Privacy Policy | BMW Owners Club

1. Introduction

BMW - Owners Club ("we," "our," or "us") operates the website at https://bmw.theowners.club. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our website and use our services.

2. Information We Collect

Account Information

When you create an account, we collect information through our authentication provider, Clerk. This may include your name, email address, username, and profile picture. You may also sign in using third-party providers (such as Google or GitHub), in which case we receive basic profile information from those services.

User-Generated Content

We store content you create on our platform, including discussions, comments, reviews, product ownership records, and votes. This data is stored in our Convex database.

Automatically Collected Information

We automatically collect certain information when you visit our site, including your IP address, browser type, operating system, referring URLs, and pages viewed. We use cookies and similar technologies to maintain your session, remember your preferences, and analyze site usage.

3. How We Use Your Information

To provide and maintain our services
To authenticate your identity and manage your account
To display your public profile, contributions, and ownership records
To send notifications related to your account activity
To moderate content and enforce our community guidelines
To analyze usage patterns and improve our platform
To detect and prevent fraud or abuse

4. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services that may collect or process your data:

Clerk -- Authentication and user management
Convex -- Database and backend services
Google Analytics -- Website analytics and usage tracking
Vercel -- Website hosting and deployment
Cloudflare Turnstile -- Bot protection

Each of these services has its own privacy policy governing how they handle your data. We encourage you to review their respective policies.

5. Cookies

We use essential cookies to maintain your authentication session and remember your site preferences (such as theme and display settings). We also use analytics cookies through Google Analytics to understand how visitors interact with our site. You can control cookie settings through your browser preferences.

6. Data Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell your personal information. We may share your information only in the following circumstances: with service providers who assist in operating our platform, when required by law or legal process, to protect our rights or the safety of our users, or in connection with a merger or acquisition.

7. Your Rights

You have the right to access, correct, or delete your personal information. You can update your profile information through your account settings. To request data deletion or exercise other privacy rights, please contact us at the address below.

8. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information. All data is transmitted over encrypted connections (HTTPS), and our infrastructure providers maintain industry-standard security practices. However, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Children's Privacy

Our services are not directed to individuals under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe we have collected information from a child, please contact us so we can promptly remove it.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the updated policy on this page with a revised "Last updated" date.

11. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at admin@theowners.club.