Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

The organization responsible for your personal information (the "controller") is Bollé Communications inc., a company incorporated in Québec and based in Montréal, Québec, Canada. PPN World is our real-time press-release intelligence platform: a live feed aggregating more than 400 public RSS/Atom feeds from over 80 newswires and official sources across 190+ countries, an interactive globe and map, entity dossiers, AI summaries and briefs, a journalist and press-contact directory, saved searches with email digests, and team workspaces.

This policy covers three groups of people: visitors to our public pages, account holders and team members who use the Service, and people who contact us. Two categories of data are covered by their own documents: (a) professional contact details of journalists and press contacts extracted from publicly distributed press releases — see our Journalist & Press Contact Privacy Notice; and (b) the press-release content itself, which is not personal information about our users — see our Press Wire Content & Fair Use page.

2. Personal information we collect

Identity and account data. When you create an account we collect your name, email address, an avatar image if you provide one, and your interface language. Authentication is handled by our provider Supabase, either with an email address and password or through OAuth sign-in with Google or GitHub; with OAuth we receive your name, email and avatar from the provider and never see your Google or GitHub password.

Content you create and your preferences. We store the working data you build up in the Service: bookmarks, watchlists, saved searches (including their email-digest frequency), reading history and read/unread state, notes, dashboards, workspaces and story collections, and a synced preferences record (a per-user settings object in our database) so these follow you across devices. If you join or create a team, we also store the team name, member list and roles, invitations (including the invitee's email address), shared watchlists and topics, and team chat messages.

Billing metadata. Payments are processed by Stripe. Stripe collects your payment-card details directly; we never receive or store full card numbers. From Stripe we keep only billing metadata: your Stripe customer identifier, plan (Pro or Team), billing cycle, subscription status, and billing period dates.

Technical and security data. Our infrastructure processes your IP address and standard request metadata (pages requested, timestamps, browser user-agent) in server access logs, and uses your IP address for short-lived rate-limiting counters that protect the Service against abuse. On your first visit, our hosting platform's country-level IP lookup (the country code only — never precise location) may be used once to suggest an interface language. Your account also has a security-event log visible to you (sign-ins, password changes, multi-factor changes, email-change requests, deletion requests, sign-out-of-all-sessions), recorded with the browser user-agent.

AI inputs. When you use an AI feature (summaries, translations, entity extraction, topic tagging, search assistance, brief chat, draft generation), the text processed — your prompt and the relevant press-release excerpts — is sent to our AI provider to generate the result. Section 5 describes this in detail. Avoid entering sensitive or confidential personal information into AI prompts.

Communications. If you write to us, or use the contact form (protected against bots by Cloudflare Turnstile), we keep your message, your email address and our replies for as long as needed to handle the request and keep a record of it.

3. How we collect it

Directly from you (account creation, the content and settings you save, payments you initiate, messages you send); automatically through your use of the Service (technical and security data described above, cookies and browser storage described in our Cookie Policy); and from third parties in three narrow cases: Google or GitHub when you choose OAuth sign-in, Stripe for the billing metadata described above, and publicly distributed press releases for the press-contact directory covered by its own notice. We do not buy personal information from data brokers and we do not collect data about you from social networks.

4. Purposes and legal bases

We process personal information for the following purposes, each tied to a legal basis where the GDPR (EU/UK) applies: - Providing the Service you request — creating and managing your account, saving and syncing your content, running teams, delivering AI results, sending saved-search digests you enabled, and billing your subscription. Basis: performance of a contract. - Security and abuse prevention — authentication, session management, IP-based rate limiting, bot protection on forms, the per-account security-event log, and investigating incidents. Basis: legitimate interests (running a safe service), and legal obligation where incident-notification laws apply. - Service operation and improvement — diagnosing errors through monitored, scrubbed error reports, capacity planning from aggregate server logs. Basis: legitimate interests. - Communications — transactional emails about your account, subscription or security. Basis: performance of a contract; optional communications only with your consent, which you may withdraw at any time. - Legal compliance — accounting and tax records, responses to valid legal demands, establishing or defending legal claims. Basis: legal obligation and legitimate interests.

Under Québec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector as amended by Law 25, and under Canada's PIPEDA, we collect and use your personal information with your consent — express or implied depending on sensitivity and context — for the purposes stated above, all of which are necessary to provide the Service you signed up for. You may withdraw consent, subject to legal or contractual restrictions; withdrawing consent for processing that the Service requires may prevent us from providing it. We do not use your personal information for purposes incompatible with those stated here without informing you first.

