PRIVACY

Measure the archive,
not the person.

PastTrace uses PostHog EU Cloud to understand whether the archive is useful and where its coverage is weak. Public visitors remain anonymous in PastTrace: we do not ask them to create accounts and we do not send their email address or real identity to analytics.

What we measure

Page views, searches, result counts, filters, record opens, source clicks, and download clicks.
Approximate country-level location derived by the analytics provider, browser language, device category, browser, operating system, referrer, and UTM campaign parameters.
Zero- and low-result queries so we can decide which archival material to index next.

What we deliberately avoid

No session replay, automatic form capture, or keystroke recording.
No public visitor account, email identification, exact street address, GPS location, or individual-tracking dashboard.
No correction or takedown form contents are sent to PostHog.

About IP processing

PostHog may process an IP address transiently to provide approximate geography and security controls. PastTrace does not display or store raw IP addresses in its admin dashboard, and geography defaults to country-level aggregates. We therefore do not describe this measurement as “fully anonymous.”

Search-query protection

Search text is truncated before analytics capture. Email-like values, URLs, and long numeric identifiers are replaced with redaction markers. Do not enter private or sensitive personal information into the archive search.

Your browser choices

PastTrace asks the analytics library to respect the browser’s Do Not Track setting. You can also block analytics with browser privacy controls. The public archive remains accessible when analytics is blocked.