YOUR CONTENT. CLEAR CHOICES.

Privacy & your content

Last updated 19 October 2026 · Current community beta

As Seen on the Street (ASOTS) is a community for moments you photograph or film yourself. This notice explains how the current website uses your information. Contact support@asseenonthestreet.com with privacy or account questions.

Google sign-in, clearly explained

Google sign-in is optional. You can continue using an email code. If you choose Google, we request basic identity, profile and email access (openid, profile and email). Google supplies a signed identity response. We use its account identifier to validate that response and its name and email to start your ASOTS sign-in. We do not import your Google profile picture, contacts, posts, Gmail messages or Drive files.

Your email identifies your ASOTS account and receives a separate one-time sign-in code. For a new account, your name becomes your public display name; you can edit it in your profile. Your sign-in email is not displayed publicly. An existing account with the same email is used after the email-code check.

We do not retain Google access, refresh or identity tokens after processing sign-in, or persist the Google account identifier. Your ASOTS account name and email remain on our hosting account so your community account works. Google data is used for account access and operation, not advertising, sale or importing social contacts. Google sign-in data is not sent to printing or payment providers.

You can remove ASOTS access in your Google Account’s third-party connections settings. This stops future Google access but does not automatically delete your ASOTS account or sign you out of an existing ASOTS session. You can use email sign-in, sign out other sessions in Privacy settings, or contact support to request account deletion.

What other people can see

Your display name, handle and profile biography are public. Approved photos, videos, reflections and any city or country you choose to add are public. Public media can be viewed and copied by visitors. We do not request your exact GPS location. Do not share addresses, documents or other details you want to keep private.

New photos, profile photos, video clips and public reflections undergo automated screening. Sightengine receives submitted media and public text for sexual-content, spam and unsafe-link checks. Website photo and video submissions are queued in private temporary storage, with up to three waiting uploads per member. Temporary failures retry for up to 24 hours and 12 attempts. Rejected, cancelled or expired files are removed from that temporary store. Queued files are not included in media backups; a disaster recovery may require resubmission. Accepted uploads publish without moderator approval. Failed or unavailable checks do not publish. Video analysis samples frames and does not inspect every moment or audio; no filter can guarantee detection of all sexual content or fraud. Private chats use local solicitation checks and are not sent to Sightengine. Typing indicators are shared only with the connected person while chatting and expire within seconds. Public-text rules are configured for English, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Filipino/Tagalog and Turkish. Visible text in media uses the same list except Romanian. Choose the language of public captions, comments and profile text before submitting. Language selection is a declaration, not reliable automatic identification. Arabic-script text (including Urdu) and unsupported writing systems are blocked; their interface languages remain available. Several Latin-script interface languages still lack supported screening. Image and video screening does not guarantee recognition of all embedded Arabic text or audio. Use Report for unsafe content.

Optional OpenAI creative tools

AI Studio is optional and requires your confirmation for each request. It sends your instructions and a reduced, metadata-stripped photo, or three sampled video frames, to OpenAI to suggest captions or a video editing plan. Photo editing sends the photo and instructions to OpenAI. Sign-in details, private messages and exact device location are not sent. We supply a pseudonymous safety identifier. Inputs and AI outputs are screened by Sightengine before previews; publication still passes the normal checks.

OpenAI captions and editing plans use store:false. This disables response storage but does not guarantee zero retention: OpenAI may retain abuse-monitoring data under its policies. API content is not used for model training by default. See OpenAI data controls. Video audio and the complete video are not sent to OpenAI by these tools. Video edits are rendered in your browser; the finished video goes to ASOTS/Sightengine only when you choose to upload it.

AI Studio does not publish automatically or overwrite your source file. Private draft images and sampled frames expire after 24 hours and are removed on the next cleanup run; keep your own originals. Draft files are not in recovery copies. Draft text, processing records and encrypted connection settings can remain in historical encrypted database backups. Downloaded files remain on your device. AI-edited photos and videos submitted through Studio are labelled; labels rely on the submission path and cannot identify every edited file uploaded elsewhere.

