Privacy Policy

Who we are

This website, soekoht.com, is run by MTÜ Soekoht, a non-profit association registered in Estonia (registry code 80658624), based in Sillamäe. We are the controller of the personal data described here.

For any question about this policy or your data, write to info@soekoht.com.

What we collect, and why

We only collect what people actively send us through the site, plus basic technical data needed to run and measure it. We do not sell personal data, and we do not use it for advertising.

Ideas and suggestions

The suggestion boxes on our pages store only the text you write, the page you wrote it on, and the time. We do not ask for your name or contact details. Please do not type personal information into these boxes — if you do, it is stored as part of the text.

Participation requests

When you offer to plant a tree, join community works, dedicate a bench or offer professional help, we store what the form asks for: your name, e-mail address, and depending on the category a phone number, a preferred date, or the text you want on a plaque. We use it solely to contact you and arrange the activity.

Donations

When you donate, we store your name, e-mail address, the amount, any message, your chosen language, whether you allowed your name to be published, your browser's user-agent string, and the bank's transaction reference. We use it to process the donation, send you a confirmation, keep our accounts, and — only if you ticked that box — to thank you publicly by name.

We never see or store your card or bank credentials. Payment happens on Coop Pank's own pages; we only receive confirmation that a payment succeeded or was cancelled.

Bike rental bookings

When you book bikes, we store your name, phone number and e-mail address, the date, time and length of the ride, how many bikes you asked for and your comment, together with the date and time of the request, your browser's user-agent string and IP address. We use this only to confirm and hand over the booking, and to contact you about it.

Membership applications

When you apply to join MTÜ Soekoht, we store what the application form asks for: your name, Estonian personal ID code, address, phone number, e-mail address, the member who recommended you, how you would like to help, the fee option you chose, and — for applicants under 18 — the name and personal ID code of the legal guardian who gave consent. We also store the date and time, your browser's user-agent string and IP address, the board's decision, and how your fee was paid or why you are exempt.

We use this to decide on your admission, to keep the register of members that an Estonian non-profit association is required to keep, to track membership fees and to contact you as a member. Your personal ID code is never sent by e-mail and is visible only to the board's admin accounts.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages are useful. It sets cookies and processes technical data such as your approximate location, device and browser. This tells us nothing about who you personally are.

Legal grounds

Under the GDPR we rely on:

• Consent — when you choose to submit a form or a suggestion, and for publishing your name as a donor.
• Performance of a contract or steps before it — handling a donation you initiated, a bike booking you made, and handling your membership application and membership.
• Legal obligation — keeping accounting records of donations and membership fees, and the register of members, for the period Estonian law requires.
• Legitimate interest — keeping the site secure and understanding, in aggregate, how it is used.

Who else processes this data

We are a small volunteer organisation and rely on established service providers. They act on our instructions, or as independent controllers where noted:

• Google (Firebase) — hosting, database and file storage for the site and its photo gallery.
• Google Analytics — visit statistics.
• Coop Pank — payment processing for donations and membership fees, as an independent controller.
• Resend — sending confirmation e-mails.
• Google Fonts, unpkg, YouTube and TikTok — these load fonts, icons and embedded videos when a page opens, so your IP address becomes visible to them. Gallery videos are embedded in YouTube's no-cookie mode; the clips on the front page and the bike rental page are served from our own site. TikTok videos embedded in the gallery set their own cookies and show TikTok's own consent notice inside the player — that choice is handled by TikTok, not by us.

Some of these providers are based outside the European Economic Area. Where that is the case, transfers rely on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision.

How long we keep it

• Participation requests — until the activity is done and for a reasonable period afterwards, then deleted.
• Bike bookings — until the ride is over and any damage or return is settled, then deleted within six months.
• Members — for as long as you are a member, then for the period needed to keep the register and accounts; fee records for the accounting retention period.
• Applications that do not lead to membership — deleted within six months of the decision, except payment records needed for a refund and our accounts.
• Donation records — for the retention period required by Estonian accounting law (currently seven years).
• Suggestions — for as long as they are useful to the project; they contain no contact details.
• Analytics — according to Google Analytics' own retention settings.

Photographs

Our gallery and history pages show photographs from public community events in the birch grove, where people may be recognisable. We publish them to document the project's work. If you appear in a photograph and would rather not, write to info@soekoht.com and we will remove it.

Your rights

You may ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, or receive it in a portable form. Where we rely on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time — this does not affect what we did before you withdrew it.

Write to info@soekoht.com and we will answer within one month. If you believe we have handled your data wrongly, you may complain to the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon, aki.ee).

Children

The site is not aimed at children, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. Children are welcome at our events, and a parent or guardian should contact us on their behalf.

The one exception is membership: people aged 16 and 17 may apply to join, and their application must carry their legal guardian's consent, name and personal ID code. We do not accept applications from anyone younger than 16.

Changes

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page.