Law Enforcement and Legal Requests Policy

In short

• We are a small United States company. We answer valid legal process from United States courts and agencies, and we read each request before we answer it.
• The content of private notes, group threads and table chat goes to a government body only on a search warrant, with the consent of someone who was part of the conversation, in a genuine emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury, or in a child-safety report that federal law requires us to make.
• Basic account records, such as the name and email address on an account, can be required by a subpoena. Other records about an account need a court order or a warrant.
• A subpoena in a civil lawsuit does not get the content of anyone's messages from us. The law does not let us hand it over on that basis.
• Colleges, employers, recruiters, parents and partners get nothing from us beyond what a member has chosen to make public, unless the member agrees or valid legal process requires it.
• We aim to tell the member concerned before we disclose anything, so they can object. We do not where a law or court order forbids it, in an emergency, or in a child-safety matter.
• We keep records past their normal deletion date when a government agency lawfully asks us to. Preserving something discloses nothing.
• We aim to object to requests that are too broad, unclear or not valid, and to give no more than a valid request requires. We are a very small company and cannot promise to go to court over every one.
• We hold less than most services: no dates of birth, identity documents, audio, video or payment details, and no images or files except figures in papers and receipts for research grants, and no readable IP addresses in our database. Much of what members write is deleted on a short schedule.
• Send requests to legal@tillyard.org, or by post to Tillyard, Attn: Legal, 10602 York Rd SW, Etna, Ohio 43062.

If this summary and the full text below ever differ, the full text governs.

1 About this policy

1.1 Who we are

Tillyard is an Ohio nonprofit corporation. "We" and "us" mean Tillyard. It is not a school, an employer of its members or a law enforcement body, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by any college or university.

One person, the president, runs Tillyard. That fact shapes this policy: we make few promises about speed, and we say what we cannot do.

1.2 Who this is for

• Members and visitors, who want to know what happens when someone asks us for information about them.
• Law enforcement officers, prosecutors and court staff, who need to know where to send a request and what we need to see.
• Lawyers and parties in civil cases, who need to know what we can and cannot produce.
• Colleges, employers, recruiters, parents and others who are thinking of asking us about a member.

1.3 What it covers

This policy covers any request, demand or order that asks us to disclose, preserve or confirm information we hold about a person. That includes search warrants, court orders, subpoenas, preservation requests, emergency requests, requests from outside the United States, and informal requests by letter, email or phone.

1.4 What it does not cover

• A member asking for their own information. Members can export their own data from their account. The Privacy Notice explains how.
• Reports about content or conduct. Use the report control on any page, or see the Reporting, Enforcement and Appeals Policy.
• Requests to take something down. See the Intimate-Image Removal Policy, the Copyright Policy and the Disputes and Corrections Policy. Section 16 below covers court orders and government demands to remove content.
• Security reports. Write to security@tillyard.org.

1.5 How this fits with our other documents

Several of our documents summarise this subject: the Privacy Notice (section 15), the Messaging and Monitoring Notice (section 8), the Reporting, Enforcement and Appeals Policy (section 15) and the Terms of Use. Where two documents could cover the same point, the more specific one governs. Section 37.5 of the Terms of Use sets the order among all our documents, including the sections of those terms that prevail over every other document. For demands for information from courts, authorities and other outsiders, this policy is the more specific document and it governs.

There are three exceptions. For reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and anything else about child safety, the Child Safety Policy governs. For requests to remove an intimate image, the Intimate-Image Removal Policy governs. For how long records are kept, the Data Retention Schedule governs.

1.6 Words used here

Words that have one meaning in every one of our documents, such as member, visitor, staff, the editor, record item, hold, case and tip, are defined in Definitions. The words below are added for this document's own subject, or repeated from Definitions for convenience. If a repeated meaning ever differs, Definitions governs the meaning of the word.

