Privacy policy
Last updated November 10, 2026
This policy explains what the IT Bible community, and the IT Bible sign-in service behind it, collect, why, and the choices you have.
What we collect
- Account details from IT Bible sign-in: your name, username, email address, whether the email is verified, your language, your picture, and your linked Discord account if you have one.
- What you post and do: topics, replies, likes, reactions, bookmarks, flags, poll votes, topic votes, projects, home lab entries, blog posts, private messages, chat messages, drafts, and uploaded images and files, including edit history.
- Usage data: which topics you have read and how far, the days you visited, roughly how long you spend reading, and when you were last online. We use it for new-topic markers, trust levels, badges and the online dot. Hiding your online status hides it from other members, but we still note it. For signed-out visitors we count topic views by IP address.
- Technical data: your IP address and browser details, kept in session records while you are signed in and in server logs for security and troubleshooting.
- Network addresses: the IP addresses you signed in or posted from, with the first and last time we saw each. A small number of administrators can see them, to spot accounts used to get around a ban and to block an address that is being abused. They are deleted 90 days after we last saw you on that address, with your account when you delete it, and are in your data copy. A block on an address holds only the address, not who used it.
- Email lists: if you subscribe to the newsletter, or someone invites you, we keep that address. If an email to you bounces or is reported as spam, we keep the address on a block list so we stop writing to it.
- Staff records: moderators keep a log of moderation actions and may keep private notes about a member. Sanctions and appeals are recorded.
If you had an account on the old IT Bible forum, we created a matching member here from your email address, username, name and post history. It has no password and stays unused until you ask for a sign-in link or a password reset.
How we use it
To run the community, keep it safe, moderate it, work out trust levels and badges, and send the notifications you ask for. We do not sell your personal information.
We also use the topics you have opened, replied to, liked or bookmarked in the last 90 days to suggest other topics to you, on the For you tab of the home page and under related topics. This is worked out on our own servers from your activity here, is shown only to you, is not shared with anyone and is not used for advertising. You can turn it off in Settings, Privacy, and we then stop using your reading for suggestions.
Some email is on by default, such as a summary of activity and reminders if you stop visiting. You can turn each one off in your notification settings.
Who else handles your data
- Email delivery (Resend), including a list of addresses that bounced or complained.
- Cloudflare delivers the site and the sign-in service, and sees visits to both. Cloudflare Turnstile checks sign-in, sign-up, reset and sign-in-link forms, and receives your IP address and browser details.
- Error reporting (Sentry), which can include the page, your member ID and technical details of a failure.
- Browser push notifications, if you turn them on, go through your browser maker's push service (Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft).
- Spam checking (Akismet), when it is turned on: for newer members, the text of a post or chat message goes to Akismet together with your IP address, browser, username and email address.
- AI services (OpenAI or Anthropic). Text is sent to them only for these features:
- Administrators can use AI to draft replies from clearly labeled AI personas, using the text of public topics with author usernames, and blog editors can use writing helpers. Staff read AI posts before they appear.
- When you ask Prompt, the site's mascot, a question, your question goes to the AI service together with passages from this site. Your name is not sent with it.
- When a forum post is translated at a member's request, or a blog post is translated when it goes live, the title and text of that post are sent. The translation is kept and shared with everyone who reads that language.
- When a summary of a long topic is written, the text of some of its posts is sent.
- In Labs, a message you write in a helpdesk training case is sent so a coach can give you feedback on it.
- Blog posts can be shared to our Facebook page and Instagram account when they are published. Only the post's title, summary, featured picture and link are sent, and Meta's own policies apply to what happens there.
- Encrypted backups are stored off site and kept for up to about a year. Blog photos can come from Unsplash.
- Link previews: when you post a link, our server fetches the page to make a preview, and your readers' browsers may load the preview image from that site.
Cookies
We always use necessary cookies to keep you signed in, protect forms against forgery and remember your cookie choice. Optional cookies for preferences, analytics and advertising are used only if you allow them. Analytics, if you allow it, is our own self-hosted Umami, which counts page views without identifying you and is told to respect Do Not Track. Pages that belong to you or to staff (settings, messages, notifications, chat, the editors, newsletters and the admin area) are not counted, and search terms are left out of the address that is counted. Pages in restricted categories are counted by address only. Advertising, if turned on, is a single ad from Carbon Ads shown to signed-out visitors, and the ad provider may set its own cookies. Small settings such as your color theme, keyboard shortcuts, your chat room and links you have chosen to trust are kept in your browser and never sent to us.
You can change your choice at any time: .
Who sees your content
Posts in public categories can be read by anyone, including people who are not signed in, and may be indexed by search engines. They are also available through RSS feeds, sitemaps and a public read-only API. Your public profile shows your bio, location, badges, points and when you were last online (unless you hide it). Posts in restricted categories are visible only to members with access. Private messages are visible to the people in the conversation.
How long we keep it
- Posts, topics and their edit history stay for the life of the community unless a moderator removes them.
- Drafts are removed after 60 days, and a data export after 7 days.
- Chat messages are kept for 90 days by default, and each room can use a different period.
- Backups are kept for up to about a year.
- Moderation records, visit and read records, and notifications are kept until your data is deleted.
Your choices
You can edit your own posts for a limited time after posting (24 hours by default), and delete them within that time unless it is the first post of a topic. After that, ask a moderator. Deleted posts are hidden but kept, with their edit history. In Settings, Privacy you can hide when you are online, stop us suggesting topics from what you read, download a copy of your data, and delete your data. Deleting removes your profile, picture, bookmarks, drafts, likes, follows, settings, notifications, API tokens, newsletter subscription and sessions. Your posts and topics stay, shown as from a deleted account. Messages in conversations with other people stay for them, and chat messages stay until their room clears them. Administrators, blog authors and members under a moderation action ask staff to do this for them. Records we need for safety or legal reasons, such as the moderation log, and older backups may also stay. Your copy includes your posts, messages, chat, activity and points, but not private staff notes.
IT Bible sign-in
Signing in is run by the IT Bible sign-in service, which keeps its own records. It stores your email, username, display name, picture, a password hash if you set one, passkeys, two-step settings, accounts you connect (GitHub, Google or Discord) and the apps you have allowed. Each time you sign in or change your account it records the date, your IP address and your browser, including failed attempts and what was typed, and it remembers browsers you have used so it can email you about a new one. You can see this under Recent activity and Devices and apps in your account. Only you and a small number of administrators can see it, with emails and IP addresses hidden by default and each reveal logged. These records are removed after 12 months, and a remembered browser you have not used for 12 months is forgotten. When you sign in to another app, it receives only what you approve, which can include your name, username, picture, language and email address. Deleting your community account does not delete your sign-in account. To have that removed, ask staff.
Children
The community and IT Bible sign-in are for people 13 and older. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone younger, and we remove an account if we learn its owner is.
Asking us
To correct something, or to ask about your data or your sign-in account, contact the staff through the community.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will update the date above and tell members.