Privacy and Data Use Policy

1. Information We May Collect

The Xenopus Care Project may collect the following types of information through site use and user submissions:

• Colony questions and husbandry intake details, including feeding information, water source, RO remineralization, pH, conductivity, GH, KH, temperature, density, behavior, maintenance rhythm, and facility or SOP notes
• Healthy colony descriptions, including the parameters above for stable colonies
• Follow-up outcomes and what changed after initial review
• Optional email address if you sign up for updates or create an account
• Future uploads such as feeding videos, tank photos, water records, pH calibration records, RO buffering notes, SOP excerpts, and noise/flow videos
• Technical data such as browser type, device type, IP address, analytics data, and cookies if used

2. How We May Use Your Information

Information collected may be used for the following purposes:

• Structured husbandry review to help organize and respond to colony questions
• Saving questions and cases if you choose to opt in
• Sending updates if you sign up for communications
• Improving educational resources and husbandry-support tools
• Identifying recurring husbandry patterns across submissions
• Building healthy-colony reference patterns from stable colony descriptions
• Developing future project-guided tools for colony-care support
• Creating anonymized or aggregated case summaries for educational use
• Possible connection with Frog Social only with anonymization or explicit permission

3. Curated Improvement of Project Guidance

Xenopus Care Project guidance and its structured support tools may improve over time based on structured submissions. This improvement is curated and based on organized, reviewed information — not uncontrolled public exposure. Submissions are used to refine project-guided husbandry-support output, not to train general-purpose systems outside the scope of the project. Software tools may assist with routing, formatting, organizing, or structuring responses, but Xenopus Care Project guidance, reviewed notes, and practical experience remain the source.

4. Confidential and Sensitive Information

Users should avoid submitting unnecessary confidential, restricted, proprietary, personal, or institutionally sensitive information. The Xenopus Care Project is not designed to collect or store sensitive institutional, regulatory, or personal data beyond what is relevant to practical colony-care support.

5. User Identification and Privacy

The Xenopus Care Project will not publicly identify users, facilities, institutions, or animals without permission unless required by law. Any information shared externally — including with Frog Social — will be anonymized or shared only with explicit permission.

6. Deletion and Correction Requests

Users may request deletion or correction of their submitted information by contacting the Xenopus Care Project at the contact information provided below. The project will make reasonable efforts to honor such requests in a timely manner.

7. Data Retention

The Xenopus Care Project intends to retain submitted information only as long as it is useful for the purposes described in this policy. Specific retention timelines will be added before broader public launch.

8. Security

The Xenopus Care Project intends to use reasonable measures to protect submitted information from unauthorized access, disclosure, or loss, but cannot guarantee absolute security. Additional security details will be added before broader public launch.

9. Third-Party Services

Third-party services used for hosting, analytics, or other purposes will be described here before broader public launch. The Xenopus Care Project is not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party services.

10. Children and Minors

The Xenopus Care Project is intended for use by professionals, researchers, and trained personnel involved in Xenopus colony care. A specific policy regarding use by children and minors will be added before broader public launch.

11. International Users

Users outside the jurisdiction where the project is operated should be aware that information may be processed in a different jurisdiction. A specific policy for international users and cross-border data handling will be added before broader public launch.

Planned Data Practices (Draft — Not Yet Active)

The following describe data practices for planned features that are not yet implemented. This section is a draft and will be finalized before any such feature becomes active.

• Account and signup data: future accounts may store a name, role, institution or lab affiliation, and an institutional email, used for access control and communication.
• Discussion / chat content: future posts may store message text, author identity, institution or lab (if provided), timestamps, thread/reply structure, and moderation/consent status.
• Email notifications: opt-in only. The project would store notification preferences and provide an unsubscribe mechanism.
• Paid lab portal: a future paid tier may store colony history, follow-up notes, protocol changes, and outcome logs. Billing would be handled by a third-party payment processor and described separately.

12. Changes to This Policy

The Xenopus Care Project may update this Privacy and Data Use Policy at any time. Changes will be reflected on this page with an updated date. Continued use of the site after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

13. Contact

For privacy requests, or to request deletion or correction of your information, contact the Xenopus Care Project at admin@xenopuscareproject.org. For general project inquiries, contact contact@xenopuscareproject.org.