Privacy Policy

Last updated: 29 October 2026

This policy covers the Faultline app for iPhone and the website www.faultlinejournal.com, both published by Virgin Gates (“we”). In short: you don’t need an account, there are no ads, we don’t track you across other apps or websites, and we never sell or share your data for advertising.

No account

You can use Faultline without signing up or giving us your name, email address or phone number. The first time you open the app, it creates a random reader ID on your phone. The ID isn’t linked to your name, your email or your Apple ID. It lets our servers remember your settings and what you’ve already read, so the app can show you what changed since you last looked.

What we store, and why

With your reader ID we store only what the app needs to work:

Your settings: reading language, time zone, the city or country you choose for stories near you, and your drop times.
What you follow and read: the stories you follow, the stories and claims you’ve seen, your streak and any calls you make, so we can show what’s new for you and tell you when you’re caught up.
Questions you ask Line: so Line can answer you, avoid repeating what you already know, and watch for the developments you ask it to watch for.
Text or links you paste into Receipts: so we can check them against the reporting and show you the result.
Notifications, only if you allow them: your device’s notification token, which kinds you want (breaking news, stories you follow, Line alerts, daily drops), and the list of notifications we sent you, so the app can show them in its notification inbox and we can tell when one was opened. You can turn each kind off in the app (You → Notifications), or all of them in your phone’s settings.

We use this data only to provide the app’s features. We don’t use it for advertising and we don’t sell it or share it with anyone for their own purposes.

AI processing

Summaries, audio, explainers and Line’s answers are produced by AI models run by Cloudflare Workers AI and DeepSeek. For each task we send them only the text it needs: for example your question, the news reporting it relates to and, for answers about what a story means for you, the city or country you chose. Nothing we send identifies you. We don’t use your data to train AI models. The providers process it under their own terms and privacy policies.

Your country

Some outlets can’t be shown in some countries, for example where EU sanctions apply. To follow these rules, our servers read the country your connection comes from, as reported by our network provider, each time you load content. We use it at that moment only and don’t store it. This is separate from the city or country you choose in the app.

If you subscribe to the Faultline Dispatch on the website, we store your email address, and your name if you give it, to send you the newsletter. We never share the list. To unsubscribe, email us at the address below.

The website

Reading faultlinejournal.com needs no account and sets no cookies for readers. The only cookie is the sign-in cookie of our editors’ admin area. If you use the website’s reading tools, such as Ask, your browser keeps a random reader ID and your reading preferences in its local storage so they work on your next visit; you can clear them in your browser settings. Like any website, our hosting and security provider, Cloudflare, processes technical data such as IP addresses to deliver pages and protect the service.

Our Instagram and TikTok accounts

Faultline’s editors publish Faultline’s own posts and videos to Faultline’s Instagram and TikTok accounts with an internal tool, Faultline Studio. When an editor connects Faultline’s TikTok account, TikTok gives us that account’s basic profile (display name, avatar and account ID) and a token that lets us upload and publish to it. We use them only to show which account is connected and to post our own content. The token stays on our servers, is never shared, and is deleted when the account is disconnected or on request. These tools collect nothing about the people who see or interact with our posts; TikTok and Instagram handle that data under their own privacy policies.

Links, images and videos

Faultline shows headlines, short quotes and images from publishers, credited and linked to the original articles. Images load directly from the publishers’ servers, articles open on the publishers’ own sites, and videos play from YouTube, in its privacy-enhanced mode on the website. These services receive standard technical data such as your IP address and apply their own privacy policies.

No ads, no tracking

There are no ads in Faultline and no advertising or analytics code in the app. We don’t track you across other companies’ apps or websites, and we don’t sell or share your data for advertising.

How long we keep it, and deleting it

We keep your reader data while you use Faultline. Deleting the app removes everything stored on your phone, including the reader ID. Because the ID isn’t tied to your name or email, the copy on our servers can’t be connected to you afterwards. If you’d like it deleted as well, or would like a copy, email us with anything that helps us find it (for example the stories you follow and roughly when you installed the app) and we’ll do it within 30 days. Newsletter addresses are kept until you unsubscribe.

Children

Faultline is a news service for a general audience. It isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal data from them. If you think a child has given us personal data, contact us and we’ll delete it.

Changes

If we change this policy, we’ll update this page and the date at the top.

Contact

Privacy questions and requests: [email protected]. You can also reach us through our contact page.