Privacy Policy

1. What Information We Collect

We collect only the personal information that visitors voluntarily provide through our website forms, along with minimal technical metadata required for security and abuse prevention:

• Support Request Form: Requester name, email address, optional phone number, preferred contact method, whether the request is for oneself or a referral (with permission confirmation), recruit first name (optional on referrals), optional military branch, training stage, optional general training city/location, approximate graduation timeframe, requested support types, and optional notes.
• Volunteer Application Form: Name, email, phone number, city, state, optional ZIP code, confirmation of age 18+, military background category, volunteer interests, remote/in-person preference, general availability, optional local travel willingness, and optional motivation statement.
• Story Submission Form: Author name, private contact email, story title, category, story text, and explicit publication consent.
• General Contact Form: Sender name, email address, inquiry category, subject, and message text.
• Security & Rate-Limiting Metadata: A salted cryptographic hash of the visitor's IP address and session CSRF tokens to prevent automated spam and unauthorized form submissions.

Information We Never Request Online: We do not ask for Social Security numbers, Department of Defense Identification Numbers (DoD ID), official military orders, sensitive unit movement schedules, or raw credit card numbers on this website.

2. Why Information Is Collected

Personal information is collected solely to:

• Review and respond to requests for recruit encouragement, letters, phone call connection, or graduation support;
• Evaluate, screen, and coordinate prospective volunteers;
• Review community story reflections prior to any authorized publication;
• Respond to general questions, media inquiries, and partnership discussions; and
• Maintain the security, integrity, and reliability of the website.

3. How Contact and Application Forms Work

When you submit a form on this website, your submission is validated on both the client and server, protected by Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) tokens, and stored in our restricted database (or protected staging store during demonstration). Submissions are never automatically published to the public website, and volunteer applications never result in automatic, unscreened access to recruit contact information.

4. How Information May Be Shared for Authorized Coordination

We do not sell, rent, or trade personal information to third parties or marketers. Information may be shared only:

• With authorized project administrators who have a legitimate need to review and coordinate support requests or volunteer applications;
• Between a recruit (or authorized referrer) and an approved, screened volunteer only after review and explicit consent for that specific support arrangement;
• With service providers strictly necessary to operate the site (such as secure web hosting, configured SMTP email delivery, or hosted payment links when enabled); or
• When required by applicable law or to protect safety.

5. How Information Is Protected

We implement technical and organizational measures designed to protect personal information, including parameterized database queries (MySQLi prepared statements), password hashing (`bcrypt`/`argon2` via PHP `password_hash`), restricted administrative session controls, `.htaccess` directory protections, and audit logging of administrative actions.

6. Retention and Deletion Practices

Support requests, volunteer applications, and contact inquiries are retained only as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purpose for which they were submitted, complete follow-up coordination, or comply with applicable recordkeeping obligations. Unapproved or withdrawn submissions may be purged upon administrator review or visitor request.

7. How Visitors Can Request Changes or Deletion

You may request to review, update, correct, or delete personal information you have submitted to No Empty Seat Project at any time. You may also withdraw consent for a pending support request, volunteer application, or story reflection prior to coordination or publication.

8. Contact Procedures

To submit a privacy question or request access, correction, or deletion of your information, please reach out through our Contact page and reference your submission email or Reference Code (if applicable).