Privacy Policy.

This policy explains how The Spark Forward Foundation handles personal information for Spark Account and the Sparkden services. We collect what we need to give you an account and run our services — and nothing we don't.

• We never sell your personal information.
• We don't run third-party ad trackers on you.
• You can see, edit, export, or delete your data.

We try to be honest and specific rather than vague. If anything here is unclear, email privacy@sparkden.org and we'll explain.

• Account info — your email, username, password (stored only as a secure hash, never in plain text), and date of birth. If you're under 18, we also collect a parent or guardian's name and email so they can give consent.
• Profile info you add — display name, avatar, bio, and any links you choose to share.
• ID verification — if you choose to verify, the document you submit and its review status. We treat this as sensitive and keep it tightly restricted.
• Agreement records — a record that you (and, for minors, your guardian) accepted our Terms, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy, including the version, date and time, and IP address used to accept. This is our proof of consent.
• Security & activity logs — session and login records (like IP address, approximate location derived from that IP — usually country-level — browser/user-agent, and time) used to keep your account secure. We don't store precise GPS location.
• Content you create — projects and data you host on the Spark services.

• To create and run your account and the services you sign in to.
• To keep accounts and the community safe, verify who's doing what, and enforce our Terms, Acceptable Use Policy, and Code of Conduct.
• To detect, investigate, and stop abuse, attacks, and illegal activity.
• To contact you about your account (verification, security, important changes).
• To understand, in aggregate, how the services are used so we can improve them, and to meet our legal obligations.

We don't sell your personal information, and we don't use the contents of your private projects to advertise to you. We may access what's necessary to investigate a specific abuse report, security incident, or valid legal request.

Spark Account is built for teenage builders, but it is not for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. If you're under 18, a parent or guardian must consent before you use the services.

Parents and guardians can review what we hold about their child, ask us to correct or delete it, and close the account, by contacting privacy@sparkden.org. If we learn we've collected information from a child under 13 without proper consent, we'll delete it.

We don't sell your data and we don't share it for advertising. We only share when:

• You ask us to — for example, authorizing a third-party app via OAuth (see below).
• A service provider helps us operate (like hosting or email), under agreements that limit what they can do with it.
• It's needed for safety — to protect people from harm, or to investigate and stop abuse of the platform.
• The law requires it — see Law enforcement below.
• The Spark Forward Foundation reorganizes, in which case information may transfer as part of that, under this policy.

Spark Account can sign you in to other apps. When you authorize an app, you see exactly which scopes it's requesting (like your profile or email) and you choose whether to allow it. Apps only receive what you approve — and some apps may require ID verification before they let you in. You can review what you've connected from your account at any time, and revoke an app's access whenever you like.

The logs described above can be used to trace activity back to the account responsible. If we receive a valid legal request (such as a subpoena, court order, or warrant), or if we believe in good faith it's necessary to prevent serious harm or illegal activity, we may preserve and disclose account and activity information — including the identity behind an account, its IP addresses and approximate location, and agreement records.

We are legally required to report certain content, such as child sexual abuse material, to the appropriate authorities, and we will do so.

We keep information for as long as your account is active and as long as we need it for the purposes above. As a general guide:

• Routine activity logs are pruned automatically after a couple of weeks;
• Important security and account events are kept longer (up to about a year) for investigations;
• Agreement (consent) records are kept for as long as you have an account, plus a reasonable period afterward, because they're our proof of consent; and
• We may keep specific information longer when needed to comply with the law or handle a dispute.

When information is no longer needed, we delete it or remove what identifies you.

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information — passwords are hashed, sessions are protected, access to sensitive data (like verification documents) is restricted, and admin actions are logged. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password and tell us at security@sparkden.org if you spot a problem.

• See & edit your profile and account info whenever you like.
• Delete your account — that removes your personal data from our active systems.
• Ask us anything about your data. Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to access, correct, delete, or limit how we use it.

If you're a parent or guardian and want to review or remove a child's data, email privacy@sparkden.org and we'll help. We'll respond as required by law.

We use a small number of cookies and browser storage items to keep you signed in and remember settings like your light/dark theme. We don't use them to track you across other websites for advertising.

Privacy questions or requests go to privacy@sparkden.org — parents and guardians are welcome to reach out here about a minor's account. For anything else, reach us at hello@sparkden.org.

The Spark Forward Foundation, Inc. is a New Jersey nonprofit corporation (EIN 42-2930302). It has applied for recognition of exemption under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code; that application is pending, and contributions are not represented as tax-deductible until the IRS issues its determination. The data controller for Spark Account and the Sparkden services is The Spark Forward Foundation, Inc..

Version 2026-06-02 · Last updated June 2, 2026