Who is responsible
Chaos Gremlin Quillworks (CGQ) is responsible for the personal information used to run this website, app and author collaborations. For privacy questions, requests or objections, write to hello@chaosgremlinquillworks.co.uk.
You can also write to Chaos Gremlin Quillworks, Office 2/3, 2nd floor, 48 West George Street, Glasgow, G2 1BP, United Kingdom.
Information we use and why
We use your verified email address and an internal account identifier to recognise your account. Authors may choose a name or pseudonym for a project. A pseudonym linked to an email address is still personal information.
- Accounts: account identifiers, verified email, setup status and the reservation of a welcome reward. This lets us provide and protect the account you request.
- Ebook purchases, when available: your account and order identifiers, purchased edition, price, currency, payment-provider references, dates, payment/refund status and download rights. These let us fulfil your purchase, resolve payment queries and maintain publishing accounts. CGQ operators can access the relevant records; other customers and project members cannot.
- Author invitations and applications: the address supplied by a CGQ administrator, or the name and email you give us; the project, invitation or application status, dates, and the administrator who invited you. These let us arrange a collaboration and manage access.
- Optional author identifiers: any ISNI or VIAF you choose to provide is kept as self-reported information for publishing records, visible to you and CGQ operators, and can be changed or removed from your author projects page; it is not published on your public profile.
- Project participation: your project name or pseudonym, memberships, access permissions, posts, replies and timestamps. These support the work of the project and its private record.
- Email choices: separate newsletter and significant-news preferences, the wording shown, your verified email and a dated record of changes. These let us respect and demonstrate your choices.
- Security and technical information: our hosting and sign-in providers process information such as IP addresses, device and browser information, authentication events and operational logs to deliver and protect the service.
Our legitimate interests are organising genuine publishing collaborations, maintaining their records and protecting accounts and discussions from misuse. Where information is necessary to perform an agreement with you, or to take steps you ask for before an agreement, we use it for that purpose. Optional marketing uses your consent. We may also retain information where a legal obligation requires it.
You can object to processing based on legitimate interests by contacting us. We will consider your circumstances and explain any reason we need to continue.
If someone invites you
A CGQ administrator may enter your email to invite you to an author project. The address may come from your earlier correspondence with CGQ or from a collaborator who supplied it to the administrator. You can ask us which source applies to your invitation.
Invitations expire after seven days. Signing up alone does not grant author access: you must verify the invited address and explicitly accept the project invitation. You can decline by ignoring the invitation, or contact us to withdraw it and ask us to remove the invitation information. An invitation does not subscribe you to marketing.
Who can see project information
- Anthology discussions: current approved members of that project and CGQ operators.
- Private Admin threads: the author who started the thread and CGQ operators.
- Finance discussions: members with separately granted Finance access and CGQ operators.
CGQ operators can see membership and invitation information needed to manage access. The reserved project labels “Moderator” and “Admin” do not by themselves grant CGQ operator powers or Finance access.
Posts display your approved project name or pseudonym. We do not publish your account email as part of the ordinary discussion view. Anything you put into a message, including a signature, can identify you. Please avoid sharing somebody else’s private information without a proper reason.
Email-only discussion and email distribution of project posts are not connected in this release. Before enabling them, we will explain the delivery choices and how messages are shared. Removing access cannot recall a copy another participant has already received or saved. No public project archive is being published; any future public collection requires a separate review and agreement.
Optional email updates
The monthly newsletter and significant-news messages, such as release announcements, are separate choices. Both start unticked. The newsletter is limited to one email per month; significant-news messages are additional only if you choose them.
You can change or withdraw either choice on your account page. Withdrawing consent does not change whether earlier use was lawful. Your account, project access and welcome reward do not depend on subscribing. Account verification, a requested author invitation and necessary project administration are separate from marketing.
Service providers and overseas processing
Clerk provides sign-in, email verification and invitation delivery. Cloudflare hosts the app, protects its traffic and stores its database. These providers process the information needed for their respective services. CGQ also uses its email service when you correspond with us at the contact address above.
When direct purchases are available, you choose the payment method shown at checkout. Stripe or Mollie handles its payment page and verification. For Bitcoin or Lightning, a BTCPay Server invoice handles the chosen payment. CGQ sends the order reference, book description and amount needed for the payment. You enter any card or billing information on the provider’s page; CGQ does not receive card numbers. See Stripe’s privacy notice or Mollie’s privacy notice for the provider you choose.
Clerk and Cloudflare operate internationally. Processing or support access may take place outside the UK or European Economic Area; an EU database location does not mean every service operates only within the EU. Their data-processing terms describe contractual protections and transfer arrangements: Clerk’s terms and Cloudflare’s terms. Contact CGQ for information about the arrangements relevant to your data.
We do not sell account or author information. We may disclose information where required by law, or where necessary to establish or defend legal claims.
How long information is kept
Invitation links expire after seven days; expiry does not automatically delete the record. Invitation and application records are kept to manage the proposal, resolve access questions and investigate misuse. Account and identity records are kept while the account is in use and while needed to prevent someone else taking over an existing author identity.
Project discussions and their author attribution are kept as a private working record while needed for the collaboration, publication, rights administration or a relevant dispute. Leaving a project does not automatically erase the shared conversation. Preference records are kept while needed to honour your choices and show when consent was given or withdrawn.
If you close your account or ask for deletion, we review these purposes and remove or de-identify information that is no longer needed. If a particular record must be retained, we will explain the reason and the applicable retention criteria. Provider security logs and backup copies have separate provider retention arrangements.
Purchase and payment records are retained while needed to provide your ebook access, meet accounting obligations and resolve refunds or disputes. Deleting a CGQ account does not automatically erase a payment provider’s own records.
Your choices and rights
Subject to the applicable conditions, you can request access to your information, correction, deletion, restriction of use or a portable copy. You can object to uses based on legitimate interests and withdraw marketing consent. Contact hello@chaosgremlinquillworks.co.uk; we may need to verify your identity before disclosing or changing personal information.
You do not need to agree to marketing to use the service. If you do not provide an email address we can verify, we cannot provide a signed-in account or private author access. We do not use solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects to decide author-project admission: CGQ approval is required.
You can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. Where EU data-protection law applies, you may also contact the supervisory authority for your country of residence, work or the alleged infringement. You can contact us first, but you do not have to.
Cookies, device storage and external links
The brand font is loaded from Google Fonts. Your browser contacts Google to fetch the font stylesheet and font files.
Clerk uses authentication-related cookies and storage to keep sign-in working. The installed app stores a small set of public assets and an offline page; it does not cache private discussions, account responses or ebooks for offline access. This app does not add advertising trackers or a non-essential analytics system.
External author, bookshop and payment websites have their own privacy arrangements. Direct purchases are not yet open. Checkout may use a temporary device-stored request reference to recover interrupted requests without placing duplicate orders; this reference is not used for marketing.
We will update this notice when the service changes and bring material new uses of your information to your attention.