ARA Bot Privacy Policy

Effective date: 26 October 2026

This privacy policy explains what information ARA Bot ("the bot", "we", "us") collects, why it collects it, how long it is kept and what you can do about it.

ARA Bot is a free, open source Discord bot built exclusively for the Animal Rights Advocates Discord server ("ARA" or "the server"). It is not a public bot and cannot be added to other servers. Because the bot is open source, everything described here can be checked against the source code.

1. Who is responsible for your data

The data controller is Animal Rights Advocates (aramovement.org).

  • Postal address: Vegan Hacktivists, Inc, 8 STE B The Green, Dover, DE 19901, US

  • Privacy contact: privacy@veganhacktivists.org

  • On Discord: send a ModMail on the ARA server

2. Information we get from Discord

Discord sends the bot information about the server so it can work. The bot receives:

  • Your Discord user ID, username, display name/nickname, avatar, account creation date and the date you joined the server

  • The roles you have on the server

  • Messages sent in channels the bot can see, including their content and attachments

  • Voice channel activity, meaning when you join or leave a voice channel and whether you are server muted. The bot does not listen to, record or store any audio.

  • Reactions, button clicks and the commands you use, including what you type into them

  • Direct messages you send to the bot

Most of this is processed for a moment and then thrown away. Section 3 lists exactly what the bot saves.

3. Information we store

3.1 Database (PostgreSQL)

Member profile

What is stored: Your Discord user ID and whether you have the Vegan, Non-vegan, Veg Curious, Convinced, Activist, Plus, Trusted or Muted role

Why: To give your roles back if you leave and rejoin, and to show server statistics such as /count

Verification

What is stored: Who verified you, when you joined, started and finished verification, whether it was done manually or timed out, which roles you were given, and the verifier's answers about the conversation: how you found ARA, how long you have been vegan, how well you explained your reasoning, your lifestyle and diet, plus optional notes

Why: To run vegan verification, to stop people retrying verification too often, and to keep the process fair

Leaving the server

What is stored: The list of roles you had and the time you left

Why: To restore your roles if you come back

Role changes

What is stored: Which staff member gave or removed a role, which role, and when

Why: Staff accountability

XP and levels

What is stored: Your XP, level, message count and the time of your last message that earned XP. Message content is not stored.

Why: /rank and levelling

Economy

What is stored: Your ARA balance, your /daily claims, and payments you send or receive (sender, recipient, amount, the reason you typed, time)

Why: /balance, /daily and /pay

Fun commands

What is stored: Who used a fun command such as /hug or /poke, on whom, and which command

Why: To show how many times a command has been used

Counting

What is stored: Your user ID and the number you counted in the counting channel. The message itself is not stored.

Why: The counting game

Outreach

What is stored: Outreach events, group leaders, participants, and outreach results (for example how many people were educated or went vegan)

Why: Coordinating and measuring activism

Moderation

What is stored: Warnings, "sus" notes, restrictions, bans, temporary bans and voice mutes: the user, the moderator, the reason or note written by the moderator, start and end times, and who lifted the action

Why: Keeping the server safe, enforcing bans and restrictions, and giving moderators context

Information about your vegan status, and the answers recorded during verification, can show your beliefs. We collect it only because ARA is a community built around animal rights and veganism, it is needed to decide which parts of the server you can access, and it is not shared outside the server.

3.2 Cache and task queue (Redis)

  • Message counters: a running total of how many messages were sent in a few channels (for example general, activism and the diversity channels) since the last scheduled reminder. These are totals only and contain nothing about who sent the messages.

  • Scheduled tasks: timers such as "unban this user when the temporary ban ends", "lift this verification cooldown" or "end this verification after 15 minutes". A task contains the user ID and server or channel IDs it needs, and is removed once it runs.

3.3 Application logs

The bot writes technical logs to help developers fix problems. These are mostly errors and status messages and may now and then include a user ID.

