Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 26, 2026

Who we are

Backyard Freedom Lab (backyardfreedomlab.com) is an independent editorial site run by an anonymous team of writers and researchers. We research and review self-reliance products — homesteading tools, emergency preparedness gear, and related items.

For privacy inquiries, contact us at hello@backyardfreedomlab.com. We aim to respond within five business days.

What we collect — and what we don't

Through this website, we collect one category of personal data: your email address — and, only if you choose to give it, your first name — when you voluntarily subscribe to our newsletter. Alongside your address we store the exact consent text you agreed to and a timestamp of your consent, so we can demonstrate that you actually signed up. If you email us, we also process your message and sender address — solely to respond to you.

We do not collect your mailing address or phone number. We do not use tracking cookies or advertising pixels. Our analytics (described below) are cookieless and fully aggregated — they cannot be used to identify you.

Accounts (free tools)

Some free tools on this site let you create an account so your results are saved between visits. Account sign-in uses Google Sign-In — we never see or store a password. When you sign in, we receive and store your email address, display name, and a unique Google account identifier from Google, plus whatever you save inside the tool (for example, a saved calculation) and, if you ever upgrade a paid tier, your subscription status. We do not receive your Google password, contacts, or any other Google account data.

You can permanently delete your account at any time from the Account page: this immediately and permanently removes your account row and everything linked to it (saved tool results, subscription status) from our database — this is our GDPR Article 17 erasure path for account data, and it is real, working deletion, not a status flag.

Why we collect your email — and the legal basis

We collect email addresses for one purpose: sending our newsletter, which contains original content and product recommendations relevant to self-reliance and backyard homesteading.

The legal basis for this processing is your freely given, specific, and informed consent under GDPR Article 6(1)(a). Consent is obtained through a double opt-in process: after you submit your email address, we send you a confirmation email. Your subscription is only activated when you click the confirmation link. This ensures that only the email address owner can subscribe.

We do not use your email address for any purpose other than sending the newsletter you signed up for. We do not send unrelated marketing, share your address with advertisers, or sell it to third parties.

The aggregate, pseudonymized affiliate click statistics described below are based on our legitimate interest (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)) in understanding and funding our editorial work; the hashing described there minimizes any privacy impact.

Account data (described above) is processed on the basis of contract performance under GDPR Art. 6(1)(b) — creating an account and signing in is a step you take at your own request in order to use a tool that requires saving your results, and the processing is limited to what that service needs.

Analytics

We use Vercel Web Analytics to understand how our content is used. This system is cookieless: it sets no cookies and uses no persistent identifiers or cross-site tracking. Visitors are counted via an anonymized hash that expires within 24 hours. All data is anonymized and aggregated before we see it. We cannot identify individual visitors from the data we receive.

Aggregate visit counts

We also count visits in aggregate ourselves — a single daily total per site — to understand what content helps; this counter stores no cookies, no IP address, and no identifier of any kind. To avoid counting the same visit twice, we set a temporary technical flag in your browser tab — deleted when the tab closes, containing no identifier.

We self-host our fonts — no Google Fonts CDN or any other third-party font service is loaded when you visit this site.

Processors and international data transfers

We use the following data processors:

Supabase (database hosted in the EU, eu-west-1 region) — stores subscriber records and the aggregated affiliate click statistics described below. Data held by Supabase stays within the European Economic Area.
Resend, Inc. (United States) — email delivery platform. Your email address is stored and processed by Resend on our behalf to send the double opt-in confirmation and newsletter emails and to manage subscription preferences.
Vercel Inc. (United States) — website hosting and cookieless analytics. Vercel processes the anonymized, aggregated data described in the analytics section above. Your email address is not sent to Vercel.
Google LLC (United States) — provides the Google Sign-In service used by the account system described above. If you choose to sign in, Google processes your email address, name, and Google account identifier to authenticate you and passes them to us. Google's own handling of your Google Account is governed by the Google Privacy Policy.

International data transfer notice. Resend, Vercel, and Google are based in the United States. Using this site — subscribing to the newsletter, browsing (cookieless analytics), or signing in to a free tool — therefore involves transferring your personal data outside the European Economic Area to the United States. The United States does not have a European Commission adequacy decision covering this kind of transfer, so it does not benefit from an automatic finding that US law offers equivalent protection.

We are working to put Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and/or a formal Data Processing Agreement in place with each of these providers as an additional transfer safeguard. As of the date at the top of this policy, those agreements have not yet been formally signed with any of the three providers — we are disclosing that plainly rather than claiming a protection that is not yet in place. We will update this notice once formal agreements are executed. If you have concerns about this transfer, you can avoid it by not subscribing, not signing in, and relying on browser tools (e.g. an ad/tracker blocker) to limit analytics — though our analytics are already cookieless and cannot identify you.

We do not transfer personal data to any other country or to any other processor.

How long we keep your data

We keep your email address for as long as you remain subscribed to the newsletter. Every email we send includes an unsubscribe link — clicking it immediately stops all future emails to that address. Unsubscribing does not, by itself, delete the record: your address is kept, marked as unsubscribed, so we do not accidentally re-add you and so we can demonstrate compliance with your opt-out if ever asked.

If you want your address deleted entirely rather than just marked unsubscribed, email us and ask — we will process the request and delete your address within 30 days (GDPR Art. 17, right to erasure).

No profiling, no automated decisions

We do not profile our subscribers. We do not use your email address or any other data to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects. You will not be scored, ranked, or categorized based on your behavior.

Affiliate links

Outbound links under the /go/ path are affiliate redirect links. When you click one, we record the click for aggregate statistics: which link was clicked, your browser type, the referring page, your country, and a one-way hash of your IP address mixed with a secret salt. We never store your raw IP address, and the hash cannot be reversed to identify you. Click data is not linked to your email address or any other identifier — we use it only to understand which content is useful to readers.

We maintain a presence on Pinterest and operate a Pinterest developer application (the "Backyard Freedom Lab app") that connects to the Pinterest API.

App purpose. The app exists for one purpose: to publish our own editorial content — pins that link to articles, guides, and reviews on backyardfreedomlab.com — to Pinterest boards that we own, and to read aggregated performance statistics (such as impressions and saves) for our own pins and boards. The app acts exclusively on our own Pinterest business account.

What the app does not do. The app does not access, collect, or store personal data about any other Pinterest user. It does not read your Pinterest profile, boards, or activity. It has no connection to the newsletter data described above, and no data collected on this website is ever sent to Pinterest. We do not use the Pinterest Tag or any other Pinterest tracking technology on this site.

If you interact with our content on Pinterest (for example by saving or clicking a pin), that interaction happens on Pinterest's platform and is governed by the Pinterest Privacy Policy. We only see the aggregated, anonymous statistics Pinterest provides to all content publishers.

Your rights under GDPR

If you are in the European Economic Area (or the UK), you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate data.
Erasure — ask us to delete your data ("right to be forgotten").
Restriction of processing — ask us to restrict processing of your data while a request is being handled.
Data portability — receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
Objection — object to processing of your data, including for direct marketing, at any time.
Withdrawal of consent — unsubscribe at any time using the link in any newsletter email, or by contacting us directly. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
Complaint to a supervisory authority — you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority (for example, your national DPA within the EEA).

To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@backyardfreedomlab.com. We will respond within one month as required by GDPR Article 12.

Changes to this policy

If we make material changes to how we handle your data, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify subscribers by email before the change takes effect.