SiftVeil Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

SiftVeil is a browser extension that gives you more control over the content shown in your social-media feeds. This policy explains what information SiftVeil processes, where that processing happens, why it is needed, and what choices you have.

SiftVeil is designed to keep as much as possible on your device. Feed filtering runs in your browser. Some functionality — signing in, managing a subscription and synchronising preferences for Pro subscribers — necessarily uses server infrastructure, and this policy describes that separately rather than glossing over it.

We do not claim that SiftVeil collects no data. We do aim to be precise about what is collected, where it lives, and why it is needed. Throughout this policy we distinguish between five different things:

• Local browser data — settings and counters kept in your browser (section 2).
• Account data — what is needed to operate a SiftVeil account (section 3).
• Billing data — subscription metadata from our payment processor (section 6).
• Optional synced preferences — settings a Pro subscriber chooses to synchronise (section 7).
• Operational and security logs — technical request metadata recorded by our infrastructure (section 8).

This policy applies to the SiftVeil browser extension, this website at siftveil.com, and the SiftVeil account, entitlement and billing services. It describes SiftVeil 0.4 Beta.

2. Information processed locally

Most of what SiftVeil holds about you never leaves your browser. SiftVeil may store the following in your browser’s extension storage:

• Filtering preferences and the categories you have enabled
• The action chosen for each rule — allow, warn, blur, collapse or remove
• Custom topics, keywords, phrases or rules you create
• Allowed or blocked creators and accounts
• Per-site filtering preferences and temporary pause settings
• Blocked destination domains, if you use that feature
• Local filtering statistics, held as numeric counters
• Local Provenance Beta counters, held as numeric aggregates
• Extension configuration and local diagnostic state
• Temporary interface state, such as a “show once” decision

This information exists to operate the extension and remember your choices. It remains in your browser unless you are a Pro subscriber and have enabled preference sync, which is described in section 7.

SiftVeil is not designed to store a history of the social-media posts or pages you have viewed.

3. Account information

A SiftVeil account is only required for features that need one, such as SiftVeil Pro. Free local filtering does not require you to create an account. If you do create one, SiftVeil processes:

• your email address
• authentication identifiers issued by our authentication provider, such as a user identifier and session tokens
• account status, for example whether the account is active
• subscription and entitlement state, for example whether Pro is active and the period it covers
• preferences you have chosen to synchronise, if you are a Pro subscriber and have enabled sync

Authentication is provided through Supabase infrastructure. SiftVeil does not store your password. Where a password is used, it is handled by the authentication provider under its own credential-storage arrangements; the SiftVeil application does not receive or retain it in readable form.

4. Browser extension data

To decide whether a feed item matches a rule you have written, SiftVeil must inspect page content locally, in the tab you are viewing. On the sites where you have enabled it, this may include visible information associated with a feed item, such as:

• post, video or thread titles
• captions and other visible text
• thumbnails and images
• links
• creator names or handles
• platform-provided labels, including AI disclosures where a platform supplies them
• available provenance information such as Content Credentials

Inspecting this content locally is what makes filtering possible. It does not mean that page content is uploaded to SiftVeil servers. SiftVeil does not transmit social-media feed content to SiftVeil servers for classification.

SiftVeil may also identify the website or tab you are currently viewing so that it can determine whether the site is supported, apply your per-site preferences, show the current site in the extension interface, and enable or disable filtering for that site. SiftVeil does not maintain or transmit a browsing-history log.

What SiftVeil is not designed to collect

SiftVeil is not designed to collect private messages, direct messages, email, chat conversations, form contents or draft posts, and its site adapters are built to avoid messaging and composition interfaces. SiftVeil does not intentionally collect passwords, credentials or session tokens for other services, payment card details, financial information, health information or precise location.

Optional website permissions

Where a feature needs access to a site beyond those SiftVeil supports directly, your browser will ask you to grant permission. SiftVeil does not request optional site access unless the relevant feature requires it, and you can revoke optional permissions at any time in your browser’s extension settings.

5. Content Credentials and Provenance Beta

Provenance Beta can inspect supported media for Content Credentials, an industry standard based on C2PA that is designed to carry information about a media item’s origin and editing history.

• Where supported, these inspections are performed locally on your device.
• SiftVeil keeps local numeric counters about provenance activity — for example how many items were checked and how many fell into each result state. These are aggregates, not a record of which items you saw.
• Provenance checking is best effort and fails open. If a check cannot complete, SiftVeil leaves the item alone rather than guessing, so that normal browsing is not interrupted.
• The absence of Content Credentials is not evidence that content was created by a human. Platforms may remove provenance metadata when media is uploaded or transformed, and a great deal of media never carried credentials at all.
• SiftVeil does not claim to identify every piece of AI-generated content, and is not an AI detector.

Provenance Beta is explained in full here, including every result state and what each one does and does not tell you.

6. Payments

Payments and subscriptions are processed by Stripe. Stripe collects and handles payment details under its own privacy policy and its own responsibilities as a payment processor.

In order to know whether your subscription is active, SiftVeil may receive and store billing metadata such as:

• a Stripe customer identifier
• a subscription identifier
• a plan or price identifier
• subscription status, for example active, past due, or cancelled
• payment event status

SiftVeil does not receive or store full payment card numbers.

7. Preference sync

Preference sync is a Pro feature. If you are a Pro subscriber and sync is enabled, the filtering preferences you have chosen — such as categories, actions, custom topics, rules and creator lists — are stored in SiftVeil’s account database so that they can be restored in your other signed-in browsers.