• Legal process means a formal demand that a court or a law gives force to: a search warrant, a court order, or a subpoena.
• A search warrant is an order signed by a judge, issued on a showing of probable cause, that authorises the government to obtain specific things.
• A court order here usually means an order under the federal Stored Communications Act that requires a provider to disclose records. A judge issues it when the government shows specific facts giving reasonable grounds to believe the records are relevant and material to a criminal investigation.
• A subpoena is a demand for records or testimony issued in a case or an investigation. It can come from a grand jury, a court, a government agency with that power, or a lawyer in a lawsuit. Most subpoenas are not reviewed by a judge before they are sent.
• Content means what a communication says: the words of a private note, a message in a thread, a line of table chat, a draft, an unpublished submission.
• Records means information about an account or its use that is not content: for example the name and email address on the account, when it was created, when it was signed in to, and who it is connected with.
• A government body means a department or agency of the United States, of a state, or of a city, county or other local government. Police forces, prosecutors and regulators are government bodies. A public university may be one too (section 12).
• A preservation request asks us to keep specific records from being deleted while the requester obtains legal process. It does not ask us to hand anything over.
• A nondisclosure order is a court order that forbids us to tell anyone, including the member concerned, that a request exists.
• A legal hold is our written decision to keep specific records past their normal deletion date. The Data Retention Schedule (section 17) describes how a hold works.
• The member concerned is the person whose information a request asks for.
• Staff means the owner and any person who works for us under a paid, written contract and holds a staff account. At present the owner is the only member of staff. Members are never staff, and no member is given any power over another member's content or account, whatever title or history that member has.

2 What we hold

A request can only reach what exists. This section is a list, so that requesters ask for the right things and members know what could be asked for. The Privacy Notice and the Data Retention Schedule are the full statements and they govern.

2.1 What we hold

The periods are summaries. The Data Retention Schedule has every row.

2.2 What we do not hold

We cannot produce these, whatever the form of the request:

• dates of birth. The age check at sign-up is evaluated and discarded. Only the time it was completed is kept;
• government identity documents, Social Security numbers, student ID numbers;
• members' home addresses or telephone numbers. The one exception is a person who sent us a copyright notice or counter-notice, which the law requires to carry an address and a telephone number;
• audio or video, or any image or file other than figures in papers for Tillyard Research and receipts for research grants;
• passwords in readable form. A password a member adds is kept only as a salted hash, and for a passkey we hold the public half only;
• readable IP addresses in our database. Our network provider processes IP addresses to deliver the site. Our own records keep only a scrambled form made with a secret key, for a limited time, to count attempts and to attach to reports;
• location data;
• payment card or bank details, and any record that links a tip to a member's account. Tips are paid on pages hosted by our payment processor and the site stores nothing about them;
• résumés and other documents made with the browser tools, unless the member switched on account copies. Otherwise those stay on the member's own device;
• anything that has already been deleted under the Data Retention Schedule. An older copy can persist in a backup for a limited time (section 7.6);
• recordings or live copies of anything. We have no means of intercepting communications as they happen (section 5.6).

2.3 Records our providers hold

Some records are held by companies that provide services to us, under their own rules: our hosting and network provider (short-lived request logs, which include IP addresses), our email provider (delivery records), and our payment processor (records of tips). The Privacy Notice names them. A request for records one of those companies holds is best sent to that company.

3 How to send us a request

3.1 Where to send it

• Email: legal@tillyard.org. This is the fastest route. Send the document as a PDF attachment from an official address.
• Post or courier: Tillyard, Attn: Legal, 10602 York Rd SW, Etna, Ohio 43062. Use a service with tracking. Post is slow, and time counts from when the document reaches that address.
• Formal service on the company: Tillyard can be served through its statutory agent, whose name and address are on file with the Ohio Secretary of State.

We do not accept legal process by telephone, by social media, through the report form, through a member's account, or at any other email address. If a request reaches us somewhere else we aim to treat it under this policy once we recognise it, but those routes are neither sure nor fast.

3.2 Email and objections

We accept legal process by email from government bodies as a convenience to them and to us. Accepting a document by email, acknowledging it, or answering it does not waive any objection we may have, including an objection to how it was served, to the authority of the court or agency that issued it, or to what it asks for.

For civil subpoenas, email delivery of a copy is welcome and speeds things up, but it does not replace proper service unless we agree in writing that it does.

3.3 Address it to the right company

The request must be addressed to Tillyard. A request addressed to a different organization, to the president personally in place of the organization, or to "the administrator of" a web address may be returned for correction.

3.4 What a request should contain

So that we can find the right records and nothing else, a request should give:

1. Who is asking: the name of the agency, court or law firm; the name, title and badge or bar number of the person sending it; an official email address and a telephone number at the agency or firm.
2. The authority: the court or body that issued the process, the case or investigation number, the statute or rule it is issued under, the date of issue and a signature.
3. The account: identified by the college email address on the account, or by the web address of the member's public page or of a page on The Record. A name alone is not enough, because names are not unique here. A name with a school narrows it and may still match more than one person.
4. What is wanted: the specific kinds of information, described as narrowly as the matter allows.
5. The period: a start date and an end date.
6. When and how to answer: the date a response is due and where to send it.
7. Any restriction on telling the member: if a court has ordered nondisclosure, attach the order. A request for confidentiality that is not a court order is covered in section 8.4.

