Privacy Policy

Who we are

NPolls is a public polling and discussion site operated from npolls.com. In data-protection terms we are the controller of the information described here: we decide what is collected and what happens to it.

For anything in this policy, write to privacy@npolls.com or use the contact form.

What we hold, and why

This is the complete list. If something is not in this table, we do not store it.

Our lawful bases, in GDPR terms: contract for running the account you asked for, consent for the newsletter (withdrawable at any time), and legitimate interests for the anti-abuse and rate-limiting records — a public voting site that cannot resist manipulation has nothing to offer anyone.

If you never sign up

You can vote without an account, and most people do. When you vote as a guest we store the poll, the option you picked, a random token kept in a cookie on your device, and — for a short period — your IP address and browser string.

Those last two exist for exactly one reason: to make ballot-stuffing harder. They are not linked to a name, an email address or an account, they are not used to profile you, and the short-lived duplicate-vote records are deleted automatically once they expire.

Cookies and local storage

We use three pieces of client-side storage, and none of them are for advertising:

• WPP_SESSID — the session cookie that keeps you signed in. Strictly necessary; the site cannot work without it. It is HTTP-only, so scripts cannot read it.
• guest_id — a random token so a guest cannot vote twice on the same poll. It identifies a browser, not a person.
• npolls-theme — kept in your browser's local storage, and remembers whether you chose the light or dark theme. It never leaves your device.
• _ga and _ga_* — set by Google Analytics to tell one visit from another and to recognise a returning browser. These are analytics cookies, not advertising ones: they are not used to build a profile of you or to target adverts, here or anywhere else.

We set no advertising or profiling cookies. Clearing your browser storage removes all of the above; you will be signed out and the theme returns to default. Any tracker blocker, or Google's own opt-out add-on, stops the analytics cookies without affecting the rest of the site.

Third parties

Two services other than us can see that your browser requested a page. We would rather name them than let you discover them in a network tab.

Google Fonts

Typefaces are loaded from fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com, which means Google receives your IP address and the page you were on. No cookie is set by these requests.

Google Analytics

The site uses Google Analytics (property G-Z3L31MS1TK) to count visits and see which polls and articles people actually read. It runs on every page, including this one.

Until September 2026 the tag was only present on the sign-in and registration pages — not by design, but because the rest of the site had been rebuilt around it and the tag was left behind. This policy said so at the time. It now runs site-wide, and this paragraph changed on the same day the tag did.

What it collects is the standard Google Analytics set: pages viewed, roughly where in the world you are, which browser and device you used, and whether you arrived from a search engine or a link. We use it in aggregate. We never try to identify individuals in it, and we do not upload your username, email address or votes to it.

Google's handling of that data is governed by their own terms. If you would rather not be measured at all, Google publish a browser opt-out add-on, and any general tracker blocker will also stop it.

Beyond those two: no advertising networks, no social-media pixels, no session recording, no data brokers. We do not sell or rent your information to anyone.

What other people can see

Anything you post publicly is public: your comments, your replies, and the username attached to them. Assume they can be read, quoted and indexed by search engines.

Your voting history is different. Your profile is private by default — your votes and comments only appear on it once you switch that on in My Account, and switching it back off hides them again. Poll results are always published as totals; we never publish which option a named person chose.

How long we keep things

• Account data — until you ask us to delete it.
• Comments — until you or a moderator removes them.
• Votes — indefinitely, as part of the poll totals.
• Guest anti-duplicate records — short-lived, then deleted automatically.
• Failed sign-in records — kept only long enough to enforce the rate limit.
• Contact messages — kept while the matter is open, then archived.
• Newsletter address — until you unsubscribe.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to show you what we hold, correct it, delete it, or send you a copy. If you are in the UK, EU or EEA these are rights under the GDPR; we apply the same process to everyone because operating two standards would be worse for everybody.

Email privacy@npolls.com from the address on the account, or use the contact form. We aim to reply within a few days and to complete requests within 30 days.

One limit on deletion, stated up front

Deleting your account removes your profile, your comments and your reactions. Your votes stay in the totals, detached from you. Removing individual votes would retroactively change results that other people have already read, quoted and linked to, so what remains is an anonymous tally entry with nothing pointing back to you.

If you are in the UK or EU and think we have handled your data badly, you can complain to your national data-protection authority. We would appreciate the chance to fix it first.

Security

The whole site is served over HTTPS. Passwords are stored as one-way hashes, session cookies are HTTP-only and same-site, forms are protected against cross-site request forgery, and sign-in attempts are rate-limited per address and per account. Uploaded images are re-encoded on arrival, which discards anything hidden in the original file.

No system is perfect. If you find a vulnerability, please report it to security@npolls.com before disclosing it publicly, and we will work with you.

Children

NPolls is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change materially affects what we do with your data, we will say so on the site rather than quietly editing this page.

Contacting us

Privacy questions and data requests: privacy@npolls.com.
Security reports: security@npolls.com.
Everything else: the contact form.

See also the Terms of Service, which cover the rules for using the site, and the FAQ.