Privacy policy

This policy explains how we handle the personal data collected on socialphobiaworld.com: who is responsible, what data we use, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it and what your rights are.

Data controller

The controller of the data collected through socialphobiaworld.com is Jordi Tomas, resident in Lleida (Spain). You can contact him at or with the contact form.

What data we process

• Account data of members who registered while registrations were open: username, email, password (stored encrypted) and, if given, date of birth.
• Optional profile data: location, avatar, signature, website and anything else the member chose to add.
• Content: forum messages, private messages and Nostalgia wall messages.
• Technical data: IP address, browser, dates of access and browsing data collected through cookies, including those of Google AdSense and, if enabled, Google Analytics (see the cookie policy).
• Contact form: the name, email and message you send us, and your IP address.

Why we use your data and on what legal basis

• Managing your account: letting you log in, read your private messages, delete your messages and delete your account, and sending you a link to reset your password when you ask for it. Legal basis: performance of the terms of use you accepted when registering (art. 6.1.b GDPR).
• Keeping the forum secure: moderation and prevention of spam, fraud and abuse, including recording IP addresses. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in protecting the forum and its members (art. 6.1.f GDPR).
• Visit statistics with Google Analytics, if enabled. Legal basis: your consent to analytics cookies (art. 6.1.a GDPR).
• Showing advertising with Google AdSense, personalised only if you accept it. Legal basis: your consent (art. 6.1.a GDPR), which you can withdraw at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of the page.
• Answering your questions and requests to exercise your rights, and meeting requests from authorities. Legal basis: compliance with legal obligations (art. 6.1.c GDPR).

We do not send commercial emails or newsletters, and we do not take automated decisions that affect you.

Public messages and sensitive data

Messages posted on the forum are public: any visitor can read them and search engines can index them. As this is a forum about social anxiety, many messages talk about health. They were published by their authors' own decision; we recommend not revealing information that identifies you (full name, phone, address, photos).

You can delete your own messages at any time from Your messages, and your Nostalgia wall messages from the wall itself. If you delete your account, we erase your account data (email, password, profile and avatar) and your public messages are kept under a generic name ("deleted" followed by a number), with no link to you, so that conversations stay coherent. If you want some messages removed, delete them before deleting your account: afterwards we can no longer tell which messages were yours. Other members may have quoted your messages in their replies.

Recipients of the data

We do not sell or give your data to third parties for their own commercial purposes. To run the forum, some providers process data on our behalf (data processors), under contract and only to provide their service:

• OVH SAS: hosting of the forum and its database, and sending of the forum's emails, on servers in France.
• Cloudflare, Inc.: network that protects the site against attacks and delivers its pages; it processes visitors' IP addresses and technical data.
• Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL: storage of backups in Amazon S3 (Ireland).

In addition, if you accept it in the cookie settings, Google receives browsing data (cookie identifiers, IP address, pages visited) through Google AdSense (advertising) and, if enabled, Google Analytics (statistics). More information in the cookie policy and in Google's explanation.

We may also disclose data to courts and law enforcement when the law requires it.

International transfers

Hosting and backups are in the European Union. The data received by Google and Cloudflare may be processed in the United States. Both companies take part in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which the European Commission considers to provide an adequate level of protection.

How long we keep data

• Account and profile: while you have an account. We do not delete accounts for inactivity.
• After you delete your account: your account data is erased immediately; your public messages remain under the generic name, as explained above.
• IP addresses: kept for up to one year, then deleted.
• Contact form messages: kept while needed to answer you and, at most, three years.
• Backups: renewed periodically; deleted data may remain in them until they expire, without being used for any other purpose.
• Cookies: the lifetime of each one is given in the cookie policy.

Your rights

You can exercise these rights at any time:

• Access: know whether we process your data and get a copy.
• Rectification: correct inaccurate data or complete incomplete data.
• Erasure: ask us to delete your data or your account. You can also do it yourself from your account, with the exceptions explained in "Public messages and sensitive data".
• Restriction: ask us to stop using your data while a complaint about it is resolved.
• Portability: receive your data in a structured, commonly used format.
• Objection: object to processing based on our legitimate interest, for reasons related to your situation.
• Withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting what was processed before; for cookies, with Cookie settings.

To exercise them, write to or use the contact form, if possible from the email address of your account, so we can check that the account is yours. We will reply within one month.

If you think we have not handled your request properly or that your data is not processed correctly, you can file a complaint with the Spanish Data Protection Agency (www.aepd.es) or the data protection authority of your country.

Minors

Accounts are only for people aged 14 or over. If you are younger, please do not use your account; we may delete accounts of minors and ask for proof of age.

Last updated: 24 October 2026.