3.5 Things that slow a request down

• no account identifier we can match;
• "any and all records" with no period and no category;
• a request for things we do not hold (section 2.2);
• a subpoena that asks for the content of messages (section 5);
• a document that is unsigned, undated, addressed to another company, or issued by a court with no authority over an Ohio company;
• a sender address that is not an official one.

Where a request falls short, we aim to write back and say what is missing.

3.6 Language and format

Requests must be in English. We answer in English. We can receive PDF documents. Please do not send links to file-sharing services that require us to create an account.

3.7 Speed

A person reads the legal mailbox. We are a very small company, and we do not promise a response time. Where a law, a court or the process itself sets a date, that date is the one we work to; if we cannot meet it we aim to say so and ask for more time. If a request is urgent, say so in the first line, and see section 6 for emergencies.

4 What we check before we answer

We read each request before we answer it. Before anything is disclosed we check, with our lawyer's help where needed:

• that it is genuine: it comes from the body it claims to come from. We may telephone the agency or court through a number we find for ourselves, and we may ask for the request to be re-sent from an official address. Forged legal requests, some sent from hacked official mailboxes, are a known way of stealing personal information;
• that it is valid on its face: signed, dated, issued by a court or body with the power to issue it, and still in force;
• that it is addressed to us and properly delivered;
• that it is the right kind of process for what it asks for (section 5);
• that it has authority over us. We are an Ohio company. Section 5.7 covers process from other states and section 11 covers requests from outside the United States;
• that it identifies an account we can match with confidence;
• that it asks for no more than the law allows, and that its period and categories are specific;
• whether we may tell the member concerned (section 8).

If a request does not meet these checks we may ask for it to be corrected or narrowed, object to it, or decline it. We may answer part of a request and object to the rest.

We do not disclose information because a request looks official, sounds urgent or comes with a deadline. We disclose when the law requires it or clearly allows it and this policy says we may.

5 What kind of legal process we require

A federal law, the Stored Communications Act, limits what a service like this one may disclose and sets out what a government body must obtain first. The table shows how we apply it. It describes what we require from government bodies in the United States in criminal matters. Civil cases are in section 10.

5.1 The table

5.2 A stronger form covers a weaker one

A search warrant can require anything in the table. A court order under section 2703(d) can require records, basic or otherwise, but we do not produce content on one. A subpoena reaches basic account records only.

5.3 The list of basic records is a closed list

The law lists what a subpoena can require: name; address; records of session times and durations; length of service and the types of service used; a subscriber number or identity, including a temporarily assigned network address; and the means and source of payment. We read that list as closed. If something is not on it, a subpoena does not reach it.

Several items on the list are things we do not have: we hold no postal address for a member in the ordinary way, no payment details and no readable IP addresses (section 2.2). We treat the college email address as the subscriber identity. The member's school is not separately on the list, though it is usually evident from the email address.

5.4 Why we ask for a warrant for all content

The statute itself draws lines by the age of a message and by how it is stored. We do not rely on those lines. Courts have held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the content of their stored messages, and the common practice of providers and of federal prosecutors is to use a warrant for content. So we ask for a warrant for content in every case.

5.5 Content we may disclose without a warrant

The law allows a provider to disclose content in a small number of situations without a warrant. We use them narrowly:

• Consent. With the lawful consent of the person who sent a message or of a person it was sent to (section 13).
• Emergency. To a government body, where we believe in good faith that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay (section 6).
• Child-safety reports. To the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as federal law requires (section 9).
• Running and protecting the service. As needed to provide the service, or to protect our rights and property. Examples are sharing material in confidence with our lawyers, and defending a legal claim.
• Evidence of a crime we came across by accident. The law lets a provider give law enforcement content that it obtained inadvertently and that appears to relate to a crime. We do not go looking through private messages; staff read a private conversation only for the reasons listed in the Messaging and Monitoring Notice. If something of this kind comes to our attention, we may refer it.

5.6 No interception and no built-in access

We have not built any means for a government body, or anyone else, to read members' communications as they happen or to collect records about them going forward. A preservation request (section 7) and a warrant reach what exists when they are served. An order to intercept communications or to install a device that records dialling, routing or addressing information is a different kind of order with its own requirements. If we ever received one we would take legal advice before doing anything.

We do not give any government body direct access to our systems, our database, our backups or our keys.

