We keep the smallest amount of information we can, and this page tells you exactly what that is.
What we collect
Your email (never shown publicly), a username or display name (this can be a nickname), and a password (stored only as a secure hash). A date of birth, collected once at signup to confirm you are 13 or older — it is never shown publicly and is not used for anything else. Optionally, a general region — a state or an area like "Pacific NW" — so the crew can find people to run with.
Going Live is different — see the detail in our Live Location & Meetup Policy. In short: your precise coordinates are used only to place your session and to power the one-tap Directions link when another logged-in member chooses to navigate to you; the map itself shows a fuzzed pin (about a kilometer off), a session auto-expires within 6 hours at most, and the whole Live page requires being logged in to view at all — it is not visible to the open internet.
What we do NOT collect or store: payment card details or government ID — ever. RC Crash Crew itself never processes payments; every Storefront checkout runs through that shop's own Stripe or PayPal account, and we never see or store your card number.
If you buy something from a hobby shop's Storefront, that order needs a shipping address (and, if you give one, a phone number) so the shop can fulfill and ship it — that's stored on our servers on the shop's behalf, used only to handle that order, and never sold or used for anything else. Texting you (SMS) requires a separate opt-in you give directly, with a one-click unsubscribe. Outside of an actual Storefront purchase — just being a member of the community — RC Crash Crew never asks for or stores your mailing address or phone number.
Your public profile answers one question: what do you run, and what do you know about RC? Not where you live.
Cookies & local storage
We use two cookies, both strictly necessary — never advertising, never third-party, never for tracking you across other sites. A session cookie keeps you logged in and protects the site from cross-site attacks; it expires automatically after 30 days or the moment you log out. If you check "Remember me" when logging in, a second cookie keeps you signed in for up to 90 days without re-entering your password — it is a random token, not your password itself, and it is invalidated the moment you log out, reset your password, or it expires. We also use one small piece of browser storage (not a cookie) to remember if you dismissed the "install this as an app" prompt, so it does not keep popping up. That is it — no advertising cookies, no third-party tracking cookies, no cookie-based analytics — ever.
First-party analytics
To understand real traffic (and filter out bots, crawlers and scanners), we log the page you visited, your browser/device type, and your IP address server-side. This is never sold, never shared with advertisers, and raw records are automatically deleted after 90 days (rolled up into anonymous daily totals first). It is not tied to a cookie and does not follow you across other websites.
Login history
Separately from the traffic analytics above, every time you log in we record the IP address and device/browser used for that specific login. This exists purely for account security — so we (or you, if you ask) can spot a login that doesn't look like you, and so we can act on real abuse. It is deleted automatically the moment you delete your account — nothing lingers behind.
Photos & files
Uploaded photos are compressed and stored to serve the feature you used (a rig photo, a crash report, a wiki image). Photos you send to the AI Rig Inspector for identification are a special case: they are temporary scratch copies, used once for that single AI pass, and deleted immediately afterward — they are never added to your permanent gallery unless you separately choose to save one.
AI
Our AI features read what you show them: your own rig/build data, the photo or question you give them, and public community content (wiki, guides, specs) needed to answer you. The AI never reveals another member's email or private details, and never asks for or repeats your address or phone. AI-detected information (like a part the Rig Inspector spotted in a photo) is always labeled as AI-detected until you confirm it — and once you confirm something yourself, a later AI pass will never silently overwrite it. Full detail is in our AI Use, Data & Accuracy Policy.
Your data, your call
You can export or delete your account any time from Settings. When you delete your account, we permanently remove your email, name, birthdate, password and private content (messages, drafts, AI conversation history). Public contributions you made to the shared map and parts knowledge are kept and reassigned to the RC Crew Community Bot so the whole crew keeps benefiting — your name and email are removed from them.
Business listings
If your business is listed on RC Crash Crew before you have claimed it, that listing is built from publicly available factual information (name, address, hours, category) — see our Business Listings & Shop Claims Policy for how to claim it, correct it, or request its removal.
Questions
Contact us any time through our Contact page for anything in this policy — including a data export, a deletion request, or a copyright/business-listing question.