DARIENCRUTE.COM PRIVACY POLICY Version: 1.0 Effective Date: July 13, 2026 Last Updated: July 13, 2026 1. INTRODUCTION DarienCrute.com is operated by Darien Cruté. This Privacy Policy explains how DarienCrute.com, referred to in this policy as "DarienCrute.com," "the Site," "we," "us," or "our," collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects information when you visit the Site, create an account, manage a profile, submit a book review, use the Soulcandle Awakening experience, send a contact message, or otherwise use the Site. This policy applies to DarienCrute.com and the account-based features provided directly through the Site. It does not govern third-party websites, stores, calendar services, or other services that may be linked from the Site. By creating or using an account, you acknowledge that you have received and reviewed this Privacy Policy. Agreement to the separate Terms of Use is required to create or continue using an account. 2. AGE ELIGIBILITY Accounts on DarienCrute.com are intended only for individuals who are at least 16 years old. You may not create or use an account if you are under 16. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 16, we may suspend the account and delete its personal information, subject to any information that must temporarily be retained for security, fraud prevention, legal compliance, or documentation of the deletion. Users who are 16 or 17 are permitted to use the Site, but their personal information receives additional protections. We limit the processing of their information to what is reasonably necessary to: - Create, authenticate, and maintain their account; - Provide a feature or service they request; - Maintain Site functionality; - Respond to support requests; - Prevent fraud, abuse, and security threats; - Enforce our rules and legal rights; or - Comply with applicable law. We do not sell the personal information of users under 18. We also do not use their personal information for targeted advertising, behavioral advertising, or unrelated profiling. Should we introduce a nonessential use of personal information for users under 18, we will provide a separate consent request where required. Declining that request will not prevent access to unrelated Site features. 3. INFORMATION WE COLLECT 3.1 Account Information When you create or maintain an account, we may collect: - Your chosen username; - Your email address; - Your password in hashed form; - Your birthday as entered during signup or profile updates; - Your converted Wickborne birthday; - Your account creation and update dates; - Your account access level and account status; - Password-reset and authentication records; and - Records showing which versions of the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use you accepted or acknowledged. Your plaintext password is not stored in the account database. It is processed through a password-hashing system so the Site can authenticate your login. 3.2 Birthday Information The birthday entered during signup is used to: - Confirm that you meet the minimum age requirement; - Determine whether additional minor-data protections apply; and - Convert your Gregorian birthday into a Wickborne birthday. The current account database stores the resulting Wickborne birthday rather than maintaining a separate Gregorian date-of-birth field. Nevertheless, a Wickborne birthday that includes a birth year may still reveal or allow us to determine your approximate or actual age and is treated as personal information. 3.3 Reviews and Feedback When you leave a book review, we collect: - The book reviewed; - Your star rating; - Your written review; - The date the review was submitted; and - The account associated with the review. A published review may display the star rating and written review. We do not currently display the reviewer's username, email address, birthday, profile, or other identifying account information alongside the review. Reviews remain associated with the submitting account internally so that we can administer, moderate, investigate, edit, or remove submissions and enforce Site rules. Do not include your full name, email address, address, phone number, school, workplace, social-media information, or other sensitive personal information in the text of a public review. Information voluntarily included in the review itself may become publicly visible even though the Site does not display the account identity attached to it. 3.4 Contact Messages When you use the contact form, we may collect: - Your first and last name; - Your email address; - The subject of your message; - The contents of your message; and - The date and time of submission. Contact information is used to receive, evaluate, and respond to the message and to protect the Site against spam and abuse. 3.5 Profile Information Your profile may contain: - Your username; - Your email address; - Your Wickborne birthday; - Your account creation and update dates; - Your Soulcandle result and image; and - Account-management options. Profiles are currently private. They are not publicly searchable, publicly shareable, or available through a user directory. The Site does not currently provide private messaging or user-to-user communication. Authorized administrators may access account and profile information when reasonably necessary for support, administration, moderation, security, investigation, legal compliance, or enforcement of the Terms of Use. 3.6 Soulcandle Awakening Information When you voluntarily use the Soulcandle Awakening feature, we may process: - Your answers to the Soulcandle questions; - Your username; - Your Wickborne birthday; - Your account-creation date; - A randomly generated value used to help vary results; and - The resulting Soulcandle text, traits, image, and related information. Your question answers are used to generate the requested result and are not saved as part of your DarienCrute.com account. The resulting Soulcandle description, structured traits, image, and related generated information are stored and displayed on your profile. 