5.7 Process from other states

We are an Ohio company. For criminal matters, we generally accept a warrant, court order or subpoena issued by a federal court or by a state court of general criminal jurisdiction in any state, provided it is valid on its face and is the right kind of process for what it asks for. Accepting it is a practical choice and not a concession that the issuing court has authority over us; we may ask for process to be issued or endorsed in Ohio where we think that is required.

5.8 National security requests

Federal law lets the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with a written statement from a senior official, require certain limited account records for national security investigations, and lets it restrict what a provider may say about the request. If we received such a request we would send it to our lawyer, as that law expressly allows, and we would give no more than the statute requires. Those requests cannot lawfully require the content of communications.

6 Emergencies

6.1 If someone is in danger now

If you believe someone is in immediate danger, call 911 or your local emergency number first. We are not an emergency service and cannot send help.

6.2 Emergency requests from law enforcement

The law lets us, but does not require us, to give information to a government body without legal process where we believe in good faith that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay.

An officer making an emergency request should email legal@tillyard.org from an official address with Emergency request at the start of the subject line, and should say:

1. who they are: name, title, agency, badge or identification number, and a telephone number at the agency through which we can call back;
2. what the emergency is, and who is at risk of death or serious physical injury;
3. why there is no time to obtain legal process;
4. which account is involved, identified as in section 3.4;
5. exactly what information is needed, and how it would help to prevent the harm.

6.3 How we decide

• The decision is ours. We consider what we are told, and where we can, what our own records show.
• We may call the agency back through its published main number to confirm the request before we answer.
• We disclose only what we believe is needed to deal with the emergency. That is usually much less than a warrant would later obtain.
• We may ask the agency to follow up with legal process for anything beyond that.
• We keep a written record of the request, what we were told, what we disclosed and why.

An emergency request that does not describe a danger of death or serious physical injury, such as a wish to move an investigation along quickly, is not an emergency under this section. We ask for legal process instead.

6.4 When we raise the alarm ourselves

If something on the platform leads us to believe in good faith that a person faces a danger of death or serious physical injury, we may contact emergency services or a law enforcement agency ourselves and give them the information that relates to the danger. The Reporting, Enforcement and Appeals Policy describes how reports of threats and of worry about a member's safety are handled.

6.5 Limits on response

We do not publish a telephone number, and the legal mailbox is read by one or two people. We cannot promise that an emergency request sent in the middle of the night is read at once. An officer who needs to reach a person quickly should say so in the subject line and give a call-back number.

6.6 Telling the member afterwards

After an emergency disclosure we may tell the member concerned what was disclosed and to whom. We do not where a law or court order forbids it, or where we believe telling them would put a person at risk.

7 Preservation requests

7.1 What a preservation request does

A government body can ask us to keep specific records from being deleted while it obtains legal process. When the request is made in the way the law provides, we must take all necessary steps to preserve the records. We place a legal hold on them, which stops our clean-up routines from deleting them. A hold changes nothing about who can see the records, and it discloses nothing.

7.2 How long

The law sets the period at 90 days, and a further 90 days if the government body renews the request. After that, if no legal process has arrived, we release the hold and the records go back to their normal schedule. If their time has already run out, they are deleted at the next clean-up.

7.3 What it should say

A preservation request should be in writing, on the agency's letterhead or from an official address, and should give the details in section 3.4: who is asking, the investigation number, the account, the categories of record and the period. It should state that it is made under 18 U.S.C. 2703(f).

7.4 What it reaches

A preservation request reaches records that exist when we receive it. It is not a way to collect things that come into being afterwards, and we do not treat it as one (section 5.6). It cannot bring back something already deleted.

7.5 Ask early

Much of what members write here is kept for a short time by design. Table chat is dropped after 14 days, visits to the coffee shop after about 30 days, and private notes within 12 months or sooner if the sender deletes them. A member who closes their account is hidden at once and erased after a short closing period. A requester who waits may find that nothing is left.

7.6 Backups

We keep backup copies for recovery from failures, for a limited time set out in the Data Retention Schedule. A record deleted from the live database can persist in a backup until that backup ages out. We do not treat backups as a working archive, and we do not restore one to answer a request unless valid legal process specifically requires it and we are advised that we must.

7.7 Telling the member

A preservation request by itself discloses nothing, so we do not usually tell the member concerned about it at that stage. If legal process follows, section 8 applies.

