Privacy policy
Draft, updated 29 Oct 2026. To be reviewed by the project owner and the Association, including legally, before official use.
Who is responsible
The Tiếp Cận project (owner: the person who started it, working with the Vietnam Youth Association of People with Disabilities; the legal entity will be updated). The contact channel for personal data will be added here.
What the project stores
- Account: email, display name (a nickname is fine), and the password and the password recovery code in one-way hashed form (they cannot be read back), and the time of your last sign-in.
- Survey reports: answers, measurements, the GPS position at the place, the photos you upload, and the messages between you and the administrators.
- Photos: when uploaded, photos are compressed and all EXIF data is removed. Only the position and time from the EXIF are kept in the database, visible to administrators only, to cross-check the GPS position you report. Only the photos you upload in the public-photo section (overview, entrance, main door, toilet, lift), with your confirmation, are published after an administrator has looked at and approved each one; extra photos stay unpublished. The overview photo is the cover in the list; the public photos appear on the place's detail page and belong to the Project once the report is approved (see deleting your account).
- Survey / map requests: the request and the contact detail you choose to give (if any).
- Your location (optional): when you open the home page, your browser asks whether to share your location. If you agree, the map opens where you are; the location is used only on your device and the project does not receive or store it. If you decline, the map opens on Hanoi.
- Voice search (optional): when you press the microphone button in the search box, your browser asks for permission to use the microphone and turns speech into text with the browser's own speech-recognition feature. In some browsers (for example Chrome and Edge) the audio may be sent to the browser vendor's recognition service (such as Google or Microsoft) and handled under that vendor's policy. The project does not receive, record or store the audio; only the recognised text is put into the search box on your device. You can skip this button and type as usual.
- Requests from guests (not signed in): to prevent spam, the project sets a random device cookie (it contains no personal data) and stores a one-way hash of the IP address, not the raw IP. The IP hash and the submission-count log are deleted after 30 days; the request itself is kept. A guest who wants a sent request deleted can use the contact channel above.
- The project uses no advertising cookies or trackers. There is only the sign-in cookie (keeps your session) and the anti-spam device cookie used when guests send requests.
What it is used for
Only to run the project: checking and approving reports, replying to you, counting how many people request the same place, and preventing abuse. The project does not sell personal data or use it for advertising.
What is published
After approval, information about the place (name, address, position, accessibility level, measurements, comment, survey date) is published, including as open data and an open API (ODbL 1.0 licence; photos are not included). The surveyor's name, email and contact details are not published.
Your rights
- See and download your data: the "Download my data" button in Profile > Account details.
- Delete your account: the "Delete account" button in the same section. Your account, password, requests, and reports that are unapproved or rejected, with their photos, are deleted. Approved reports, public photos and published places belong to the Project (you agree when submitting) so they are kept and may already have been added to Google Maps and OpenStreetMap; your name is removed and the report shows as by an anonymous surveyor. If a photo accidentally shows someone who did not consent, or has an error, contact us so the Project can remove it.
- To correct, restrict or object to processing: use the contact channel above.
The project aims to comply with Vietnamese personal data protection law (Decree 13/2023/ND-CP and related texts). This part needs a legal check before official launch.
Storage and security
Data is stored on the project's server in Vietnam, with regular backups. Passwords are hashed; photos can only be seen by the report owner and administrators (except the approved public photos). No system is perfectly safe; if an incident affects your data, the project will tell you.