Transparency & Data Practice

Privacy Notice

Last updated: October 12, 2026

GeoShield is a free student and academic research project operated by the GeoShield Project Team (Aum Lenka and Amishi Kingrani). For research inquiries or data inquiries, contact: aumlenka51@gmail.com.

1. What the Site Collects and Processes

GeoShield does not maintain user registration, accounts, authentication tokens, profile databases, or commercial payment systems. We do not collect names, personal email addresses, phone numbers, or physical addresses from general visitors.

When you use the interactive risk map at /dashboard, your browser submits non-personal spatial query parameters to the GeoShield API:

Bounding box coordinates (min_lon, min_lat, max_lon, max_lat) to retrieve polygon risk features.
Grid cell identifiers (e.g. r0142_c0087) to load detailed susceptibility metrics.
Percentage adjustment values submitted to the what-if simulation tool.

2. Cookies and Browser Storage

Based on automated inspection using headless Chromium:

Cookies: GeoShield sets zero HTTP cookies.
Local Storage & Session Storage: No personal or persistent data is written to your browser's localStorage or sessionStorage.
IndexedDB: No client-side databases are registered.
Analytics / Trackers: No advertising pixels, session recorders, fingerprinting scripts, or third-party behavioral trackers are loaded.

Because no non-essential cookies or tracking technologies are employed, no intrusive cookie consent banner is displayed.

3. External Network Connections & Third-Party Services

To render cartographic layers, your browser establishes direct network connections to the following external services:

CARTO Basemap CDNHosts: basemaps.cartocdn.com, tiles-*.basemaps.cartocdn.com

Transmits raster/vector basemap tiles and glyph fonts to render geographic context. CARTO processes requests under their standard privacy terms.

Next.js Typography

Typography fonts (Geist, Newsreader) are compiled and self-hosted locally from our web domain at build time. No live requests are made to Google Fonts servers during runtime.

4. Server Logs & Hosting Infrastructure

GeoShield is deployed across managed cloud infrastructure: the web frontend is hosted on Vercel, the backend inference API on Render, and the spatial PostgreSQL/PostGIS database on Supabase. In common with standard cloud hosting environments, incoming HTTP requests generate technical access logs containing:

Client IP address and requesting port.
Date, time, and timezone of the request.
Requested URL path and HTTP method.
HTTP response status code and byte count.
User-agent string (browser type and operating system).

These technical logs are processed solely to maintain system availability, prevent denial-of-service disruptions, and troubleshoot network errors. Retention periods depend on provider platform architecture and workspace subscription tier:

Vercel (Frontend): 1 hour for runtime logs on the Vercel Hobby plan
Render (API Backend): 7 days for service logs on the Render Hobby workspace plan

Note: Spatial database queries on Supabase are executed internally by the Render backend service; public visitors do not connect directly to the database instance.

5. Transport Security & Inquiries

All communications between your browser and GeoShield are encrypted using Transport Layer Security (HTTPS).

If you have questions regarding data handling or wish to inquire about the scientific data sources, please reach out to: aumlenka51@gmail.com.