Privacy

Who is responsible

Stefan Geier, Italy
Email: geier.stefan03 [at] gmail.com

This website

The site is a set of static files served from Amazon Web Services (S3 and CloudFront). When you open a page, AWS processes your IP address, the time, the page requested and your browser's user agent in order to deliver it. Access logging is switched off, so no record of your visit is kept.

The site sets no cookies and uses no analytics or advertising. Fonts and all other files are served from this site itself; nothing is loaded from third parties.

If you use the light and dark switch, your choice is saved in your browser's local storage so the page opens the same way next time. It never leaves your device.

Legal basis: Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR — our legitimate interest in providing a working website.

The Vela app

To use the app you create an account. We then process:

• Account data — your email address, the display name and avatar colour you choose, and a password or, if you sign in with Google, the profile details Google passes on (name and email address).
• What you save — the images, videos and page addresses you add, with the titles, descriptions, tags, sources and collections you give them.
• Team membership — if you join a team board, your name, email address and role are visible to that board's other members.
• Technical data — IP address and request metadata, processed by the services below to deliver the app and keep it secure.

An email address is needed to create an account; without one, the app cannot be used. Nothing about you is decided automatically, and no profile of you is built.

When you save a page by its address, our server fetches that page once to read its title, description and preview image.

You can connect an AI assistant to your account. Vela's connection is built for Claude, by Anthropic, and works with any assistant that supports the same standard (the Model Context Protocol). If you connect one, it can read the boards you can read — their items, labels and images — and what it reads is processed by its provider under that provider's own terms and privacy policy. It cannot change anything, a team's admins can close their board to assistants, and you can end the connection at any time in your account settings.

The app keeps a few settings in your browser's local storage (the last board you opened, which rail sections are folded, uploads in progress) and keeps you signed in through your browser's storage. They stay on your device, and none of them is used to track you.

Legal basis: Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR — performing the service you signed up for.

Who processes it for us

• Google (Firebase) — sign-in, the database, file storage and server functions, provided by Google Ireland Limited (Dublin, Ireland) and Google LLC (USA). The database is stored in the EU; sign-in and some server functions are processed in the USA. Transfers to the USA rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, under which Google LLC is certified, and on the standard contractual clauses in Google's data processing terms.
• Amazon Web Services — hosting of this website and of the app's program files (not what you save, which is stored with Google), provided by Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL (Luxembourg). The files are stored in Frankfurt and delivered through Amazon's worldwide network, under AWS's data processing addendum, which includes the standard contractual clauses.

We do not sell your data or share it with anyone else.

How long we keep it

Your account and what you saved are kept until you delete them. Deleting your account in the app removes your personal board, its files, your memberships and your profile. Items you added to a team board stay with that team, shown as added by a former member. Uploads that were started and never finished are removed automatically within about a day.

There are no backups: once something is deleted, it cannot be restored.

Your rights

You may ask for access to your data, its correction or deletion, restriction of its processing, and a copy in a portable format, and you may object to processing based on legitimate interests. Write to geier.stefan03 [at] gmail.com. You may also complain to a data protection authority — in Italy, the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, or the authority where you live or work.