This is a WIP (work in progress)

Website

Website privacy policy

This privacy policy explains what information the GNOME Foundation (GNOME) collects, why it is collected and how it is used. This privacy policy applies to all GNOME websites and services. These are:

• gnome.org and all third-level subdomains (for example, wiki.gnome.org)
• guadec.org and all third-level subdomains (for example, 2013.guadec.org)

• GNOME mailing lists, which can be found at https://mail.gnome.org/

Information that GNOME collects

GNOME collects information in two ways:

• Information which you submit when you register an account on a GNOME website and use that account or when you use one of the GNOME services such as GNOME mailing lists. For example, if you create a Bugzilla account and file a bug, GNOME will collect the details that you submit when you create the account and the details of the bug that you have filed. You can register accounts for the following websites and services if you fulfil all the criteria to qualify for an account:

  • https://wiki.gnome.org - the GNOME wiki

  • https://bugzilla.gnome.org/ - the GNOME Bugzilla instance

  • https://cloud.gnome.org/ - the GNOME ownCloud instance

  • https://l10n.gnome.org/ - the GNOME translation infrastructure

  • An account for pushing commits to the GNOME git repositories at https://git.gnome.org/

  • https://extensions.gnome.org/ - GNOME Shell extensions

  • https://blogs.gnome.org/ - GNOME Foundation member blogs

  • https://mail.gnome.org/ - the GNOME mailing lists

  There are also some services which you can use without registering an account:

  • https://mail.gnome.org/ - a few of the GNOME mailing lists do not require subscription

  • https://etherpad.gnome.org/ - the GNOME etherpad instance

  • irc.gnome.org - the GNOME IRC channels
• Website browsing statistics, including, but not limited to, your location, the browser that you are using, which web pages you visit, how long you spend visiting each page and so on. GNOME uses Free software to track browsing activity which is hosted on GNOME servers. If you do not want browsing statistics to be collected for your browsing session, Epiphany/Web and many other browsers will allow you to enable a "do not track" setting. GNOME websites respect the "do not track" setting.

How GNOME uses your information

Any information which you submit when registering an account through a GNOME website, when using a registered account or when using a GNOME service will only be used for that account or service, GNOME single sign-on services or to contact you if there is an issue with your account. Note that some of the information which you submit when registering an account may be publicly available. For example, the email address which you use to register a GNOME Bugzilla account will be publicly visible as will any bug that you file using that account.

Website browsing statistics may be published as well, but GNOME will never associate your browsing session with you when publishing statistics.

Your choice

If you do not want GNOME to hold any information about you, then do not register accounts on GNOME websites, do not send emails to the GNOME mailing lists and do not submit any information to any GNOME service.

If you enable the "do not track" option in your web browser, browsing statistics will not be collected as you browse the GNOME websites.

Information that you share

Any information which you submit while registering an account through a GNOME website may be publicly available. This includes your username and email address, but GNOME will not share your password.

Any information that you submit while using the GNOME website or service will be publicly available.

Security

All GNOME websites are available over HTTPS. All information which is submitted to GNOME websites over HTTPS are encrypted using TLS.

When does the website privacy policy apply?

The website privacy policy applies when you browse or use any GNOME websites (which are listed at the start of the policy). This policy does not apply to any other websites or services.

Jurisdiction

The GNOME Foundation is a non-profit organisation which is based in the US and the majority of the GNOME servers are also based in the US. As such, GNOME is bound by US laws concerning privacy and data protection.

Removal of information

Any account which you register through a GNOME website can be deleted at your request. To request an account deletion, email support@gnome.org with details of the account.

All other content which you submit to any GNOME website or service cannot be deleted. The content of GNOME websites is often aggregated in other places on the Internet, so even if it were possible to delete it, it would not be removed from the Internet.

For example, a GNOME Bugzilla account can be deleted, but your comments and attachments on Bugzilla cannot be deleted.

TODO notes

• GNOME uses Free software for webstats (the software being used is Piwik)
  • GNOME does not collect/record IP addresses at webstats.gnome.org in any form
  • All cookies on our tracking system are disabled
• Specify which mailing lists require subscriptions

• Add a note about the membership list at www.gnome.org/foundation/membership, a member can request the MembershipCommittee to not have the name and surname listed there.

• Add more third-level domains (aka subdomains) examples on the first part of the privacy policy, ideally having the top traffic services listed there would help
  • some ideas for good examples needed

• Add the page on wgo/privacy (wgo runs WordPress, so creating a new page and populating it with the content should suffice)

• Might also help users listing a tool they can use to verify our website do not install any cookies (i.e a plugin for either Chrome or Firefox)
• Add opw.gnome.org on the list of services
• Add some more information about the irc.gnome.org network stating that:
  • we don't manage the underlying irc daemon ourself (which is managed by the GIMPNet Operators Team)
  • SSL is not provided on the network and no plans of implementing it are planned (unfortunately)
  • GNOME provides a Services bot (which substitutes network wide services such as Nickserv, Chanserv on a per-channel basis as the GIMPNet network does not come with any of the services listed before itself) which stores an username and a password only the user itself can have access to

Software

Key points:

• GNOME Foundation
  • GNOME does not collect any user data
    • GNOME does not audit any data collection by anyone else
    • TODO: check online account keys
    • Possible to use your own keys
• Online Accounts (application)
  • Facebook
    • Online Accounts retrieves some information from your Facebook account, including username, name, profile picture, email address, friend list, events and posts.
    • Retrieved data is used by the Contacts application to populate your address book, calendar and chat with your contacts.
    • You can allow third party applications to have access to the data which is retrieved from your Facebook account.
  • TODO: expand to more than Facebook
• Distributions may collect some user data
• Third party applications may collect some user data
• Providers of online accounts may track you

Other

Recommendations to distributions?

• Do not collect user data
• Respect user's privacy
• If you do, then you should:
  • make sure you comply with all regional and international laws (in some countries, one needs to comply with the law local to the user)
  • seek legal aid
  • make sure that it is disabled by default
  • make it anonymous
  • make it translatable

Sample privacy policy for distributions? Possibly not needed if we're recommending that user data is not collected.