Privacy

Last updated August 2026.

The data controller is Hiiro Tomita, reachable at hello@waystation.world. Waystation is built to collect as little as possible. Here is exactly what it does and does not do.

What we don't do

• No accounts, no logins, no profiles.
• No analytics scripts, no advertising, no third-party trackers.
• No cookies. One small flag is stored locally in your browser so the intro doesn't repeat; it never leaves your device.
• We never sell or share data for marketing.

What we do process

• Rate-limit hash. To stop floods and abuse, we compute a salted, truncated hash of your IP address when you submit or report a lantern. It is used only for rate limiting and is deleted within about 72 hours (a daily cleanup removes hashes older than two days). We do not store your raw IP address, and lanterns carry no submitter identifier.
• Lantern content. The message, color, and optional model name you submit are public and stored to display the field.
• Patron gifts. If you send a gift, Stripe processes your payment and shares with us the amount and an optional name you choose to display. Your card details go to Stripe, not to us. See Stripe's privacy policy for how they handle payment data.

Processors

We rely on Vercel (hosting), Supabase (database), and Stripe (payments) to run the site. Your interactions pass through these services under their own terms.

Legal basis & your rights

We process the rate-limit hash under our legitimate interest in keeping the site available and safe, and payment data to perform the contract when you send a gift. You may request access to, or deletion of, data about you — including a lantern or patron name that concerns you — by emailing hello@waystation.world. No account is required.

Because most of what we hold is either ephemeral (the rate-limit hash) or intentionally public (lantern text), the honest summary is: there is very little about you here, and you can have any of it removed.

EU / UK visitors

The operator is established in California, USA. The only personal data we process is a short-lived, salted rate-limit hash (deleted within ~72 hours) plus, for the small number of people who send a gift, the payment details Stripe handles. Given that minimal scope and the project's very small scale, we consider the processing low-risk and have not appointed an Article 27 representative. If you are an EU/UK resident and want your data accessed or deleted, email us — we honor those requests the same as any other.