7.8 Preservation letters from people who are not government bodies

A lawyer or a party in a civil dispute sometimes writes asking us to preserve records. No law requires us to act on such a letter where we are not a party to the dispute. We may choose to preserve for a limited time while the sender obtains a subpoena, and we may decline. We do not promise either.

7.9 Other reasons we preserve

We also keep records past their normal date when the law requires it (as it does for a year after a report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children), when a legal claim involving the records has been made or is reasonably expected, and in the other cases listed in the Data Retention Schedule, section 17.

8 Telling the member concerned

8.1 Our practice

When we receive a request for a member's information, we aim to tell that member before we disclose anything, so that they can take advice and object if they wish. We aim to say who made the request, what kind of request it is and what it asks for, and where we can, to give them a copy.

8.2 When we do not

We do not give notice before disclosure where:

• a court order or a statute forbids it;
• the disclosure is an emergency disclosure under section 6;
• the matter concerns child safety (section 9);
• we believe in good faith that telling the member would put a person at risk of harm;
• we have no working way to reach the member, for example because the account has been erased.

8.3 Notice afterwards

Where notice before disclosure was not given, we aim to tell the member afterwards, once the reason for holding it back has ended. For a nondisclosure order that means when the order expires or is lifted.

8.4 Requests for confidentiality that are not court orders

Legal process often arrives with a sentence asking us not to tell the account holder. A request of that kind is not an order. We consider it, and we may ask the agency to obtain a nondisclosure order from a court if it wants us to stay silent. Where a court has ordered us not to disclose a request, we comply for as long as the order lasts. We may ask for an order with no end date to be given one.

8.5 How notice is given

We write to the email address on the member's account. That address is a college address, and a college may be able to read mail in the mailboxes it provides. So the first message says only that we have received a legal request concerning the account and how to get the details from us. We do not put the substance of the request in that first message.

8.6 Time to object

Where the return date allows, we aim to give the member time to take advice and to object before we disclose, currently at least 14 days in a civil matter. In a criminal matter the time is often shorter and is not always ours to set. Where a member tells us they have filed, or are about to file, a motion with the court, we aim to wait for the court's decision if the process allows us to.

8.7 What we cannot do for you

We cannot give legal advice, and we cannot object on your behalf on grounds that are personal to you. If you receive a notice from us and want to challenge the request, you will need to act yourself or through a lawyer, and quickly.

8.8 Other people in a conversation

A request for one member's messages will usually include what other members wrote to them. Our practice of notice is directed to the member whose account is named. We do not, as a rule, notify every other person who took part in a conversation.

9 Child safety

If we obtain actual knowledge of apparent child sexual abuse material, or of the other child-exploitation offences the law lists, federal law requires us to report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and to preserve what we reported for one year. We do so. No warrant or subpoena is needed for that report, and it includes the content concerned and what we hold about the account.

In these matters we do not tell the account holder that a report has been made or that a request for their information has been received.

The Child Safety Policy is the detailed statement and it governs. A law enforcement agency following up on a report should send legal process as in section 3 and may quote the report number.

10 Requests in civil cases

10.1 Content is not available by civil subpoena

A subpoena in a civil case, whether it comes from a lawyer, a party without a lawyer or a court clerk, does not get the content of anyone's messages from us. The Stored Communications Act forbids a provider to disclose content except in listed situations, and a civil subpoena is not one of them. This is so even where the messages would be relevant, and even where a court in the case has said the party may seek them.

10.2 The better route: ask the account holder

A party who needs the content of a conversation should ask the person who holds the account. A member can export what they wrote and can print or save any conversation they are part of. A court can order a party to a case to produce their own messages, or to consent to our producing them. If a member gives us their lawful consent, section 13 applies.

10.3 Records that are not content

The law lets us disclose records that are not content to a person who is not a government body. We do so in a civil matter only in answer to a valid subpoena or court order that:

• is addressed to Tillyard;
• is issued by, or has been made effective in, a court with authority over an Ohio company. A subpoena from a case in another state must first be presented to the clerk of court in the Ohio county where the records are sought, who issues an Ohio subpoena. A federal subpoena must comply with the federal rule on where a person can be required to produce documents;
• is properly served, and allows a reasonable time;
• identifies the account as in section 3.4 and asks for specific records for a stated period.

10.4 Notice and time

Before we produce anything in a civil matter we aim to tell the member concerned and to give them time to object (section 8.6). If the member files a motion to stop or limit the subpoena, we aim to wait for the court's ruling.

