Privacy Policy

Debategle operates the website at https://debategle.com.

Privacy contact: privacy@debategle.com

2.1 Account information (via Clerk)

• Email address
• Username (chosen by you or derived from email)
• Profile picture URL
• Persistent user identifier (Clerk ID)
• Sign-in events including timestamps, IP address, and user agent (held by Clerk)

2.2 Profile information you provide

• Date of birth (collected once, used solely to verify you are 18 or older)
• Political compass position (Economic axis −10 to +10, Social axis −10 to +10)
• Selected debate topics (3–5 from a fixed list)

2.3 Debate content

• All text messages submitted during debates
• Phase and timing metadata (turn number, submission time, word count)
• AI judge summaries and ELO changes per match

2.4 Moderation data

• Reports you file or that are filed against you
• Warning history, ban history (reason, duration), account suspension status
• Real-time strike counts during a debate (Redis, 2-hour TTL)
• Moderation events from automated systems: category, confidence score, and action taken. No media is stored with these events.
• Manual ELO adjustments by admins

2.5 Voice and video (only if you enable video mode)

• Live audio/video streams flow directly peer-to-peer via WebRTC. We do not record or store them.
• Live speech captions are generated by your browser’s built-in speech recognition. In Chrome and Edge, audio is transmitted to your browser vendor (Google / Microsoft) for processing. The resulting text is sent through our servers to your opponent, is screened by automated moderation, and is not stored.
• Video moderation: while video mode is active, your browser periodically samples a downscaled frame from your own camera and sends it to our servers for AI safety classification. Frames are processed transiently and are never stored; only the classification result (category, confidence, action) is logged.
• ICE/TURN credentials are issued through Metered.live (see Section 6).

2.6 Appeals and contact form

• Appeal text and any evidence you submit
• Bug reports and inquiries (subject, message, and optional name/email)

2.7 Server logs

• IP address, user agent, timestamps (held briefly by our hosting providers Render.com and Cloudflare)
• Application logs may contain truncated user identifiers for debugging

2.8 Cookies and local storage

• Essential, always on. Clerk session cookie (authentication); sessionStorage during onboarding; localStorage flag for cookie-consent state (cookie_consent_v2).
• Advertising, off by default; only set after you opt in via the cookie banner. When enabled, ad-partner cookies may track ad relevance and frequency (see Section 14).
• Analytics, off by default; only set after you opt in. When enabled, an aggregated usage telemetry cookie may be set to help us improve the product. None is running today.

You can review or change these choices any time via the “Cookie settings” link in the footer.

We collect the following sensitive personal information (CPRA § 1798.140(ae)):

• Political opinions — compass position, topic selections
• Voice biometrics — only when you enable video mode; not recorded by us, but transmitted

You have the right to limit our useof this information. To opt out of political-compass-based matchmaking, use the “Revoke compass consent” control in your profile settings, or contact us at the address in Section 1.

Debate transcripts are sent to Anthropic (Claude) for:

• Live analysis during the debate (fact-checks, fallacy detection) — one call per submitted message
• Final judging at the end of the debate — full transcript

These calls include the topic, message text, and generic “Participant A/B” labels. We do not send your username, email, or Clerk ID.

Anthropic’s processing terms: anthropic.com/legal/privacy

We do not sell personal information. Advertising and analytics processors only receive data when you opt in via the cookie banner. See Section 14 for details.

You may request to:

• Know what personal information we hold about you
• Access a copy of it (Profile → Download my data)
• Correct inaccurate information (most fields editable in profile)
• Delete your account and associated data (in profile settings)
• Limit use of sensitive personal information (revoke compass consent)
• Opt out of personalized advertising and analytics (Cookie settings)
• Opt out of any processing not necessary to provide the service

To make a request, email privacy@debategle.com or use the in-app deletion in your profile. We respond within 45 days (CCPA) or 1 month (GDPR), extendable once with notice.

Debategle is an adults-only service. You must be 18 or older to use it. We collect your date of birth at onboarding solely to verify that you are an adult. If we learn that an account belongs to a person under 18, we suspend it pending review and delete it along with associated personal information. To report a suspected underage user, use the in-debate report button (“User appears to be under 18”) or the contact page.

We use HTTPS for all web traffic and WSS for WebSockets. Passwords are managed by Clerk and never reach our servers. Database connections are TLS-encrypted. However, no system is fully secure. Report security issues to security@debategle.com.

Most of our processors are US-based. If you are in the EU/UK, your data is transferred to the US under applicable standard contractual clauses.

We will post material changes with at least 30 days’ notice and update the “Last updated” date above.

We do not sell personal information. We may “share” limited identifiers (IP address, ad-cookie identifiers) with advertising partners for cross-context behavioral advertising only after you opt in via the cookie banner. You can withdraw consent at any time:

• Click the Cookie settings link in the footer and toggle off Advertising.
• Or email privacy@debategle.com with the subject “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information”.

Debategle is free to use. To cover hosting and AI costs, we may display ads. There are two possible categories:

• Contextual ads, chosen based on the page (e.g., the debate topic), not your profile or compass. These do not require advertising-cookie consent.
• Personalized (behavioral) ads, chosen partly based on signals from ad-partner cookies. These are only served if you opt in via the cookie banner.

We do not transmit your username, email, Clerk ID, political compass, or debate content to ad networks. Ad partners may still receive standard request data (IP address, user agent) and, with your consent, ad-cookie identifiers.

You can change your ad preferences any time via Cookie settings in the footer.