Last updated 28 August 2026
Machine Canon is a research notebook, not a product. It collects as little as it can and still function. This page says exactly what that is.
Machine Canon is published by Ivan LaBianca, an independent researcher based in the United States. For any question about this policy, or to have data deleted, write to hello@machinecanon.com.
For the purposes of the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation, Ivan LaBianca is the data controller.
We count readers, but we do not identify them. When a page loads, your browser sends us a small report when you leave: which page it was, roughly how long you stayed, how far down you scrolled, which of a few labelled links you clicked, whether you were on a phone, and the site that sent you here. That is all.
What we do not collect: your IP address is not stored, your browser signature is not stored, no cookie is set, and nothing is written to your device. Each page load gets a random number that exists only in your browser’s memory for that visit and is not connected to any other visit — so we cannot tell whether two page loads came from the same person, and neither can anyone else. If your browser sends the Do Not Track signal, the report is not sent at all. No advertising, no tracking pixels, no third-party analytics service.
This is done in the open: the script is /js/beacon.js, and the full list of fields it sends is in its first comment.
One qualification, stated because it is true: pages currently load typefaces from Google Fonts, which means your browser makes a request to a Google server and Google receives your IP address. We are removing this by self-hosting the fonts.
Our hosting provider (Netlify) processes standard server request data, including your IP address, in order to deliver the page to you. We do not have access to an identifiable log of that and do not use it.
The pilot tool sends your question to a panel of AI models and shows you what they said. When you do that, the following is stored:
We do not store your IP address. To stop one person exhausting the daily budget, the system creates a one-way hash of your IP address and browser user-agent, combined with a secret salt and that day’s date. The raw IP is never written to storage, and the hash changes every day, so runs cannot be linked across days.
To be precise rather than reassuring: this is pseudonymisation, not anonymisation. It remains personal data under GDPR. The set of possible IP and browser combinations is small enough that someone holding the secret salt could test whether a particular visitor produced a particular hash. We hold that salt; nobody else does. We describe it this way because a privacy claim that overstates its own protection is worse than no claim.
Please do not put personal information in a pilot question. Before the Pilot or desk runs, the site asks you to acknowledge that your question will be sent through OpenRouter to AI model providers, stored with the answers, and may be published if it passes the site’s safety review. Do not include your name, anyone else’s name, confidential material, or anything you would not want published.
Accounts are optional and passwordless: you give us your email address, we send a six-digit code, and entering it signs you in and confirms the address in one step. For an account we store your email address, sign-in timestamps, and — only if you tick the box — your Field Notes subscription choice, recorded with the time and the version of the notice you saw. Signing in never subscribes you to anything by itself.
Account data lives in Supabase (already listed below) and is used to operate your account and, with consent, to send the letter. Ask and we delete the account and everything attached to it.
New mailing-list signups are currently paused while a confirmed double-opt-in process is built. Addresses submitted before the pause remain stored with their source and may be deleted on request. They are not sold, rented, or shared for anyone else’s marketing.
Until voting moves to signed-in accounts, we store the item voted on, the direction, and an item-specific pseudonymous token derived from your IP address and browser user-agent with a secret HMAC key. The same visitor receives a stable token for the same item, but a different token for every other item, which prevents the vote table from linking activity across questions. The raw IP and user-agent are not stored. Your browser also uses local storage to remember which buttons you selected.
Under GDPR terms, our lawful bases are:
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Pilot questions and model answers | Indefinitely, as part of the research record. A takedown immediately blocks public feed, replay and share-page access and deletes the stored preview image. The restricted database record remains until it is manually deleted. |
| Daily visitor hash | Rotates every day. Rate-limit counters are currently retained; automatic deletion is not yet implemented. |
| Email addresses | Until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it. |
| Votes | Indefinitely for now. One row per item-specific pseudonymous token, with a timestamp; the browser’s local vote state remains until you clear site storage. |
Three service providers are involved:
These providers may process data outside your country, including in the United States. Nothing is sold, and nothing is shared with advertisers, because there are none.
If you are in the UK, EU, or a jurisdiction with comparable law, you have the right to ask what we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to processing, to have it exported, and to complain to your data protection authority.
This site is run by one person and does not meet the thresholds that make the California Consumer Privacy Act apply. We will nonetheless honour any request to know or delete from a California resident, on the same terms as everyone else. We do not sell or share personal information, and never have.
To exercise any of these, email hello@machinecanon.com. Because we deliberately hold no identifiers, we may not be able to locate a pilot run as yours unless you can tell us the question you asked and roughly when. Email addresses we can find immediately.
This site is not directed at children under 13 (or under 16 in the EU/UK), and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has submitted something, write to us and we will delete it.
Data is held with reputable providers and access is limited to the site’s operator. No system is perfectly secure, and this one is run by one person. We do not hold payment details, passwords, or anything we would consider sensitive — which is itself the main security measure.
If this policy changes materially, the date at the top changes and the previous version remains available in the site’s public repository history.