5. AI and automated processing

The Service's AI features are powered by OpenAI models (currently gpt-4o-mini-class models) accessed through OpenAI's API in the United States. They fall into two groups. User-triggered features run only when you ask: on-demand summaries and briefs, translations, entity extraction, topic explanations, the Ask-AI search assistant, brief chat, draft generation, and audio transcription (an audio file you submit is sent to OpenAI to produce its transcript). One feature runs automatically and is content-only: a cost-bounded country classifier that helps place a press release on the map when deterministic rules cannot; it processes press-release text, never your account data. For translations, we may also use the MyMemory translation memory API (Translated S.r.l., Italy) as a fallback engine; only the text to translate is sent.

Three commitments about AI processing. First, no training: under the API terms we rely on, the data we send to OpenAI via the API is not used to train their models, and we never use your personal information or your content to train AI models ourselves. Second, caching: AI results are cached in our database keyed by a fingerprint of the processed content, so repeated requests for the same summary or translation are served from the cache instead of being re-sent to the provider. Third, no consequential automated decisions: we make no decision producing legal or similarly significant effects about you based solely on automated processing. AI output can be wrong; the Terms of Service require you to verify it before relying on or republishing it.

Text-to-speech and audio alerts run entirely on your device through your browser's built-in Web Speech capability; no audio and no text is sent to us or to any provider for those features.

6. Analytics — what actually runs today

One analytics product runs on PPN World: Vercel Web Analytics, from our hosting platform. It is first-party and cookieless — nothing is written to your device — and it records page views with the page path, referrer, country, browser, operating system and device type. To count returning visitors within a day it derives a one-way hash from your IP address and user agent plus a secret rotated every 24 hours; the IP is not stored by it and the hash cannot be linked to you or across days. It profiles nobody, follows you to no other site, and is never used for advertising. We run no Google Analytics, no session replay, no advertising pixel and no cross-site tracker. Our wider understanding of traffic still comes from our hosting platform's server-side access logs and short-lived rate-limiting counters, which exist for operations and security. The Cookie Policy §5 describes this measurement in full.

7. Cookies and browser storage

We use only essential cookies: the Supabase authentication session cookies that keep you signed in, and a one-year "ppn-geo-lang" cookie that records a first-visit language hint derived from the country code of your IP address (provided by our hosting platform). We also use browser localStorage for interface preferences and IndexedDB for a local cache of press items. The exhaustive list — every cookie and storage key, its purpose and its lifetime — is in our Cookie Policy.

8. Who we share personal information with

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We disclose it only to the service providers (processors / "sub-processors") that run parts of the Service under contract and on our instructions: - Vercel (USA) — application hosting, serverless functions, CDN, server access logs, and the IP-country header used for the language hint; - Supabase (USA-based; database hosted in the project's region) — authentication and the Postgres database holding accounts and all user content; - Stripe (USA/Ireland) — payment processing, subscription billing and the customer portal; - OpenAI (USA) — AI features described in Section 5; - MyMemory / Translated S.r.l. (Italy) — fallback translation engine (press-release text only); - Resend (USA) — transactional emails and saved-search digest emails; - Upstash (USA) — Redis rate limiting keyed on IP address, with auto-expiring counters; - Sentry (USA) — error monitoring; our configuration strips cookies, authorization headers, request bodies, IP addresses and email addresses from reports before they are sent; - Cloudflare (USA) — Turnstile bot verification on public forms; - CARTO (EU/USA) and Esri (USA) — map basemap tiles fetched directly by your browser when you open map views, which exposes your IP address and the requested tile area to those providers, as any map service does.

The sub-processor table below summarizes each provider, its location and the data categories it handles; we update it when the list changes, and material changes are announced per Section 15. Beyond providers, we may disclose personal information where the law requires it (a valid court order or equivalent), where necessary to protect our rights, our users or the public, or in a corporate transaction (merger, acquisition, asset sale), in which case the successor remains bound by this policy.

9. International transfers

We operate from Canada and most of our providers process data in the United States (Stripe also in Ireland; MyMemory in Italy). Your personal information may therefore be stored and processed outside your province or country of residence, in jurisdictions whose privacy laws differ from those of Québec, Canada, the EU/UK or California, and where it may be accessible to local authorities under local law.

Safeguards. Before communicating personal information outside Québec, we carry out the assessment required by section 17 of Québec's private-sector privacy act (as amended by Law 25) to confirm the information will receive adequate protection, and we bind each provider by a written data-processing agreement. For transfers subject to the EU or UK GDPR, we rely on the providers' Standard Contractual Clauses (with the UK Addendum or IDTA) and, where the provider is certified, the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. You may request more information about these safeguards at ppnw@ppnsource.com.