3.7 Technical and Security Information When you access the Site, our server, hosting provider, security systems, and essential service providers may automatically receive or generate information such as: - Internet Protocol address; - Browser type and version; - Device and operating-system information; - Requested pages or resources; - Referring page; - Date and time of access; - Session identifiers; - Login attempts; - Password-reset attempts; - Error and diagnostic information; and - Records of suspected spam, fraud, abuse, or unauthorized access. Some security information may be processed temporarily rather than permanently stored. 4. HOW WE USE INFORMATION We use personal information to: - Create, authenticate, and manage accounts; - Confirm age eligibility; - Maintain private user profiles; - Convert birthdays to the Wickborne calendar; - Provide the Wickborne calendar and birthday features; - Accept, display, administer, and moderate book reviews; - Generate and display Soulcandle results; - Send password-reset, account-security, and service-related emails; - Respond to contact messages and support requests; - Detect and prevent spam, fraud, abuse, and unauthorized access; - Diagnose technical problems and maintain the Site; - Enforce the Terms of Use; - Protect users, the Site, and our legal rights; - Comply with applicable laws and lawful government requests; and - Establish, exercise, or defend legal claims. We do not currently use account information to operate targeted advertising or create advertising profiles. 5. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SERVICE PROVIDERS The Soulcandle Awakening feature uses an artificial intelligence service provider to create the requested fictional Soulcandle text and image. For the text-generation portion of the feature, the Site currently sends the user's Soulcandle answers and limited account context, including the username, Wickborne birthday, and account-creation date, to OpenAI through its application programming interface. The resulting candle description is then used to request the generated image. The image-generation request is based on the generated fictional candle characteristics and does not need to include the user's raw questionnaire answers. OpenAI states that information submitted through its API is not used to train its models by default unless the account holder expressly opts in. OpenAI may retain API inputs and outputs for service delivery, abuse monitoring, security, legal compliance, or other purposes described in its applicable agreements and policies. Users should not place highly sensitive personal information in Soulcandle answers. This includes full legal names, addresses, phone numbers, financial information, medical information, passwords, government identification numbers, private information about another person, or information that could create a risk of harm if disclosed. Use of the Soulcandle feature is voluntary. A user may maintain an account without completing a Soulcandle Awakening. 6. HOW WE DISCLOSE INFORMATION We may disclose personal information to the following categories of recipients. 6.1 Service Providers We may use service providers that process information on our behalf, including providers of: - Website hosting and server infrastructure; - Email delivery; - Artificial intelligence generation; - Security, spam prevention, and fraud prevention; - Data backup and storage; - Content delivery and website assets; and - Technical support. Service providers are permitted to process information only for authorized services, their legal obligations, or other purposes disclosed in their applicable agreements and policies. Where required for information belonging to a known minor, we will seek appropriate written agreements governing the provider's processing, security, retention, deletion, and use of that information. 6.2 Legal and Safety Disclosures We may disclose information when reasonably necessary to: - Comply with a law, court order, subpoena, or lawful government request; - Investigate or prevent suspected fraud, abuse, security incidents, or illegal activity; - Protect the rights, property, or safety of users, DarienCrute.com, or others; - Enforce the Terms of Use; or - Establish, exercise, or defend a legal claim. 6.3 Business Transfers Information may be transferred as part of a merger, acquisition, restructuring, sale of assets, or transfer of the Site to another operator. Any successor would be expected to handle information consistently with applicable law and the privacy commitments in effect at the time of transfer. 7. WHAT WE DO NOT CURRENTLY DO DarienCrute.com does not currently: - Sell personal information; - Sell the personal information of minors; - Display usernames or account identities with public reviews; - Make user profiles public or searchable; - Permit profile sharing through the Site; - Offer private messaging between users; - Use account information for targeted or behavioral advertising; or - Provide personal information to data brokers. Before introducing profile sharing, user search, messaging, advertising, or materially different data uses, we will review the privacy and safety implications and update this Privacy Policy and the relevant account notices. 