Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 9, 2026

We built TaxPeople.org to collect as little as possible: an email address, and whatever you choose to put on your public profile. This policy explains exactly what that means in practice, how it lines up with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and — front and center, because it matters most — how to delete everything permanently, yourself, in one click.

1. Who is responsible for your data

TaxPeople.org is operated by Word.me LLC, d/b/a TaxPeople.org, 1900 Eddy St, San Francisco, CA 94115, USA — the controller responsible for the processing described in this policy, within the meaning of Art. 4(7) GDPR. For any privacy question, request, or complaint, contact us at privacy@taxpeople.org.

2. Data we process, and why

We only collect data we need to run the directory. Nothing is collected "just in case."

Data	Purpose	Legal basis (Art. 6(1) GDPR)	Retention
Email address	Sign you in via a one-time link; send that link	(b) Necessary to provide the service you asked for	Until you delete your account
Profile content you enter (name, firm, credential, service areas, specialties, one-liner, Q&A answers)	Display your public listing in the directory	(b) Necessary to provide the service; you control publication	Until you edit, unpublish, or delete your account
Session identifier (a random token in a cookie — no personal data in the cookie itself)	Keep you signed in between visits	(b) Necessary to provide the service	30 days, or until you log out
Sign-in link token	Prove the email is yours before creating a session	(b) Necessary to provide the service	15 minutes, single use, deleted on account deletion
IP address, at the moment you request a sign-in link	Bot and abuse prevention (Cloudflare Turnstile)	(f) Legitimate interest in keeping the service usable and free of automated abuse	Not stored by us — processed transiently by Cloudflare to return a pass/fail result

We do not run analytics, advertising pixels, cross-site trackers, or session-replay tools on this site. We do not sell, rent, or otherwise monetize your data — there is no data broker relationship of any kind. There is no newsletter or marketing list; the only emails we send are the sign-in link you asked for.

3. What becomes public

A professional's profile is private by default. Nothing about you is visible to the public until you explicitly click Publish profile. Once published, the following becomes visible to any visitor: your name, firm, credential type and license number (if provided), service areas, specialties, one-liner, and any Q&A answers you've marked published. Your email address is never shown publicly, regardless of publish status.

You can unpublish or edit any of this at any time from your dashboard — changes take effect immediately.

4. Who else sees your data

We run on Cloudflare's infrastructure (Workers, D1 database, and email delivery), which acts as our data processor for hosting and sending the sign-in emails you request. We do not use any other third-party processor — no analytics vendor, no CRM, no support-desk tool with your data in it. Cloudflare's own processing is governed by their Data Processing Addendum, which includes Standard Contractual Clauses for any transfer outside the EEA.

We never share your data with advertisers, data brokers, or other professionals on the platform beyond what you've chosen to publish.

5. Your rights under the GDPR

If you're in the EU/EEA (and, as a matter of policy, we extend the same rights to everyone, regardless of location), you have the following rights, and we've tried to make each one something you can exercise yourself rather than something you have to ask us for:

• Access (Art. 15): everything we hold about you is exactly what's shown on your dashboard — there's no hidden record.
• Rectification (Art. 16): edit any field yourself, any time, from your dashboard.
• Erasure (Art. 17): delete your account permanently, yourself, from your dashboard — see below.
• Restriction of processing (Art. 18): unpublish your profile at any time to stop public display while keeping your account.
• Data portability (Art. 20): email privacy@taxpeople.org and we'll send your profile and Q&A data as a JSON file within 30 days.
• Objection (Art. 21): object to processing based on legitimate interest (e.g. bot-prevention checks) by contacting us — noting that this may mean we can't safely accept sign-in requests from you.
• Lodge a complaint (Art. 77): with your local data protection authority — for example, in Germany, the Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz (BfDI) or your state's Landesdatenschutzbehörde, or the equivalent authority in your own country.

6. Deleting your account (the right to erasure, made actionable)

Go to your dashboard and click Delete my account at the bottom of the page. This immediately and permanently deletes:

• your user record and email address,
• your public profile and everything on it,
• every Q&A answer you've written,
• all of your active sessions, and
• any pending sign-in link tokens tied to your email.

There is no waiting period, no "soft delete," and no backup copy kept for later. If you'd rather not use the dashboard, email privacy@taxpeople.org and we'll do it within 30 days, as GDPR requires at most.

7. Cookies

We set exactly one cookie: a session identifier, strictly necessary to keep you signed in. It's not used for tracking, advertising, or analytics, so under the ePrivacy Directive it doesn't require a consent banner — but we're telling you about it anyway, because that's the point of this policy. The Cloudflare Turnstile widget (shown on the sign-in form) may set its own strictly technical, non-tracking token to verify you're not a bot; see Cloudflare's Turnstile cookie policy for detail.

8. Children

This service is intended for tax and financial professionals and the public seeking their services, and is not directed at children under 16.

9. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that affects how we handle your data, we'll update the date at the top and, for material changes, note it on the homepage. We won't expand what we collect without saying so here first.

10. Contact

Questions, requests, or complaints: privacy@taxpeople.org.