Private information and security

Your sign-in email, session information, saved observations, merchandise requests and conversations are stored on our Namecheap hosting account. Messages are restricted to their participants through the website. They are not end-to-end encrypted; authorized hosting operators may access stored data. HTTPS protects data in transit. Provider client secrets are encrypted on the server; this does not mean that all account data is encrypted at rest.

Messages and meeting invitations require both members to follow each other and allow messages. You can turn messages off, block members, report concerns, download your text records and conversations, and sign out other sessions in Privacy settings.

Daily Lens and your Street Passport

Joining a Daily Lens attaches its date to your public observation. Two Streets pairs eligible public photos by theme and the broad places members supply; it does not verify location. Your Street Passport is visible only to you and summarizes your published observations. Downloading your journal creates a text copy on your device; keep it private. Quiet View hides popularity counts and saves that preference only in this browser.

Cookies and preferences

A necessary secure session cookie keeps you signed in for up to seven days. Google sign-in uses additional short-lived cookies and server records to protect the sign-in process. Your interface-language preference is saved in this browser. Posts remain in their original language. This release does not include advertising trackers or third-party analytics.

Photos, videos and storage

Uploaded media is stored in our private Cloudflare R2 bucket. The website issues temporary viewing links after checking access. A link already issued can remain usable for up to two minutes after a post is hidden. Posts and conversations are stored on the server, not just in your browser.

Photos are re-encoded and compressed to remove embedded metadata. Video metadata is not stripped: check videos for location or private information before uploading. This service is not a RAW media archive. Keep your own originals. Daily encrypted recovery copies are enabled in the existing R2 backup prefix, with 30-day deletion protection. They share the same Cloudflare account.

Retention and removal

Account information and community records are retained while needed to operate your account, provide the community and handle moderation. Removing an observation hides it from the feed and media routes; it does not immediately erase the underlying record or file. Removed records may remain in administrative storage and any recovery copies. Privacy centre lets signed-in members submit access, correction or deletion requests and follow the owner response. Requests do not automatically delete an account or erase backup copies. Privacy centre lets signed-in members submit access, correction or deletion requests and follow the owner response. Requests do not automatically delete an account or erase backup copies. We do not currently offer automatic account deletion or a fixed backup-erasure schedule.

For access, correction or deletion requests, email support@asseenonthestreet.com from your sign-in address, or report your own profile with the request. The owner handles requests manually and may verify ownership. Privacy centre uses a fresh email verification before exports and new requests; sensitive administrator changes also require recent verification. This is not multi-factor authentication. Exported account records are paginated at 500 records per category per file; request additional access if needed. Request details and responses stay private to the requester and owner and are included in encrypted database backups. Do not send passwords or sign-in codes. Any necessary retention and removal limits will be explained when your request is handled.

The ASOTS media stamp

Photos, profile photos and videos receive the ASOTS name and website address on copies displayed, downloaded or printed through this service, including AI-edited exports. This identifies the community and does not transfer your copyright to ASOTS. Original uploads remain private for processing and recovery. Previously saved copies outside ASOTS cannot be changed. Stamped copies follow the same visibility and printing permissions as their source.

Calls, printing and other services

Meeting invitations are shared with your mutual connection. Opening a Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp or Signal invitation opens that provider’s site or app, where its privacy terms apply. No third-party calling service loads automatically.

Merchandise requests currently collect country and preferences, not a full address or payment card. Printify is connected and Flutterwave is configured for testing, but live checkout and manufacturing are not enabled. A merchandise request does not charge you or send an order to a manufacturer.

Recovery copies and private beta feedback

When scheduled backups are enabled, the database, account records, private messages, settings and media are copied in encrypted form to a separate backup prefix in our existing private Cloudflare R2 bucket. The decryption key is kept separately on the hosting account and in an owner-held recovery copy. This is off-host storage, but not an independent storage account or an immutable vault. Recovery snapshots and archived media are retained until the owner reviews and removes them; deleting a visible post does not erase historical recovery copies immediately.

Beta feedback is visible only to the administrator and stored with your account. Internal community statistics are derived from existing account and participation records, including message-sending timestamps; private message contents are not analyzed for these statistics. No third-party analytics or advertising tracker is added.