Privacidad

ŌPUNTIA is a pre-launch project, not an incorporated company. The controller responsible for data processing on this website is the natural person named above, operating in a private capacity. No Data Protection Officer has been appointed; none is currently required at this scale.

This website and the database behind it run on a single server rented from Hetzner Online GmbH (Hetzner), a German company, in a data centre in Nuremberg, Germany. Serving the site automatically processes technical connection data for every visit, such as IP address, browser and device information, the page requested, referring page and timestamp, which is kept in server logs for a limited period so that the site can be delivered securely and reliably and misuse can be detected and prevented.

This processing is necessary for the technical operation of the site and rests on legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) in a secure, functioning website. Hetzner acts only on the controller's instructions and has no independent use for the data. Hosting this site involves no transfer outside the EU at all: the server, the logs and the database are all in Germany. Until 11 September 2026 the site was hosted by Vercel Inc., a company based in the United States, and an earlier version of this policy described that arrangement; moving to a German server removed that transfer.

This site uses the Cormorant Garamond and Jost typefaces via Next.js's built-in font optimisation, which downloads the font files at build time and serves them from this site's own domain. Your browser never requests anything from Google's font servers, and no connection data or IP address is shared with Google for this purpose.

This site sets one cookie: `opuntia_locale`, which remembers your chosen language for up to one year. It contains only a language code, is read solely by this website, and is not used for tracking or advertising.

This cookie is strictly necessary for a function you actively request (keeping the site in your chosen language) and is therefore set without requiring consent, under Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR and § 25(2) No. 2 TDDDG. You can delete it at any time through your browser settings; the site will simply ask again for your language preference.

No analytics, marketing or tracking technology of any kind is used on this site: no Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, Plausible or comparable service, and no advertising cookies or pixels. Your visit is not followed from page to page, you are not profiled, and nothing you do here is recorded unless you choose to submit a form. If that changes in the future, this section will be updated first and consent obtained wherever required before any such technology is activated.

One exception is named here rather than left implied: when you do submit a form, the record of that submission notes which page you sent it from and, if you reached the site through a link carrying campaign parameters, those parameters and the referring address. That is stored with your submission, and it is not used to follow you anywhere. See "What the database stores".

Every form on this site works the same way: your submission is sent by email, using the Gmail SMTP service, directly to the project mailbox (hello@opuntiagatherings.com), and is also stored in this project's own database, described in the next section. Both have to succeed before a form tells you it worked, so a submission cannot quietly go missing.

The fields below are the only personal data each form collects. Every form also carries two hidden anti-spam fields (a decoy field and a timestamp) that contain no information about you — see "Spam protection".

The database runs on the same server as this website, in Germany, and is reachable only from that server over a private network: it has no public address and accepts no connections from the internet. It is read through an administration area that is not publicly reachable and requires a personal login with two-factor authentication; the only people with access are the controller and a technical service provider acting on the controller's instructions (see "Technical service provider").

For each submission it holds: your answers exactly as you sent them, including free-text answers in full; the structured answers additionally in a normalised form (such as the regions or seasons you selected); which page of this site you submitted from; the referring address and any campaign parameters from the link you arrived through, where present; whether you ticked the consent box, with the time you did so and a version identifier for the wording you agreed to; the time of the submission; and a note that the notification email was sent.

It does not hold your IP address. No visitor IP address is ever written to the database, for any form, and no cookie or identifier links your submission to your browsing.

Purpose: to keep an accurate record of what people have told us, and to understand in aggregate what kind of gathering there is genuine interest in. Legal basis: the same as for the form you submitted, named in its own section below. Retention: as set out for that form, and under "Retention and erasure".

The controller engages a technical service provider to operate the infrastructure (the server, the database and the application) and the sending of emails. Under the GDPR this provider is a processor (Art. 28), acting only on the controller's documented instructions and with no independent use for the data.

To do that work, the provider can access the personal data stored for your submissions, including the full content of emails sent to you, through the administration area described above (which requires a personal login with two-factor authentication, so every access is attributable to a specific person). A written data processing agreement (Art. 28(3) GDPR) binds the provider to confidentiality and to the security measures set out in this policy, and requires the return or deletion of the data when the engagement ends. The provider engages only the sub-processors named elsewhere in this policy (Hetzner for hosting, the email delivery provider, and Sentry for error monitoring) and no others without notice to the controller.

Fields: name, email address, reason for contact, subject, message, and — only if you choose to add them — organisation and website. Purpose: to answer your enquiry. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (steps taken at your request before entering into a contract) or Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in responding to messages sent to us). Recipients: the controller above, by email via Gmail, and this project's own database (see "What the database stores"). Retention: until your enquiry is resolved; see "Retention and erasure".