8. COOKIES AND TRACKING The Site uses essential session technology to keep users logged in, protect account access, remember temporary form information, and provide requested features. We do not currently use cookies for targeted advertising or cross-site behavioral advertising. Because we do not currently collect personal information for cross-site behavioral tracking, browser "Do Not Track" signals do not materially change the Site's current practices. Where a legally recognized privacy-control signal applies to a future data practice, we will respond as required by applicable law. Third-party websites, embedded resources, or linked services may have their own tracking practices. Their practices are governed by their own privacy policies. 9. DATA RETENTION We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary to: - Maintain an active account; - Provide requested features; - Preserve user-submitted reviews; - Respond to messages or disputes; - Maintain security and fraud-prevention records; - Comply with legal obligations; - Enforce agreements; or - Establish, exercise, or defend legal claims. Specific retention periods and deletion procedures are described in the separate DarienCrute.com Data Retention Policy. When information is no longer reasonably needed, we will delete, destroy, or deidentify it according to that policy. Information may remain temporarily in restricted backups until the applicable backup cycle expires. 10. SECURITY We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical measures designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, acquisition, alteration, disclosure, loss, misuse, or destruction. These measures may include: - Password hashing; - Encrypted network connections; - Session security; - Access restrictions; - Login and password-reset rate limiting; - Security logging and monitoring; - Server and software maintenance; - Limited administrative access; - Service-provider review; and - Backup and recovery procedures. No website, transmission method, or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Users are responsible for protecting their login credentials and should notify us promptly if they suspect unauthorized access to their account. 11. YOUR CHOICES AND REQUESTS Depending on the request and applicable law, you may ask us to: - Confirm whether we maintain an account associated with you; - Provide access to certain account information; - Correct inaccurate account information; - Delete your account and associated personal information; - Remove a submitted review; - Withdraw consent previously given for nonessential processing; - Explain how particular information is being used; or - Close or deactivate your account. Some information can be reviewed or updated directly through the profile page. Other requests may be submitted to support@dariencrute.com. We may request reasonable information to verify the identity of the account holder before fulfilling a request. We may retain limited information after a deletion request where reasonably necessary for security, fraud prevention, legal compliance, dispute resolution, enforcement, or documentation that the request was completed. Users aged 16 or 17 may submit privacy requests concerning their own accounts. We will not disclose a user's account information to another person, including someone claiming to be a parent or guardian, without appropriate verification and a valid legal basis. 12. ACCOUNT DELETION A verified account-deletion request will result in deletion or deidentification of the active account and associated personal information, subject to the Data Retention Policy and applicable legal exceptions. Account deletion should include, where applicable: - Account credentials and profile data; - Associated reviews or the internal account association; - Soulcandle database records; - Stored Soulcandle image files; - Active password-reset records; and - Other account content that is not required to be retained. Deletion from active systems may occur before deletion from restricted backups. Backup copies will be removed or overwritten through the ordinary backup-retention cycle. 13. THIRD-PARTY LINKS AND SERVICES The Site may link to booksellers, payment providers, calendar services, social platforms, or other third-party websites and services. DarienCrute.com does not control those services and is not responsible for their privacy, security, content, or data practices. Users should review the privacy policy of a third-party service before providing information to it. 14. PROCESSING IN THE UNITED STATES DarienCrute.com is operated from the United States. Information may be stored and processed in the United States and in other locations where our service providers operate. Users accessing the Site from outside the United States understand that their information may be processed under laws that differ from those in their place of residence. 15. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect: - Changes to the Site; - New account or community features; - Changes to service providers; - Changes to data practices; - Security developments; or - Changes in applicable law. The effective date and version number will be updated when the policy changes. For material changes, we may provide notice through the Site, the user's account, email, or another reasonable method. Where required, users will be asked to acknowledge the revised policy or provide new consent before the relevant processing begins. Merely continuing to use the Site will not be treated as consent to a new nonessential use of personal information where applicable law requires separate informed consent. 16. CONTACT Questions, concerns, and privacy requests may be directed to: Darien Cruté Website: DarienCrute.com Email: support@dariencrute.com Subject Line: Privacy Request Please do not send passwords or highly sensitive information by email.