10.5 Requests to identify who wrote or reported something

Members appear here under their real names beside their school, so there is seldom a question of who wrote a published item. Some things are not attributed in public, above all who made a report. We keep a reporter's identity confidential (see the Reporting, Enforcement and Appeals Policy). If a subpoena asks us to identify a reporter, or anyone else whose identity is not public, we aim to object unless a court has considered whether the claim justifies identifying the person, and we aim to tell that person so they can be heard.

10.6 Copyright subpoenas

Copyright law lets a copyright owner ask a federal court clerk for a subpoena requiring a service provider to identify a person alleged to have infringed. We answer a valid subpoena of that kind with the identifying records it lawfully requires, and we aim to tell the member first. The Copyright Policy covers notices and counter-notices.

10.7 Testimony and declarations

We are not a party to disputes between members and other people. Where a record has to be shown to be genuine, we prefer to give a signed written declaration from the person who keeps our records, of the kind the rules of evidence accept for business records, and we may object to a demand that someone appear to testify where a declaration will do. We do not give opinions or expert evidence.

10.8 Costs

Answering a subpoena takes time away from running Tillyard. Where the law allows, we may ask the requesting party to cover the reasonable cost of finding and copying records, and we may ask a court to protect us from significant expense.

10.9 Informal requests

A letter or email from a lawyer, a party, an investigator or an insurer that is not a subpoena or court order is an informal request. We do not disclose non-public information about a member in answer to one. We may reply saying what kind of process we would need.

10.10 People seeking protection

A person seeking a protection order, or evidence of harassment or stalking, often needs their own conversations. They can print or save any conversation they are part of without asking us, and can export what they wrote. A law enforcement agency investigating can preserve and obtain more through sections 5 and 7. We aim to answer questions about what we hold from a person in this situation or from someone helping them, without disclosing anything about another person's account.

11 Requests from outside the United States

11.1 We answer United States legal process

We are a United States company, our members are students at United States colleges, and the service is not offered elsewhere. We answer legal process issued under United States law.

11.2 Foreign courts and authorities

A court or authority outside the United States that wants information from us should use the channels its government has with the United States: a request under a mutual legal assistance treaty, or a letter of request (a letter rogatory) sent through a United States court. A party to a foreign proceeding can ask a United States federal court for an order to obtain evidence here. We answer the United States process that results, under this policy.

We do not disclose members' information in direct answer to a subpoena, order or letter from a foreign court or authority.

11.3 International agreements

United States law allows certain foreign governments, under agreements with the United States, to send orders directly to providers. If we received such an order we would take legal advice on whether it is valid and whether it applies to us before answering.

11.4 Emergencies abroad

If an authority outside the United States tells us of an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury, we may pass the matter to a United States law enforcement agency, and we may consider what the law lets us disclose. We are likely to need advice first, and we make no promise.

11.5 Preservation

We may choose to preserve records for a limited time at the request of a foreign authority that tells us a treaty request is being made. We are not required to, and we may decline.

12 Colleges, employers and other people who ask

12.1 We do not give out information about a member without consent or legal process

We do not give information about a member to a college, a university, an employer, a recruiter, a background-check company, a parent, a partner, a friend or another member, unless the member consents, valid legal process requires it, an emergency under section 6 applies, or section 19.9 of the Terms of Use applies. That section covers a rare referral for serious misconduct, and in it the member consents to our giving their name, their college and a factual description of what happened and what we decided, and nothing else. What a member has chosen to make public is there for anyone to read.

12.2 Colleges and universities

• We do not report members to their colleges as a routine matter, and we do not send a college the content of anyone's messages.
• A request from a college office, such as a dean, a conduct office, a Title IX office, a registrar, a career centre or an information technology department, is treated like any other request from outside. We point to what the member has made public. For anything else we ask for the member's consent or for valid legal process.
• Campus police are a law enforcement agency. They need the same legal process as any other agency (section 5), and section 6 applies in an emergency.
• Many colleges are public bodies. The law treats a department or agency of a state as a government body, which narrows further what we may give a public university without legal process.
• A college email address is how members prove a mailbox here. It does not make the college a party to the member's account, and we do not treat a request as coming from the member because it comes from their college.

The Terms of Use and the Community Guidelines keep open a narrow possibility, in these words: "Serious misconduct such as threats, stalking, fraud or impersonation may lead to permanent removal and, where appropriate and lawful, referral to law enforcement or your institution." "Your institution" means the member's college. That is a decision we take ourselves in a rare case, and it is subject to every limit in this policy on what may be disclosed. What it may contain is fixed by section 19.9 of the Terms of Use: the member's name, college and a factual description, to which the member consents there, and never the contents of messages on that footing. Where the college is a public body, or the recipient is campus police, we treat it as a government body and apply the stricter rules of sections 5 and 6. It is not something a college can require by asking. Each referral is recorded, with what was sent, to whom and why.