Fields: name, email, your preferred formats, learning interests, seasons and regions, and — optionally — dietary needs, accessibility needs, language preference and a free-text note. Purpose: to understand demand and contact you about gatherings that match your interests. Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), given by ticking the consent box before submitting. Recipients: the controller above, by email via Gmail, and this project's own database (see "What the database stores"). Retention: until you withdraw consent or the underlying concept is no longer being developed; see "Retention and erasure".

Fields: name, email, country or city, likely number of guests, and — optionally — preferred room type, dietary needs, accessibility needs, language preference and a message. Joining the Priority List is a non-binding expression of interest — it does not reserve a place and does not create a booking, purchase or payment obligation.

Purpose: to gauge interest in a specific gathering that is taking shape, and to contact you if and when it moves forward. Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), given by two separate, unticked checkboxes — one acknowledging that joining is non-binding, one consenting to this processing — each linked to this policy. Recipients: the controller above, by email via Gmail, and this project's own database (see "What the database stores"). Retention: until you withdraw consent or the gathering is confirmed, cancelled or no longer developed; see "Retention and erasure".

After joining, you may optionally answer a short follow-up questionnaire (what you're hoping to feel more of, what you're curious to learn or explore, how you like to travel, and free-text answers about what you'd rather a gathering not include or anything else you'd like us to know). Answering it is entirely optional, is not required to remain on the Priority List, and is covered by the same consent given when you joined — this data is used only to shape gatherings around what people are genuinely drawn to. Retention follows the same terms as your Priority List entry above.

Fields: name, email, number of guests, and — depending on the form — preferred room type, region, language preference and a message, plus an optional opt-in to be notified about future editions. Purpose: to contact you about the specific gathering or a future edition of it. Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). Recipients: the controller above, by email via Gmail, and this project's own database (see "What the database stores"). Retention: until you withdraw consent or the relevant gathering is resolved; see "Retention and erasure".

Field: email address only. Purpose: to notify you when the seasonal totes become available — nothing else. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (steps taken at your request). Recipients: the controller above, by email via Gmail, and this project's own database (see "What the database stores"). Retention: until the totes are released or you ask to be removed; see "Retention and erasure".

Each form's section above names the point at which its purpose ends. Your data is erased when you withdraw consent, when you ask us to erase it, or when the project concludes, whichever comes first.

There is no automated deletion schedule, and it would be misleading to imply one: with the small number of people on these lists, erasure is done by hand on request. That normally happens within a few days and always within one month, as Art. 12(3) GDPR requires. Erasure covers both copies, the database record and the email, not one of them.

Forms use two automated, invisible checks — a decoy field that only automated software fills in, and a minimum time-to-submit — to reject spam before it is sent. Both run entirely on this server, involve no third-party service, no CAPTCHA and no additional personal data, and cannot identify you.

This site reports technical errors to Sentry (Functional Software, Inc., trading as Sentry) so that a page which breaks can be found and fixed. Reports go to Sentry's European data region, and are generated both on this server and, for errors that happen only in your browser, from your browser.

Every category of personal data the service is capable of collecting is switched off explicitly in this site's configuration: no user information, no cookies, no request or response headers, no request bodies, no URL query parameters, no database query contents, and no variable values from the code. What remains is the technical error itself: its type, where in the code it happened, and which page it happened on. Form submissions and administration credentials are never sent to Sentry.

Because a report from your browser is an ordinary internet request, Sentry necessarily sees the IP address it comes from; the configuration instructs it not to record that as part of the report. Legal basis: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) in a working, secure website. Sentry's own privacy documentation is at sentry.io/privacy.

Hosting no longer involves any transfer outside the EU: since 11 September 2026 this site and its database run on a German server operated by a German company. Two providers used to operate this site remain US-based companies: Google LLC (Gmail, used only to deliver form-submission emails) and Functional Software, Inc. (Sentry, used only for technical error reports, configured to send no personal data and to store reports in its European region). Using them can involve processing connection or message data outside the EU/EEA. Both providers publish their own safeguards for such transfers (including standard contractual clauses) in their respective privacy and data-processing documentation.

You have the right to access (Art. 15 GDPR), rectify (Art. 16), erase (Art. 17), restrict the processing of (Art. 18), receive a portable copy of (Art. 20), and object to (Art. 21) your personal data. Where processing rests on consent, you may withdraw it at any time, with effect for the future, by emailing hello@opuntiagatherings.com.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority. As the operator is based in Berlin, the competent authority is the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, BlnBDI), datenschutz-berlin.de — or the supervisory authority in your own EU member state.