Privacy Policy

Spar is a live video debate platform. This policy explains what we collect, why we collect it, how live debates are processed, and the choices you have. If you do not agree with this policy, do not use Spar.

1. Information We Collect

Information you provide:

• Account details such as name, username, email, password hash, and profile photo.
• Profile details such as bio, city, state, country, ZIP code, topic interests, and optional political affiliation.
• Debate content including live audio/video, speech, transcripts, turns, fact-check claims, chats, reactions, votes, challenges, and summaries.
• Support, feedback, event RSVP, challenge, and notification information.
• Optional contact details such as phone number for SMS alerts.

Information collected automatically:

• Device, browser, IP address, approximate location, log, security, and diagnostic data.
• Live debate connection metadata from video, realtime, and notification services.
• Usage analytics only when allowed by your privacy choices.
• Cookies, local storage, and similar technologies described in the Cookie Policy.

2. Sensitive Data

Political affiliation and debate speech about politics, religion, health, identity, or similar topics can be sensitive. Political affiliation is optional and can be cleared in Settings. By adding optional sensitive profile information or choosing to debate sensitive topics, you consent to Spar processing that information to provide the platform features you request.

3. Live Video, Recording, Transcription, and AI Processing

When you enter a debate, you must consent on the prejoin screen before joining. Debates may be live-streamed to viewers, recorded through LiveKit/HLS, transcribed, scored, fact-checked, summarized, clipped, and used to power post-debate hangout and recap features. If you are in a location that requires everyone on a call to consent, do not join unless all participants have agreed to participate on Spar.

4. How We Use Information

• Provide accounts, matching, live video rooms, viewer chat, votes, challenges, and notifications.
• Generate AI transcripts, scores, fact-checks, summaries, announcements, clips, and debate recommendations.
• Protect users, prevent abuse, debug outages, enforce Terms, and keep the platform secure.
• Improve Spar through product analytics when you allow analytics.
• Send transactional email, SMS, and in-app notifications.
• Comply with law, respond to valid legal requests, and defend our rights.

5. Service Providers

Spar uses service providers to run the platform. Depending on the feature, these may include Neon/Postgres and Prisma for database services, Vercel for hosting and analytics, LiveKit for video, Pusher for realtime events, xAI/OpenAI/Anthropic/ DeepSeek for AI text processing, ElevenLabs/OpenAI for voice generation, Resend for email, Twilio for SMS, Upstash for rate limiting/cache, Cloudflare/R2 for storage, Cloudflare Turnstile for bot protection, Sentry for error monitoring, PostHog for analytics when allowed, Google for OAuth, and similar infrastructure providers. They process information for Spar under their service terms and data protection commitments.

6. Sharing and Public Visibility

We do not sell personal information for money. We also do not knowingly share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. Public or semi-public parts of Spar may show your username, profile photo, debate record, debates, scores, clips, chats, votes, reactions, and summaries according to the product surface and visibility settings. We may disclose information to service providers, legal authorities, business transfer parties, or with your consent.

7. Cookies and Privacy Choices

Essential cookies are required for login, security, live debates, and saved choices. Optional analytics load only after consent. You can manage choices at Privacy Choices. Spar honors Global Privacy Control by treating it as an opt-out from sale/share and non-essential analytics for that browser.

8. Data Retention

We keep account information while your account is active. Debate records, transcripts, scores, summaries, clips, and safety logs may be retained as needed to provide the product, preserve records involving other participants, prevent abuse, comply with law, and resolve disputes. If you delete your account, we anonymize personal identifiers where possible while retaining non-personal or shared debate records needed for the platform.

9. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to:

• Access or receive a copy of your personal information.
• Correct inaccurate information.
• Delete or anonymize personal information.
• Object to or restrict certain processing.
• Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.
• Opt out of sale/share and certain targeted advertising uses.
• Appeal or complain to a privacy regulator where applicable.

You can export data at /api/user/export, delete your account in Settings, manage privacy choices at Privacy Choices, or contact privacy@spar.fm. We aim to respond within 30 days.

10. California Notice

California residents may request access, correction, deletion, portability, and information about categories of personal information collected, sources, purposes, disclosures, and retention. Spar does not sell personal information for money or knowingly share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. You can still submit a sale/share opt-out through Privacy Choices or Global Privacy Control. We will not discriminate against you for exercising privacy rights.

11. Children and Teens

Spar is not directed to children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Users under 18 must have parent or guardian permission. Contact us if you believe a child provided personal information.

12. Security

We use HTTPS, password hashing, access controls, rate limiting, provider credential controls, and monitoring. No internet service is perfectly secure, so you should use a strong password and avoid sharing sensitive information you do not want debated or stored.

13. Changes

We may update this policy as Spar changes. We will update the effective date and, for material changes, provide notice through the product or another reasonable method.

14. Contact

For privacy questions or rights requests, contact privacy@spar.fm.