Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 2026

This policy covers buildinpublic.com and any related services we operate.

What we collect

When you sign in with X, we receive and store:

Your email address
Your X profile (user ID, username, display name, avatar, bio)
OAuth credentials that let us identify you on return visits
The username of whoever referred you to the site, if any

If you connect GitHub, we store your GitHub user ID, username, display name, avatar, and the organizations you belong to, plus encrypted tokens with read-only access to your organization memberships, which we use to check that the repositories you add are still yours. Disconnecting GitHub deletes all of it.

Verifying your identity is optional. If you do, our verification provider Didit collects a photo of your government ID and a selfie, and checks that the ID is genuine and that the selfie matches it. We receive the result, and read the ID's number once to store a keyed hash of it, which stops the same ID from verifying a second account. We also read the name on your ID to check that your profile name matches it, when the check passes and again whenever you change your profile name, and keep only whether it matches. We don't store your name from the ID, document number, date of birth or photos. Didit checks them automatically and stores them on our behalf, in the EU, to prevent fraud. When you delete your account, we ask Didit to delete them. Didit also follows its own privacy notice.

The selfie check compares your face with the photo on your ID, which is biometric processing. Didit does it on our behalf, only after you explicitly agree to it, to prevent fraud and duplicate accounts.

We also automatically log:

Your IP address and user agent when you sign in
Basic request logs for debugging and abuse prevention

How we use it

To email you when the community launches and for occasional product updates
To display your avatar in the public signup grid on the homepage
To credit referrals
To show a verified badge on your profile and offer some deals only to verified members, if you verify your identity
To detect and prevent spam, abuse, and fraud
To operate and improve the site

Who we share it with

We don't sell your information. We share it only with the service providers we need to run the site:

X — for authentication and profile data
GitHub — to verify repositories you add as projects, only if you connect it
DigitalOcean — hosting
Cloudflare — CDN and R2 storage for avatar images
ImageKit — image optimization
Bugsnag — error monitoring
Stripe — payment processing, only if you become a sponsor or pay the verification fee
Didit — identity verification, only if you verify
Law enforcement when we're legally required to

What's public

Your avatar and X username appear in the public signup grid on the homepage. Your email address and any other profile data are not public.

If you're verified, your profile shows a badge with the month you verified. How you were verified, and anything from your ID, is not public.

Your rights

Request a copy of the data we hold on you
Request deletion of your account and associated data
Unsubscribe from emails at any time via the link in every email
Revoke our access to your X account from X's connected apps settings

To delete your account, do it in the app while signed in. For anything else, email us.

Retention

We keep your account data for as long as it's active. Delete your account and we'll remove your personal data within 30 days, except where we're legally required to retain some records (e.g. payment records).

Cookies

We use a single session cookie to keep you signed in. We don't use third-party advertising or tracking cookies.

Security

We take reasonable steps to protect your data, including HTTPS across the site, encrypted credentials, and least-privilege access controls. No online service can be 100% secure; you use the site at your own risk.

Children

buildinpublic is not intended for anyone under 13. We don't knowingly collect data from children under 13.

Changes

We may update this policy. If we do, we'll post the new version here and update the "Last updated" date at the top.

Contact

Questions? Email [email protected].