Privacy Policy

Last updated: March 12, 2025

Adapted from the Basecamp open-source policies / CC BY 4.0

The privacy of your data—and it is your data, not ours!—is a big deal to us. In this policy, we lay out: what data we collect and why; how your data is handled; and your rights with respect to your data. We promise we never sell your data: never have, never will.

This policy is split into sections. For your convenience, links to each of those sections is as follows:

• What we collect and why
• When we access or disclose your information
• Your rights with respect to your information
• How we secure your data
• Data retention
• Location of site and data
• Changes and questions

This policy applies to the Tavern virtual tabletop (“VTT”) and Stoza Codes’ management thereof (collectively “Tavern”).

This policy applies to our handling of information about site visitors, prospective customers, and customers and authorized users (in relation to their procurement of the services and management of their relationship with Tavern). We refer collectively to these categories of individuals as “you” throughout this policy.

If you are a California resident, please click here to see our California Notice at Collection, which includes additional disclosures as required by California law.

What we collect and why

Our guiding principle is to collect only what we need. Here’s what that means in practice:

Identity and access

The Tavern VTT currently requires no identifying information.

We provide both a Discord server and a newsletter for communicating with us and learning about new features. Neither of these are required in order to use the Tavern VTT itself. Joining the Discord server allows us to see your Discord user name. Joining the newsletter allows us to see your email address. We will not contact you at either of these without your consent (which is assumed if you have signed up for the newsletter). We may post optional surveys or polls from time to time in the Discord server to help us understand how you use our products and to make improvements, but any data collected will only be used to guide development and improvements to the VTT.

We’ll never sell your personal information to third parties, and we won’t use your name or company in marketing statements without your permission either.

Payment information

Currently, the only way we provide to pay us is to go through the Stoza Codes Ko-Fi page. We do not collect or store any payment or billing information on Tavern servers. Ko-Fi also does not store this information and only facilitates your interaction with Stripe. Once the payment is made via Stripe, we will be able to see your email address along with transaction-specific information on the Stripe dashboard. We will only use this information to resolve payment issues or other issues related to payments, and we will never share or sell this information with third parties.

You may view the Ko-Fi privacy policy here.

You may view the Stripe privacy policy here.

Website interactions

Our servers produce access logs, which include your IP address, browser, and operating system version. We maintain these logs for 14 days (after which time logs are deleted) in order to diagnose problems with the site.

Advertising and Cookies

We do not advertise on any of our sites.

We may use persistent first-party cookies or similar browser local storage (“cookies”) to store certain preferences and make it easier for you to use our applications. We will not use third-party cookies for any purpose.

A cookie is a piece of text stored by your browser. It may help remember login information and site preferences. You may delete cookies at any time, but aspects of our service may not function properly if you turn cookies off.

Voluntary correspondence

When you email Tavern with a question or to ask for help, we keep that correspondence, including your email address, so that we have a history of past correspondence to reference if you reach out in the future.

We also store information you may volunteer, for example, written responses to surveys. If you agree to a customer interview, we may ask for your permission to record the conversation for future reference or use. We will only do so with your express consent.

When we access or disclose your information

To provide products or services you’ve requested. We use some third-party subprocessors to help run our applications and provide the Services to you. You can view the third-party subprocessors we use here.

To help you troubleshoot or squash a software bug, with your permission. If at any point we need to access your content to help you with a support case, we will ask for your consent before proceeding.

To investigate, prevent, or take action regarding restricted uses. Accessing a customer’s account when investigating potential abuse is a measure of last resort. We want to protect the privacy and safety of both our customers and the people reporting issues to us, and we do our best to balance those responsibilities throughout the process. If we discover you are using our products for a restricted purpose, we will take action as necessary, including notifying appropriate authorities where warranted.

Aggregated and de-identified data. We may aggregate and/or de-identify information collected through the services. We may use de-identified or aggregated data for any purpose, including marketing or analytics.

When required under applicable law. Stoza Codes is a U.S. company and all data infrastructure are located in the U.S.

• Requests for user data. Our policy is to not respond to government requests for user data unless we are compelled by legal process or in limited circumstances in the event of an emergency request. However, if U.S. law enforcement authorities have the necessary warrant, criminal subpoena, or court order requiring us to disclose data, we must comply. Likewise, we will only respond to requests from government authorities outside the U.S. if compelled by the U.S. government through procedures outlined in a mutual legal assistance treaty or agreement. It is our policy to notify affected users before we disclose data unless we are legally prohibited from doing so, and except in some emergency cases.