12.3 Employers, recruiters and background checks

• An employer or recruiter can read any page of The Record that a member has shared with them. Each page says what the member did and who confirmed it. The Record and Verification Policy explains how to read one.
• We do not confirm, expand on or comment on a record by email or phone. If a page says an item is active, withdrawn or no longer listed, that status is our answer.
• We do not provide references, opinions about a member, or any account of a member's standing, reports, cases or history here.
• We are not a background-check company or a consumer reporting agency, and we do not supply reports about people to anyone.
• An employer that wants more than the public page should ask the member.

12.4 Parents, partners and family

We do not discuss a member's account with a parent, a partner or a relative, and we do not give them access to it. Every member has told us they are 18 or older. A parent who believes their child is under 18 and has an account should use the route in the Child Safety Policy; we act on that report, and we do not hand over the account's contents.

If a member has died, a person with legal authority over their affairs may write to legal@tillyard.org to ask that the account be closed. We ask for evidence of that authority. We do not give access to the account's contents.

12.5 Other members

A member cannot find out through us who reported them, what another member said about them in private, or anything else about another member's account. The Reporting, Enforcement and Appeals Policy says what a member is told about a decision.

12.6 Sponsors and people who tip

Paying us gives nobody any access to members' information. The Sponsorship and Independence Policy and the Tips and Larger Payments Terms say so in their own words.

12.7 Journalists and researchers

We do not give non-public information about members to journalists or researchers. Questions about Tillyard itself can go to support@tillyard.org.

13 With a member's consent

13.1 Your own information

You can export your own data from your account at any time, and you can print or save any conversation you are part of. That is the quickest way to give your own information to anyone, including the police, a court, your lawyer or your college. The export holds what you wrote. It does not hold what other people wrote to you; print or save the conversation for that.

13.2 Asking us to disclose

The law lets us disclose a member's records with that member's consent, and the content of a message with the consent of the person who sent it or of a person it was sent to. Where a member asks us to send something of theirs to someone else, for example to an officer investigating a crime against them, we may do so. Before we do, we:

• confirm that the request comes from the member, by having them make it while signed in or from the email address on the account;
• ask for the consent in writing, saying what is to be disclosed and to whom;
• consider whether the material includes other people's words or information, and whether disclosing it could harm someone.

We may decline, and we may suggest that the member export or print the material themselves.

13.3 Consent given under pressure

Consent must be the member's own. We do not act on a consent form that an employer, a college or anyone else has had a member sign as a condition of something, unless the member confirms to us directly that they want the disclosure.

14 How we answer

14.1 No more than is required

We disclose what a valid request requires and nothing beyond it. Where a request can be met with less than it asks for, we say so and offer that.

14.2 Who answers

The president answers legal requests, with advice from the company's lawyer where needed. No other member of staff may disclose a member's information to anyone outside Tillyard.

14.3 Format

We provide records in a common electronic format, usually as structured text, with a short explanation of what each part is. We do not have forms or portals of our own.

14.4 Delivery

We send records in a way that protects them in transit, such as an encrypted file with the key sent separately, or an upload to a secure system the requesting agency provides. We do not send members' records as ordinary email attachments if there is a reasonable alternative.

14.5 Showing that records are genuine

Where the requester needs it, we can provide a signed declaration from the person who keeps our records, stating what the records are and how they are kept.

14.6 Costs

Federal law provides for a government body to reimburse a provider's reasonable costs of assembling records in many cases. We may ask for reimbursement where that law applies and the effort is significant.

14.7 What we tell the requester about gaps

If we have nothing that matches, or something asked for was deleted under our schedule before the request arrived, we say so. We do not guess at what records might have shown.

15 Objecting and narrowing

We aim to object to, or to ask the requester to narrow, a request that:

• is not valid on its face, or is not the kind of process the law requires for what it seeks;
• is addressed to the wrong company or was not properly delivered;
• comes from a court or body without authority over us;
• is so broad or vague that it would sweep in people or periods unconnected with the matter;
• asks for all members' information, or for information about everyone who used a room, a table or a thread, where a narrower request would serve;
• would require us to build something, to weaken the security of the service, to hand over keys, or to change how the product works;
• asks for something we do not hold.

