Overview
Ballistics Board (“we”, “us”, “our”) operates the Ballistics Board website. This policy explains what data we collect, why we collect it, and how we protect it.
Information We Collect
Account Information
When you create an account, we collect your username, email address, and a securely hashed password. We use this information to identify your account and provide account-related functionality (password resets, notifications you opt into).
User-Generated Content
When you use Ballistics Board, we store data you create: saved favorites, custom load configurations, saved comparisons, and saved DOPE cards. This data is associated with your account and is not shared publicly.
Notification Requests
If you ask to be told when a feature opens, we store the email address you give us so we can send that one notice. You do not need an account to ask, and we do not ask for anything else. If you are signed in at the time, we also record which account submitted the request. We do not use these addresses for anything other than the notice you asked for.
Reports & Suggestions
If you flag a data error or suggest a load we should add, we store what you submitted. The suggestion form includes an optional contact email — if you provide one, we use it only to follow up on that submission.
Automatically Collected Data
We may collect standard web analytics data including pages visited, browser type, and general geographic region. We do not collect precise location data or build advertising profiles.
We also process your IP address transiently to rate-limit sign-ins, password resets, form submissions, and the usage measurement described below. This is abuse prevention: the counts are held in server memory, are not written to our database, and are discarded automatically.
Usage Measurement
Separately from the third-party analytics above, we keep our own record of how often each factory load and cartridge appears in a comparison, and when. This is what powers the popularity figures on load pages and the trending section of the home page, and it tells us which ammunition people are actually researching.
A usage record is a running total, not a log of visits: it says that a given load was compared on a given day, and how many times in total. There is no entry for an individual comparison and no clock time — the smallest thing we can see is a whole day. It isnot linked to your account, your session, your IP address, or any other record we hold, and there is no way to work backwards from one to you. Where we record an approximate location alongside it, that location will be no more precise than the country, and never the day as well as the country. You do not need an account for this to happen, and having one makes no difference to what is recorded.
Custom loads are excluded. Comparing a handload you created records nothing at all — only factory loads from our public catalogue are counted.
Because nothing in these records points back to an individual, we cannot pick out yours on request — which is the same reason they cannot identify you.
How We Use Your Information
- To provide and maintain your account and saved data
- To improve the application based on usage patterns
- To produce aggregate, de-identified statistics about which cartridges and loads people compare, including how that changes over time — which we may publish, share or license, for example to ammunition manufacturers, retailers or the press. These statistics describe the audience as a whole and never identify an individual user
- To respond to support requests
- To notify you about a feature you asked to be told about
- To prevent abuse of sign-in and submission forms
We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for marketing purposes.
Cookies & Tracking
Ballistics Board uses cookies for essential functionality:
- Session cookies — required to keep you signed in and maintain your session
- Preference cookies — store your theme selection (light/dark mode)
- Compare selection — the loads you have added to the compare tray, so the comparison page can render them immediately. Ends when you close your browser.
We also use analytics cookies. Google Analytics sets first-party cookies whose names begin with “_ga”. They distinguish one visitor from another so we can see how many people use the site and which pages they find useful. These are not required for the site to work.
We do not use cookies for advertising, and we have not enabled Google Analytics' advertising or cross-site remarketing features.
Third-Party Services
We use the following third-party services:
- Resend — for transactional email delivery (account verification, password resets, optional newsletters, and notification requests). Resend processes your email address solely to deliver messages on our behalf.
- Vercel — hosting and privacy-friendly web analytics. As our host, Vercel processes request data including IP addresses in order to serve the site. Its analytics measure aggregate page usage and do not use cookies or track you across other sites.
- Google Analytics — aggregate usage measurement. Google receives the pages you visit, your browser and device type, your approximate location derived from your IP address, and the cookie identifier described above. Google Analytics 4 anonymises IP addresses by default and does not store them, and we have not enabled its advertising features, so the data is not used to build an advertising profile of you or to follow you to other sites.
Each third-party service is governed by its own privacy policy. We encourage you to review them.
Data Retention & Deletion
We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. If you request account deletion, we will remove your account and the data attached to it — favorites, custom loads, saved comparisons and saved DOPE cards — within 30 days.
Two things are stored against an email address rather than an account, and so are not removed automatically when an account is deleted: a notification request, and the optional contact email on a load suggestion. Tell us when you request deletion and we will remove those too.
You can ask us to drop a notification request at any time without deleting your account, and you do not need an account to ask.
The usage records described above are not removed when an account is deleted, and cannot be — they were never attached to an account in the first place. We keep them indefinitely so that long-run trends stay comparable from one year to the next.
To request deletion, use our contact form (choose “Account & privacy”) or email us at hello@ballisticsboard.com.
Your Rights
You have the following rights over the data we hold about you. We extend them to everyone who uses Ballistics Board, wherever you live, rather than only to people covered by a particular law.
- Access — ask what we hold about you and get a copy of it.
- Correction — fix anything inaccurate. Your username, email address and password are yours to change directly in account settings; ask us about anything else.
- Deletion — have your account and the data attached to it removed, as described above.
- Portability — receive the data you created (custom loads, saved comparisons, saved DOPE cards, favorites) in a machine-readable format.
- Objection — tell us to stop a particular use of your data, including analytics.
- Withdrawing consent — where you gave us permission for something, take it back. This does not undo what was done while the permission stood.
To exercise any of these, use our contact form (choose “Account & privacy”) or email hello@ballisticsboard.com. We will respond within 30 days. We will never charge you for making a request, and we will never treat you differently for having made one.
Opting out of analytics specifically. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or install Google's Analytics opt-out add-on. Note that the session and preference cookies described above are what keep you signed in — blocking all cookies will stop sign-in from working.
Data Security
We use industry-standard security practices to protect your data, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), secure database access, and securely hashed passwords (bcrypt).
Children's Privacy
Ballistics Board is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated effective date. Continued use of Ballistics Board after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
Contact
Questions about this privacy policy, or want to exercise any of the rights described above? Use our contact form or email hello@ballisticsboard.com.