Privacy Notice

1. Who we are

Data controller for BridgeVoices content:
EuroLinks Association — Balıkesir, Türkiye
Email: eurolinks@eurolinks.org
OID: E10344398 · PIC: 874083200

BridgeVoices is Output #2 of Future Bridge — Empowering NEET Youth for Lifelong Skills and Social Inclusion, an Erasmus+ Youth Participation Activities project (KA154-YOU, project reference 2025-2-SK02-KA154-YOU-000366666) coordinated by ZIPCeM (Slovakia). Legal representative: Harun İkiz (Association President).

2. The short version

• This website itself stores no personal data on your device — no cookies set by us, no analytics trackers, no advertising pixels.
• When you fill in a form (Share your story · Contact · Newsletter), your submission is written to a secure Cloud Firestore collection at Google.
• Every story is published only after signed, informed consent from the storyteller (and their guardian, if under 18).
• You can withdraw at any time by emailing us — the story, images and any database records will be removed.

3. What data we collect, when

3.1 Story submissions (voluntary)

When you use the Share your story form, we collect:

• Display name (may be first name, initials or a pseudonym — your choice)
• Email address (so we can co-write the story with you)
• Age, country and city — optional
• Preferred format (written, video, reel, unsure)
• Your story text (as you write it)
• Consent flags (contact consent — required; publication consent — optional at this stage)

Written to Firestore collection bridgevoices_story_submissions. Read only by admins (EuroLinks team, via Firebase console).

3.2 Contact / reuse / partnership

When you use the Contact or reuse request forms: name, email, optional organisation, topic and message. Written to bridgevoices_contact_messages.

3.3 Newsletter (opt-in)

Email address + your role (youth / youth worker / educator / …) + consent flag. Written to bridgevoices_newsletter.

3.4 Anonymous engagement events

When a form is submitted, a booklet download starts, or a video is played, a small event is written to bridgevoices_impact_events — event name only (e.g. story_submission_received), no personal identifiers. Used for impact reporting.

3.5 Automatic technical fingerprint

Every submission carries a small source object with:

• Page path you were on (e.g. /get-involved.html)
• Referrer, if your browser sent one
• Language preference reported by your browser
• Server-side timestamp (createdAt)

No IP address is stored by us. No third-party analytics.

4. Where your data lives

All form submissions are written to Google Cloud Firestore, database instance genelveritabani (default), hosted by Google Cloud in the EU region. Access is controlled by Firestore Security Rules — the public may only create documents in bridgevoices_* collections; reading, updating and deleting is restricted to admin accounts (harunikiz@gmail.com, harunikiz@eurolinks.org, eurolinks@eurolinks.org).

Published story text and portrait images (once approved) are hosted on the same static site infrastructure that serves this page.

5. Consent basis (Erasmus+ KA154 rules)

The BridgeVoices output is bound by the KA154-YOU consent requirements:

• No story is published without signed consent from the storyteller covering: text, image/video, display name and publication on the platform and social channels. Every entry in stories.json carries a consent.obtained: true flag; entries without it are hidden by the front-end.
• Under 18: parental or guardian consent is additionally required. In practice the project targets ages 18–29, so this is a safeguard rather than routine.
• Display name control: first-name-only, initials or a pseudonym are always available. Portrait photos require a separate opt-in.
• Co-editing: every story is edited with the young person; the final version is approved by them before publication.

6. Third-party services on this page

We rely on the smallest set of external services that still lets the site work:

• Google Cloud Firestore — form submissions (see §4).
• YouTube (privacy-enhanced mode, youtube-nocookie.com) — video embeds. No YouTube cookies are set until you press play. Videos are captioned; playing them means you accept YouTube's own terms.
• Google Fonts — Inter, Poppins, Source Serif 4. Fonts are loaded from Google servers. In a future release these may be self-hosted to eliminate this dependency entirely.

No advertising networks, social pixels, or session-replay tools are loaded on this site.

7. How long we keep your data

• Story submissions and contact messages: kept for the duration of the project (until 31 December 2026) plus two years for Erasmus+ reporting and audit purposes (through 2028), then anonymised or deleted.
• Published stories: kept openly online as long as the platform is maintained (mid-term commitment: at least three years post-project, per KA154 sustainability requirements). You can request removal at any time.
• Newsletter subscribers: kept until you unsubscribe.
• Impact events: kept as long as they inform impact reporting; anonymised by design.

8. Your rights (GDPR / KVKK)

You have the right to:

• Access — ask what data we hold about you
• Rectification — correct anything inaccurate
• Erasure ("right to be forgotten") — have your submission and any published content removed
• Withdraw consent — at any time, without giving a reason
• Object to processing you disagree with
• Complain to a supervisory authority (in Türkiye: Kişisel Verileri Koruma Kurumu — KVKK; in the EU: your national Data Protection Authority)

To exercise any of these rights or request a takedown: email eurolinks@eurolinks.org with subject "BridgeVoices — Data request". We respond within 30 days (usually within one week).

9. Children and minors

The Future Bridge project targets young people aged 18–29. Where a participant is under 18 (safeguard cases), we require guardian consent and use first-name-only or pseudonym display by default. Portrait images of minors are avoided unless separately opted-in by the guardian.

10. Cookies

This site sets no cookies from its own domain. YouTube embeds (once you click play) may set cookies under youtube-nocookie.com's reduced-tracking mode. Google Fonts does not set cookies.

11. Changes to this notice

Material changes to how we handle personal data will be reflected here with a bumped version number and date. For substantial changes affecting existing storytellers, we will contact them individually before the change takes effect.

12. Contact

Questions, corrections, takedowns, or supervisory complaints:

EuroLinks Association
Balıkesir, Türkiye
eurolinks@eurolinks.org