4. Information shown inside Discord

Some features post information into server channels, where it can be seen by whoever has access to those channels:

  • Staff log channels: warnings, restrictions, bans, sus notes and economy payments are posted to staff-only log channels, together with the username, avatar and user ID of the people involved.

  • ModMail: when a restricted member opens a ModMail ticket, the bot posts their restriction history, warnings and active sus notes into that ticket so moderators have context.

  • Suggestions: a message posted in the suggestions channel is deleted and re-posted in the staff mailbox with your username, avatar and any attachments. You get a copy by DM.

  • Private and restricted channels: when staff create a private or restricted channel for you, the channel name can include your username or user ID and the channel topic includes your user ID.

  • Welcome and verification messages: when you join or are verified, the bot may mention you in a public channel.

  • Direct messages: the bot may DM you about verification results, roles you were given, warnings, restrictions or bans (including the reason), and suggestion confirmations.

  • Leaderboards and stats: /rank shows your level and XP to whoever ran the command, and /count shows how many vegans and non-vegans are on the server.

5. What we do not do

  • We do not sell, rent or trade your data.

  • We do not use your data for advertising or profiling outside the server.

  • We do not use third-party analytics or tracking.

  • We do not record voice calls. The welcome message says that "voice discussions may be recorded"; that warning covers people in the voice channels, not the bot.

  • We do not store the content of your normal chat messages. The bot reads messages only to award XP, run the counting game, forward suggestions and react to "thanks ARA Bot".

6. Why we are allowed to use your data

Where data protection law such as the GDPR applies, we rely on:

  • Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) in running, moderating and protecting the ARA community, including enforcing bans and restrictions and keeping records of moderation decisions.

  • Providing the features you ask for (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR), such as XP, economy, outreach and verification.

  • For information that can show your beliefs, such as vegan status and verification answers: processing by a not-for-profit body with a philosophical aim, about its members, without sharing it outside the body (Art. 9(2)(d) GDPR).

7. Who can see your data

  • ARA staff (moderators, verifiers, coordinators and others, depending on their role) can see moderation records, verification details and staff log channels through bot commands and Discord.

  • ARA developers who run the bot can access the database and logs to keep the bot working.

  • Discord handles everything the bot sends and receives. See Discord's Privacy Policy.

  • Hosting provider: the bot, database and cache run on Hetzner servers in Finland.

  • Tenor: GIFs in fun commands are linked from Tenor and loaded by Discord. The bot sends nothing about you to Tenor.

Links the bot posts, such as the volunteer application form (Google Forms) or other bots used on the server (for example Appy for applications and the ModMail bot), are run by third parties and have their own privacy policies. This policy does not cover them.

8. How long we keep data

The bot does not delete data automatically. Records are kept for as long as the ARA server exists, unless you ask us to delete them (see section 9) or staff remove them, for example by deleting a warning.

Leaving the server does not delete your data. We keep it so we can restore your roles if you come back and so bans and restrictions still apply if you rejoin.

When staff "remove" sus notes they are marked inactive, not deleted, so that moderators can still see the history later.

Scheduled tasks in Redis are deleted when they run. Message counters are reset every time their scheduled reminder is posted.

9. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

  • access a copy of the data we hold about you

  • correct data that is wrong

  • delete your data

  • restrict or object to how we use it

  • receive your data in a portable format

  • complain to a data protection authority, such as the authority in the country where you live

To use any of these rights, email privacy@veganhacktivists.org or send a ModMail on the server. We may ask you to prove that you own the Discord account. We will reply within one month.

We may keep some moderation records, such as bans and the reasons for them, after a deletion request if we need them to protect the community, for example to stop a banned user from coming back. If so, we will tell you.

10. Security

Only people who need access to run the bot have it. No system is perfectly secure; if you find a vulnerability, please report it as described in the security reporting instructions.

11. Children

You must meet the minimum age to use Discord in your country (at least 13) to use the ARA server. We do not knowingly collect data from children under that age. If you think a child's data has been collected, contact us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the bot changes. The latest version is always available in the bot's repository, and the effective date at the top will change when it is updated. If a change is significant, we will announce it on the server.

13. Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: