🔧 Car Atlas

Car Atlas ("we," "us," "the site") is a community-driven visual atlas for identifying vehicle parts. This policy explains what information we collect, why, and how it's handled.

1. Information we collect

• Account information: your email address, a securely hashed password (we never store your actual password), and the display name you choose.
• Content you submit: vehicles, photos, part tags, community notes, and links to YouTube videos.
• VIN lookups: if you use the VIN decoder, the VIN is sent to the U.S. government's NHTSA vehicle-decoding service for that single lookup only. We do not store, log, or display the VIN itself anywhere.
• Usage data: basic site statistics (people online, total sign-ins, member count) and the data needed to run live features, like which notes you've voted on.
• Messages: if you contact another member, we relay your message by email; the message content and your email address pass through our email provider to deliver it.

2. How we use it

• To operate your account and let you sign in.
• To display your contributions (vehicles, tags, notes) to other users, attributed to your display name — never your email.
• To send email you've asked us to send (the contact-relay feature) or to alert the site admin of a reported problem.
• To keep basic aggregate statistics about site usage.

3. What we never do

• We never show your email address to other members. If someone replies to a message you sent them, they're replying to your email directly (via a "reply-to" address) — this is disclosed before you send a message.
• We never store or log VINs.
• We don't run advertising or third-party tracking/analytics scripts.
• We don't sell your information to anyone.

4. Third parties who process data on our behalf

• Fly.io — hosts the application and database.
• Resend — delivers contact-relay and admin-alert emails.
• NHTSA (vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov) — decodes VINs; only the VIN itself is sent, for that one request.

5. Cookies

We use a single first-party session cookie to keep you signed in. It's used only for authentication — not for advertising or tracking. If you check "Keep me logged in," this cookie persists for up to 30 days; otherwise it clears when you close your browser.

6. Data retention & deletion

Your account and contributions remain until you ask us to remove them. To delete your account or request removal of specific content, email miguelarodriguez209@gmail.com.

7. Children's privacy

Car Atlas is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 13.

8. International users

The site is hosted in the United States. By using Car Atlas, you consent to your information being processed and stored there.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the site changes. Material changes will be noted here with an updated date.

10. Contact

Questions about this policy: miguelarodriguez209@gmail.com