
• Portability — receive your activity in JSON or CSV via the same Download button above.
• Lodge a complaint — with your local data protection authority. We’d appreciate the chance to address concerns first — please email us.

9. California (CCPA / CPRA)

California residents have the rights described in Section 8 plus the right to know what categories of personal information we collected in the past 12 months (see Section 2), the categories of sources, the business purpose, and the categories of third parties we shared with (Section 5). We do not “sell” or “share” personal information as those terms are defined under the CCPA / CPRA.

10. Children

The Site is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Security

We protect your data with industry-standard measures: TLS 1.3 in transit, encryption at rest, hashed passwords (bcrypt), strict server-side access controls, rate limiting, and a Content Security Policy that blocks third-party trackers. No system is perfectly secure; we cannot guarantee that unauthorized parties will never access your data, but we work hard to make it unlikely and we will notify you if a breach occurs that affects you.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our practices change or as the law requires. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date above. Material changes will be announced on the Site and emailed to account holders.

13. Contact

To exercise any of your rights, ask a question, or raise a concern, email polarisworldnews@gmail.com.