• Preservation requests. Similarly, our policy is to comply with requests to preserve data only if compelled by the U.S. Federal Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 2703(f), or by a properly served U.S. subpoena for civil matters. We do not disclose preserved data unless required by law or compelled by a court order that we choose not to appeal. Furthermore, unless we receive a proper warrant, court order, or subpoena before the required preservation period expires, we will destroy any preserved copies of customer data at the end of the preservation period.

• If we are audited by a tax authority, we may be required to disclose billing-related information. If that happens, we will disclose only the minimum needed, such as billing addresses and tax exemption information.

Finally, if Tavern is acquired by or merges with another company — we don’t plan on that, but if it happens — we’ll notify you well before any of your personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Your rights with respect to your information

At Tavern, we strive to apply the same data rights to all customers, regardless of their location. Some of these rights include:

• Right to Know. You have the right to know what personal information is collected, used, shared or sold. We outline both the categories and specific bits of data we collect, as well as how they are used, in this privacy policy.
• Right of Access. This includes your right to access the personal information we gather about you, and your right to obtain information about the sharing, storage, security and processing of that information.
• Right to Correction. You have the right to request correction of your personal information.
• Right to Erasure / “To Be Forgotten”. This is your right to request, subject to certain limitations under applicable law, that your personal information be erased from our possession and, by extension, from all of our service providers. Fulfillment of some data deletion requests may prevent you from using Tavern because our applications may then no longer work.
• Right to Complain. You have the right to make a complaint regarding our handling of your personal information with the appropriate supervisory authority.
• Right to Restrict Processing. This is your right to request restriction of how and why your personal information is used or processed, including opting out of sale of your personal information. (Again: we never have and never will sell your personal data.)
• Right to Object. You have the right, in certain situations, to object to how or why your personal information is processed.
• Right to Portability. You have the right to receive the personal information we have about you and the right to transmit it to another party.
• Right to not Be Subject to Automated Decision-Making. You have the right to object to and prevent any decision that could have a legal or similarly significant effect on you from being made solely based on automated processes. This right is limited if the decision is necessary for performance of any contract between you and us, is allowed by applicable law, or is based on your explicit consent.
• Right to Non-Discrimination. We do not and will not charge you a different amount to use our products, offer you different discounts, or give you a lower level of customer service because you have exercised your data privacy rights. However, the exercise of certain rights may, by virtue of your exercising those rights, prevent you from using our Services.

In some cases, we also need to take reasonable steps to verify your identity before responding to a request, which may include, at a minimum, depending on the sensitivity of the information you are requesting and the type of request you are making, verifying your name and email address. If we are unable to verify you, we may be unable to respond to your requests. If you have questions about exercising these rights or need assistance, please contact us at privacy@tavern.works. If an authorized agent is corresponding on your behalf, we will need written consent with a signature from the account holder before proceeding.

Depending on applicable law, you may have the right to appeal our decision to deny your request, if applicable. We will provide information about how to exercise that right in our response denying the request. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. If you are in the EU or UK, you can contact your data protection authority to file a complaint or learn more about local privacy laws.

How we secure your data

All data is encrypted via SSL/TLS when transmitted from our servers to your browser.

Data retention

We keep your information for the time necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. The length of time for which we retain information depends on the purposes for which we collected and use it and your choices, after which time we may delete and/or aggregate it. We may also retain and use this information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Through this policy, we have provided specific retention periods for certain types of information.

Location of site and data

Our products and other web properties are operated in the United States. If you are located in the European Union, UK, or elsewhere outside of the United States, please be aware that any information you provide to us will be transferred to and stored in the United States. By using our websites or Services and/or providing us with your personal information, you consent to this transfer.

Changes and questions

We may update this policy as needed to comply with relevant regulations and reflect any new practices. You can view a history of the changes to our policies on GitHub. Whenever we make a significant change to our policies, we will refresh the date at the top of this page and take any other appropriate steps to notify users.

Have any questions, comments, or concerns about this privacy policy, your data, or your rights with respect to your information? Please get in touch by emailing us at privacy@tavern.works and we’ll be happy to try to answer them!