Privacy Policy

To provide a secure and historically robust platform, we collect the minimum amount of information necessary. We collect information in three primary ways:

A. Information You Provide Directly to Us

When you register for an account, subscribe to our newsletters, or contact us, you voluntarily provide us with personal data. This may include:

• Account Credentials: Your email address and account password.
• Profile Information: Your profile picture, descriptive biography, military service history (if volunteered), and other details you choose to share with the community.
• Communications: Records of any correspondence you send to our support team or administrative staff.

B. User-Generated Content (UGC) and Historical Contributions

Our platform relies on users sharing articles, documenting unit histories, and uploading files.

• Your Contributions: Any personal stories, comments, articles, or records you publish are considered public information. You should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your own personal, financial, or contact information in these public forums.
• Third-Party Information: If you upload historical documents, photos, or accounts that contain the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of other individuals (living or deceased), you are solely responsible for ensuring you have the legal right and authority to publish that data. We reserve the right to review, redact, or permanently remove user-uploaded content containing sensitive third-party PII (such as Social Security Numbers, medical history, or financial data).

C. Information We Collect Automatically

When you navigate the Website, we automatically collect specific technical data to ensure site functionality, enhance security, and enforce our Terms of Service (including U.S. Export Control and Sanctions compliance). This includes:

• Device and Network Data: Your IP address, browser type, operating system, device identifiers, and the dates and times of your visits.
• Usage Data: Pages viewed, search queries, files downloaded, and navigation paths through the archive.
• Cookies: We use strictly necessary session cookies to securely keep you logged in to your account.

We use the collected information for the following specific purposes:

• To Provide and Maintain the Service: Creating your account, authenticating your logins, and hosting your curated collections and uploads.
• To Facilitate Community Engagement: Displaying your profile and public contributions to fellow historians, veterans, and enthusiasts.
• To Ensure Legal and Regulatory Compliance: Monitoring IP addresses and user activity to detect fraud, prevent automated botting/scraping, and ensure strict compliance with U.S. Export Control Laws (ITAR/EAR) and OFAC economic sanctions.
• To Communicate with You: Sending you welcome emails, community updates, policy changes, and security alerts.

The US Military Archive does not sell your personal data to third parties for marketing or advertising purposes. We only share information under the following circumstances:

• Public Display: Your profile details, comments, uploaded files, and published articles are visible to the public and the community.
• Service Providers: We may share necessary data with trusted third-party vendors who provide hosting, database management, email delivery, and security monitoring services on our behalf. These vendors are contractually obligated to protect your data and use it only for the exact services requested.
• Legal Obligations and Safety: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law, court order, or federal subpoena. This includes reporting suspected violations of U.S. Export Control laws (sharing restricted military-technical data) to the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) or the Department of Commerce, or sharing information to investigate fraud, cyberattacks, or threats to physical safety.
• Business Transfers: If the US Military Archive undergoes a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, user data and archival content will be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to the continuation of this Privacy Policy.

We implement reasonable physical, technical, and administrative security measures designed to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, theft, or alteration. This includes utilizing standard encryption protocols (such as HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) and TLS (Transport Layer Security)) for data in transit and maintaining secure server infrastructure. However, no transmission of data over the internet can be guaranteed as 100% secure. You are entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials.

We retain your personal information for as long as your account is active, or as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this policy.

• User Data: Account metadata, server logs, and compliance records are retained for a designated period of 3 to 6 years, even following account deletion, to ensure regulatory compliance and historical integrity.
• Archival Materials: Because our core mission is historical preservation, User-Generated Content (articles, unit histories, photos) uploaded to the archive is generally retained permanently in the public interest. If you delete your account, we may retain and continue to display your contributed historical materials in an anonymized format or under the original license granted in our Terms of Service.

Depending on your jurisdiction, you maintain certain rights regarding your personal information. You may:

• Access and Update: You can review, edit, or correct the personal information in your profile at any time by logging into your account settings.
• Delete: You may request the deletion of your account. Please note that while we will delete your account profile, public historical contributions may be retained in the archive to prevent gaps in the historical record, in accordance with standard archival practices.
• Opt-Out of Communications: You may unsubscribe from our email newsletters at any time by utilizing the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of our emails.

As an entity governed by the laws of the State of Florida, we operate in compliance with the Florida Information Protection Act (FIPA) and applicable tenets of the Florida Digital Bill of Rights (FDBR).

• Security and Breach Notification (FIPA): We employ reasonable security measures to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII). In the highly unlikely event of a data breach compromising unencrypted PII, we will notify affected individuals within 30 days as mandated by Florida law.
• Consumer Rights (FDBR): We provide transparency regarding the categories of data we collect and our processing purposes. We do not engage in the sale of sensitive personal data or biometric data.

The US Military Archive is intended exclusively for users who are 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly request, collect, or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13. If we discover that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under 13 without verified parental consent, we will delete that information immediately.

Our Website and archive may contain links to external third-party websites or historical databases. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or security of these external sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any third-party websites you visit.

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time to reflect changes in legal requirements or our operational practices. Any material changes will be communicated to you via email or through a prominent notice on our Website. Your continued use of the Website after the effective date of the revised policy constitutes your acceptance of the changes.

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy, your data, or to report the unauthorized upload of your personal information, please contact us here or via email at info@usmilitaryarchive.com.