10. How long we keep personal information

We keep personal information only as long as needed for the purposes above, then delete or anonymize it: - Account data and everything attached to it (profile, preferences, bookmarks, watchlists, saved searches, notes, reading history, workspaces, security-event log, team memberships): kept while the account exists. When you request deletion, the account is scheduled for permanent erasure after a 30-day grace period during which you can change your mind; a daily job then permanently deletes the account and all attached rows. Team chat display names are anonymized and invitation email addresses are redacted as part of the purge. - Billing records: subscription metadata for the life of the subscription; invoicing and tax records as long as tax and accounting law requires (generally up to 7 years). - Rate-limiting counters (IP-keyed): minutes — they expire automatically at the end of each sliding window. - Error reports (Sentry, scrubbed): retained on the provider's standard rolling window, typically around 90 days. - Server access logs (Vercel): short rolling retention set by the platform. - Support correspondence: as long as needed to handle and document the request. - Press items and the press-contact directory: rolling, content-driven retention described in the Press Wire Content page and the Journalist & Press Contact Privacy Notice. - AI result cache: cached derivations of press-release content, keyed by content fingerprint; retained while the underlying content remains relevant. It contains no account data.

11. How we protect personal information

Our safeguards include: encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS with HSTS) across the whole Service; row-level security in our Postgres database so each user and team member can only read the rows they are entitled to; a strict Content Security Policy and hardened response headers; IP-based rate limiting and bot verification on public forms; scrubbing of cookies, authorization headers, IP addresses and emails from error reports before they leave our infrastructure; a per-account security-event log you can review; and payment handling delegated entirely to Stripe, which is PCI-DSS certified — we never store card numbers. Access to production systems is restricted and authenticated.

No system is perfectly secure. If a confidentiality incident presents a risk of serious injury, we will notify the affected individuals and the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec, and any other competent authority, as the law requires, and we keep a register of confidentiality incidents as Law 25 mandates.

12. Your rights

Québec (Law 25). You may: access the personal information we hold about you and obtain a copy; have inaccurate, incomplete or equivocal information rectified; withdraw consent to uses that are not necessary for the Service; ask us to cease disseminating your personal information or to de-index any hyperlink attached to your name where dissemination breaches the law or a court order, or causes you serious injury that outweighs the public interest (the de-indexing right); and receive computerized personal information you provided to us in a structured, commonly used technological format (portability). Our privacy officer (personne responsable de la protection des renseignements personnels) responds within 30 days.

Rest of Canada (PIPEDA). You may request access to your personal information, challenge its accuracy and completeness and have it amended, withdraw consent subject to legal or contractual restrictions, and ask questions or complain about our compliance — first to us, then to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

EU and UK (GDPR / UK GDPR). Where the GDPR applies, you have the rights of access (Art. 15), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20) and objection, including to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21), plus the right to withdraw consent at any time and the right not to be subject to solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects (Art. 22 — we make none).

California (CCPA/CPRA). You have the rights to know, access, correct and delete the personal information we hold, to data portability, and to non-discrimination for exercising these rights. We do not sell personal information and we do not "share" it for cross-context behavioural advertising — there is no ad-tech on the Service — so there is no sale or sharing to opt out of. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes requiring a limitation right. You may designate an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf.

How to exercise your rights. The fastest paths are self-serve: you can edit your profile, export a copy of your account data (JSON) from the account page, request account deletion there (30-day grace period, cancellable), and manage or cancel your subscription through the Stripe customer portal. For anything else — or if you prefer — email ppnw@ppnsource.com. We may need to verify your identity before acting, and we respond within the time the applicable law sets (30 days under Law 25 and PIPEDA; one month under the GDPR, extendable; 45 days under the CCPA, extendable). Exercising your rights is free of charge except where the law allows a reasonable fee for manifestly excessive requests.

13. Complaints

We ask you to contact us first at ppnw@ppnsource.com so we can try to resolve the issue. You also always have the right to complain to the competent authority: the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (cai.gouv.qc.ca); the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca); your data-protection authority in the EU, or the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) in the UK; or the California Attorney General / California Privacy Protection Agency in California.

14. Children

PPN World is a professional tool. It is not directed at anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, write to ppnw@ppnsource.com and we will delete it.

15. Changes to this policy

We update this policy when the Service, our providers or the law change. The "Last updated" date at the top identifies the version in force. For material changes — a new category of data, a new purpose, a new sub-processor handling account data — we will give notice by a reasonable means (a notice in the Service or an email) before the change takes effect.

16. Privacy officer and contact

As required by Law 25, Bollé Communications inc. has designated a person in charge of the protection of personal information (privacy officer). For any privacy question, rights request or complaint: - Email: ppnw@ppnsource.com (subject line "Privacy") - Mail: Privacy Officer, Bollé Communications inc., Montréal, Québec, Canada This policy is governed by the laws of the Province of Québec and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein.

Sub-processor list