In short
- If you write to us through this site, we use your note only to reply. No newsletter, no lists, never sold.
- This site sets no cookies of its own and runs no analytics or advertising trackers.
- In the engine, each body of knowledge lives in its own space, under its own key, private by default. A private community’s names are seen only by people holding its key.
- The reading never sees names. What people said is read without the speaker’s name.
- A community can keep names with itself: in its own Codex, encrypted with its own key, with SurfaceThread holding only a label.
- Nothing goes to outside AI. SurfaceThread reads, writes and transcribes with its own models, and checks every day that no outside AI company is connected.
- Your knowledge is yours to take: download all of it any time, and a private copy is kept for you every week.
- Words are never sold, and never used to train anyone else’s models. Sharing is a deliberate, reversible choice. Delete means delete.
1. Who we are
SurfaceThread is a knowledge engine. For anything about privacy, write to us through the contact form and mention privacy; a person answers every note.
2. This website
When you write to us
The form asks for your name and email and, if you choose, your organization, what brings you, which description fits you, and a note. We use this only to reply and to continue the conversation you started. We don’t add you to a mailing list, and we don’t sell or share your details.
Your note is delivered to our team’s inbox so that a person sees it, and the engine keeps a record of it. If you say it or send a recording, the recording travels with the email and is kept with it. You’ll get a short thank-you by email. We keep all of it only as long as the conversation needs it, and delete it whenever you ask.
Cookies, statistics and fonts
This site sets no cookies of its own and runs no analytics, advertising or tracking scripts. Fonts, films and everything else come from our own sites, so your visit isn’t shared with font or advertising services. Like any website, our hosting keeps short-lived technical logs to keep the site secure and working.
3. The engine
This part describes how SurfaceThread holds the knowledge people bring to it: recordings, writing, spreadsheets, photographs and artwork, and what the engine surfaces from them.
Its own space
Each body of knowledge lives in its own space, under its own key, held by an accountable person. It is private by default. Only the people its holders let in can see it.
Sharing and exchange
Nothing leaves a space on its own. A public page, or exchange with other organizations and communities, is an explicit choice made by the people the knowledge belongs to. They choose what any partner can see, both names always travel with what is shared, and they can withdraw at any time. A community can go public and go private again; going private closes everything going public opened.
How words are handled
SurfaceThread reads, writes and transcribes with its own models; no outside AI company is connected, and the engine checks this every day. Words are never sold or used to train anyone else’s models, and quotes are always verbatim, checked against the transcript.
Captions and lenses
Captions are made from a recording, in the language it was spoken, and travel only where the recording does: a private community’s captions open only with its key. A community’s own lenses, the questions it asks of its voices, and what they find stay with that community: they show in its own Mirror, and publicly only if the community is public. A lens reaches another community only when its holders share it, and it travels with their name.
The last word is human
What the engine surfaces is offered for people to check, never as a verdict. Every line links back to the person, the words and the moment it came from. People can affirm, refine or correct how they were understood, and a speaker’s own correction stands.
Who is speaking
Knowledge travels with its person: a short line on who is speaking, with a person’s own description of themselves first.
Names
The reading never sees names: what people said is read without the speaker’s name. A community that chooses can keep names with itself, in its own Codex, encrypted with its own key.
File details
Files can carry hidden details, such as where a photo was taken. Whether to keep or remove them is the contributor’s choice.
Export and deletion
Everything held can be exported at any time. Deletion is permanent: deleted material leaves the engine immediately, and leaves its backups within 30 days.
Usage records
We keep records of how much each space uses SurfaceThread, for running and billing the service. These records describe usage, not content.
4. Who helps us run it
- Cloudflare: hosting, storage, security, sending notes from the contact form, and the infrastructure SurfaceThread runs on.
- Google: the team’s inbox, where notes from the contact form arrive.
5. Your rights
You can ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, through the contact form. A person will answer. If you’re not satisfied, you can contact your local data protection authority.
If your words are held in someone else’s space, such as an organization or community you spoke with, its holders decide how they are used and shared. Ask them first; we’ll help if you can’t reach them.
6. Changes
If this page changes, we’ll update the date at the top, and tell the people whose knowledge we hold directly about anything that affects how it is held.