Template notice for the site owner: update the table below if you add analytics, embeds or advertising. If you introduce advertising or cross-site tracking, you will need a consent mechanism in several jurisdictions.

What we use

Name / type Purpose Type Lifetime
Session cookie Keeps you signed in and protects forms against cross-site request forgery Strictly necessary Session, or 30 days if you choose “stay signed in”
Security cookie Rate limiting and abuse prevention Strictly necessary Up to 24 hours
Analytics (aggregate, cookieless where possible) Counts page views and referrers so we know which guides people need; no cross-site tracking, no advertising identifiers, IP truncated Analytics Up to 13 months in aggregate form
jfk.zip (local storage) Remembers the ZIP code you entered so the site can show local content Preference Until you clear it
jfk.vote.*, jfk.sign.*, jfk.draft.* (local storage) Your recorded position on a debate, petition signature confirmation and unsent drafts, stored only on your device Preference Until you clear it

Local storage is not a cookie and never leaves your device. It is not sent with requests, we cannot read it from our servers, and clearing your browser data removes it.

What we do not use

  • No advertising or retargeting cookies.
  • No social media pixels or “like button” trackers.
  • No cross-site or cross-device profiling.
  • No session replay or heatmap recording of your behavior.

If advertising is ever introduced, it will be limited by our advertising policy, disclosed here before it launches, and — where the law requires consent — gated behind a choice you make.

Third-party requests

Photographs are served from Unsplash’s image CDN, which necessarily receives the request for the image (including your IP address and user agent) in order to deliver it. Fonts, stylesheets and scripts are hosted by us, not by a third party, so ordinary browsing generates no other third-party requests.

Links to government and news sites are ordinary links: those sites set their own cookies once you arrive, under their own policies.

Controlling cookies

Every major browser lets you block or delete cookies and clear site data:

  • Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies / Site data
  • Safari: Settings → Privacy → Manage Website Data
  • Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data
  • Edge: Settings → Cookies and site permissions

Blocking strictly necessary cookies will stop you signing in, and clearing site data will erase your saved ZIP code, drafts and recorded positions.

Most browsers also send Global Privacy Control signals. We honor GPC as an opt-out of any sale or sharing of personal information — see Your Privacy Choices — though we do not sell or share personal information in the first place.

Questions

Write to [email protected]. The broader picture is in our privacy policy.