Synchronised preferences are settings that you created. They are not a record of the content you viewed. Preference sync does not transmit feed content, post text, browsing history or search history.

If you do not use Pro, or you do not enable sync, your preferences stay in your browser.

8. Server and security logs

SiftVeil’s account and entitlement API runs on hosted infrastructure which, like most internet infrastructure, records technical metadata about the requests it receives. Where our infrastructure records them, these operational logs may include:

• the time of a request
• the endpoint that was requested
• the response status
• an IP address
• a user-agent string

These records exist to operate and secure the service — diagnosing faults, investigating abuse, and preventing fraud. They are not used to build advertising profiles and they are not sold.

We do not claim zero logging. Request logging is an ordinary property of the hosting infrastructure SiftVeil relies on, and it would be misleading to say otherwise.

9. Cookies

This marketing website does not set advertising cookies, and does not run third-party analytics or tracking cookies. No consent banner is shown because there is nothing to consent to.

Where you sign in to a SiftVeil account, cookies or equivalent browser storage may be used for the strictly necessary purpose of keeping you signed in and maintaining session security.

If analytics or similar technologies are introduced in future, this policy will be updated before they are enabled and, where the law requires it, consent will be requested first.

10. Third-party processors

SiftVeil uses a small number of service providers to operate accounts, entitlements and billing. They process information on SiftVeil’s behalf in order to provide their service. They are not advertisers, and SiftVeil does not supply them with browsing data for advertising purposes.

• Stripe — Payment processing and subscription billing. See the Stripe privacy policy.
• Supabase — Account authentication and account database infrastructure. See the Supabase privacy policy.
• Railway — Application hosting for SiftVeil’s account and entitlement API. See the Railway privacy policy.

If this list changes materially, this policy will be updated to reflect it.

11. Data retention

Account records may be retained while an account is active, and for reasonable periods afterwards where that is necessary for security, fraud prevention, billing and accounting obligations, dispute resolution, legal obligations and system integrity.

Billing metadata may be retained for the periods required by tax and accounting rules.

Operational and security logs are retained for limited periods appropriate to their purpose, and are subject to the retention behaviour of the infrastructure that records them.

Local extension data remains in your browser until you remove it, reset SiftVeil, or uninstall the extension — subject to your browser’s own behaviour for extension storage.

12. Data sharing

SiftVeil does not sell personal data. SiftVeil does not use your browsing activity to deliver targeted advertising, and does not share browsing activity with advertisers.

Information is shared with the service providers listed in section 10 only to the extent needed to provide the product. Information may also be disclosed where we are legally required to do so, or where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, or to protect the rights and safety of users and the service.

Chrome Web Store Limited Use

SiftVeil’s use of information obtained through Chrome extension permissions is limited to providing and improving SiftVeil’s user-facing feed-filtering functionality. SiftVeil does not use or transfer that information for personalised or unrelated advertising, for determining creditworthiness, for lending purposes, or for any purpose unrelated to SiftVeil’s core functionality. SiftVeil adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

13. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights over the personal data we hold about you. If you are in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, those rights generally include:

• Access — to ask what personal data we hold about you and obtain a copy.
• Correction — to have inaccurate personal data corrected.
• Deletion — to ask us to erase personal data in certain circumstances.
• Restriction — to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
• Objection — to object to processing carried out on the basis of our legitimate interests.
• Portability — where applicable, to receive certain data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.
• Complaint — to lodge a complaint with your data protection authority. In the UK this is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

These rights are not absolute, and the way they apply depends on the law of your country. We do not suggest that identical rights apply everywhere. If you are outside the UK or EEA, we will still consider requests of this kind and will apply whatever rights local law gives you.

To make a request, contact ThreadConfessions@proton.me. We may need to verify your identity before acting, so that we do not disclose an account to the wrong person.

Much of what SiftVeil holds about your filtering is local to your browser. You can delete it yourself at any time by removing individual rules, clearing SiftVeil statistics, using SiftVeil’s reset function, or uninstalling the extension.

14. Children

SiftVeil is not directed at children and is not intended for use by anyone below the minimum age required to consent to online services in their country. SiftVeil does not knowingly create accounts for, or collect personal data from, children below that age.

If you believe a child has provided personal data to SiftVeil, contact ThreadConfessions@proton.me and we will take appropriate steps to remove it.

15. Security

SiftVeil is designed to minimise the information it handles and to keep filtering data local wherever practical — the strongest protection for data is not to collect it.

Account and billing infrastructure is accessed over encrypted connections, authentication is handled by a dedicated provider, and payment card data is handled by Stripe rather than by SiftVeil. The extension packages its executable code with the extension and does not download and execute remote code as part of its filtering functionality.

No online service can guarantee absolute security, and we do not claim to. What we can say is that SiftVeil is built to limit unnecessary collection and transmission of your data.

16. International transfers

SiftVeil’s service providers may process data in countries outside the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area, including the United States.

Where personal data is transferred outside the UK or EEA, we rely on the transfer mechanisms our providers make available — such as standard contractual clauses, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, or an applicable adequacy decision — so that the data continues to receive an appropriate level of protection.

17. Changes to this policy

SiftVeil is an evolving product, and this policy will be updated as it changes. The effective date and last-updated date at the top of this page will be revised whenever we make a change.

Material changes — particularly any involving cloud processing of feed content, new categories of data, analytics, or new external processors — will be reflected here, and where appropriate in the SiftVeil interface, before those features are enabled for users.

18. Contact

For privacy questions, data requests or concerns about how SiftVeil handles information, contact:

• ThreadConfessions@proton.me

For product help, installation problems or subscription questions, the support page is the faster route.