Privacy Policy
The short version
Roots collects only what it needs to help you meet a neighbor: your name, road, email, and what you'd like to share with the community. We don't sell your data. We don't run ads. You can delete your account and everything in it at any time from Settings.
1. Who we are
Roots is a small community project for the town of Weston, Connecticut. It's operated by Finn McArdle. If you want to reach a real person, email hello@westonroots.org.
2. What we collect
When you sign in with Google, we receive your name and email from Google. We use those to create your Roots account.
When you complete your profile, you choose what to share: the road you live on, your age range, and what you'd like to offer or ask the community. You control all of this. You can edit or remove any of it later.
When you post to the board or message a neighbor, that content is stored so it can be shown to the intended audience. Public posts are visible to signed-in Roots members. Direct messages are visible only to you and the neighbor you're messaging.
We also automatically record basic technical information — things like the date you signed up, when you last logged in, and how you use core features — so the site works and so we can spot problems.
3. What we do with it
We use your information to:
- Show your profile and posts to other signed-in neighbors in Weston
- Deliver messages between you and other members
- Send you the emails you've opted into (welcome, match approvals, direct-message alerts, the weekly digest)
- Keep the community safe — including reviewing reports, moderating content, and blocking people who break the rules
We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers. We do not use it to train machine-learning models outside of what's needed to run Roots.
4. Where your information lives
Your data is stored with a small number of trusted service providers that make Roots work:
- Supabase — our database and authentication host, based in the United States
- Google — sign-in provider (only if you use Google to sign in)
- Resend — sends the emails Roots delivers to you
- Anthropic — powers the optional writing assistant in Messages. If you use "Help me reply," the visible conversation between you and the other neighbor is sent to Anthropic to generate a suggestion. If you don't use those buttons, none of your messages are sent to Anthropic.
- Netlify — hosts the website
- Cloudflare — handles DNS and email routing for the westonroots.org domain
5. Your choices
Delete your account
You can delete your account at any time. Sign in, open your dashboard, scroll to "Account," and click "Delete my account." When you do this, we remove your profile, your posts, your messages, and your email preferences. Some records may be retained in encrypted backups for up to 30 days before being fully purged.
Email preferences
You can turn off the weekly digest and direct-message notifications in Settings. Some transactional emails (welcome, match approvals, and important notices from Roots) can't be turned off while your account is active — but you can always delete your account instead.
What you post
You can edit or delete any post you've made from the board. Once a message has been sent to another neighbor, we can't "unsend" it from their view — but you can delete your side of the thread.
6. Kids under 18
Roots is for adults. You must be 18 or older to create an account. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you're a parent and you believe your child has signed up, email hello@westonroots.org and we'll delete the account.
7. Security
We use industry-standard practices to protect your information — encrypted connections (HTTPS), encrypted-at-rest storage, and access controls on the database. No system is perfectly secure, but we take this seriously and don't collect data we don't need.
8. If you live in California, or the EU
You have additional rights under laws like CCPA and GDPR — including the right to know what we have on you, to correct it, and to have it deleted. Email hello@westonroots.org with the subject line "Data request" and we'll respond within 30 days. Roots is a Weston-only community, so these requests are rare, but we'll honor them.
9. Changes to this policy
If we update this policy in a meaningful way, we'll let members know by email and by posting a notice on the site. The "Last updated" date at the top of the page will always reflect the current version.
10. Contact
Questions or concerns: hello@westonroots.org.