In practice this usually means writing to the person who sent the request, explaining the problem and asking for a corrected or narrower one. Sometimes it can mean asking a court to set a request aside or limit it. Going to court costs money a company of this size may not have, and whether to do so is a decision we take case by case, with advice. We do not promise to challenge any particular request.

16 Court orders and government demands to remove content

This policy is mainly about requests for information. Requests to remove content have their own documents (section 1.4). Two cases belong here.

• A court order directed to us that requires content to be removed or an account to be closed. We read it, take advice where needed, and comply with a valid order that binds us. We aim to tell the member concerned unless the order forbids it.
• A demand from a government body that is not a court order, asking us to remove lawful content or to act against an account. We look at the content under our own Community Guidelines and Terms of Use, as we would any report. We do not remove content only because an official asked.

An order made against someone else, for example a judgment that a member's statement was defamatory, is something we may take into account under the Disputes and Corrections Policy.

17 Requests about the company itself

A regulator, a tax authority or a court may require information about the company's own conduct: how the service works, what we said in our policies, how we handled a matter. Those requests go to the president and the company's lawyer. Where answering one would involve members' information, the rules in this policy apply to that information.

18 What we do not do

• We do not sell or rent members' information to anyone, and we do not give it to data brokers.
• We do not volunteer members' information to government bodies, except in an emergency (section 6), in a child-safety report the law requires (section 9), or in the rare referral the Terms of Use describe, and then only as far as the law allows.
• We do not give any government body, college or company standing access to our systems.
• We do not monitor a member at anyone's request.
• We do not confirm or deny to an outsider whether a named person has an account, beyond what is public.
• We do not answer requests made by telephone, by social media or in person without a document.
• We do not charge members, or take payment from anyone, for handling a request, other than the cost reimbursement the law provides.

18.1 Published figures

We do not publish a transparency report, and we do not promise to. If we begin to publish counts of the requests we receive, this section will say so.

19 Records we keep about requests

• We keep a log of each legal request: what it was, who sent it, when it arrived, what we did and what, if anything, we disclosed. The log and the documents are kept for six years after the matter closes, as the Data Retention Schedule provides.
• We keep a register of legal holds: what was held, why, who decided and when it was released.
• Every time a member of staff views or exports a member's data, the staff action log records it, with a reason.
• These records are themselves personal information. Access is limited to the president and, where needed, the company's lawyer.

A member can ask us whether we have recorded any request about their account. We aim to answer, unless a court order or a law forbids it or the matter is one in which this policy says we do not give notice.

20 People who are not members

We hold a little information about some people who are not members: a person from an outside organization who confirmed a member's service, a person who sent a removal request or a dispute, a person who wrote to one of our mailboxes, and a person who left a tip (whose payment record is held by our payment processor, not on the site). A request for information about any of them is handled under the same rules as a request about a member.

21 What this policy is, and is not

• This policy describes how we handle requests. It is not legal advice to anyone.
• It is written to be followed, and we intend to follow it. But it is a statement of practice for a very small company. Apart from the commitments that a law requires of us, it does not create a contract with, or rights for, any requester or third party.
• Nothing here waives any right, privilege or objection we or a member may have.
• If a law or a valid court order requires something different from what this policy says, the law or the order prevails.
• If you are a member and believe we have handled a request about you wrongly, write to legal@tillyard.org. The Disputes and Corrections Policy describes the other ways to raise a concern.

22 Changes to this document

We may change this policy as the law, the product or our experience changes. The version number and effective date are at the top, earlier versions are kept, and each change is listed with a line about what changed. The Terms of Use explain how members are told about changes that matter. A change does not apply to a request we have already answered.

23 Contact

• Legal process, preservation requests and emergency requests from law enforcement: legal@tillyard.org
• By post: Tillyard, Attn: Legal, 10602 York Rd SW, Etna, Ohio 43062
• Formal service: through the company's statutory agent, on file with the Ohio Secretary of State
• Copyright notices: copyright@tillyard.org, as the Copyright Policy explains
• Intimate-image removal: the form linked in the footer of every page, or legal@tillyard.org; see the Intimate-Image Removal Policy
• Security reports: security@tillyard.org
• Accessibility: accessibility@tillyard.org. If a disability makes it hard to send or respond to a request in the way this policy describes, tell us and we can look for another way
• Everything else: support@tillyard.org

If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.

Questions about this document

support@tillyard.org

Legal notices

legal@tillyard.org

By post

10602 York Rd SW, Etna, Ohio 43062

For anything else, see where to send what.

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