Privacy

Last updated May 18, 2026.

Baldwin Citizen is a small, independent local news site. This page explains, in plain English, what happens to your data when you read the site.

What we collect from readers

Nothing required. You can read every article without an account, an email address, or any form submission. We do not run a newsletter, do not host comments, and do not ask you to log in.

If you write to us — at tips@baldwincitizen.com, corrections@baldwincitizen.com, or privacy@baldwincitizen.com — we keep your message and email address only as long as needed to handle the conversation. We don't add you to any list.

What we record about your visit

We run our own analytics on this site so we can see what people read without sending data to third parties. We do not store your IP address. When you visit, we record:

• The URL you requested and a timestamp.
• Your browser's User-Agent string (for example, “Mozilla/5.0 Mac OS X / Safari”) — used for browser-mix analytics and bot detection.
• A coarse geographic location (country, region, and city) and an approximate latitude/longitude. These come from our host's edge network based on your IP at request time; the IP itself is discarded after geography is looked up. City precision is approximate — usually the nearest metro, not your home address.
• A first-party identifier we set in your browser called bc_vid. This is a random number we generate on your first visit; it is not derived from your IP, your name, or any other personal information. It lets us see whether you come back and read multiple articles. You can erase it any time by clearing your browser's cookies and site data for baldwincitizen.com— next time you visit, you'll look like a brand-new reader to us. Browsing in incognito / private mode produces a new identifier each session.
• A daily-rotating hashed bucket derived from your IP plus the current date. This is used only for same-day aggregation as a fallback if the bc_vidcookie is unavailable. The hash resets at midnight UTC and is one-way (we can't recover your IP from it).

We use this information to understand what stories readers care about, to track how the site performs, and to block abuse if a specific visitor causes problems. We never share it with a data broker, and we don't connect it to your name, email, or any other identifying information.

Separately, our hosting provider (Vercel) may keep short-lived access logs as part of normal infrastructure operation. Those are Vercel's records, not ours, and they aren't connected to the analytics described above.

Third-party advertising

We display advertising served by Google AdSense. Google and its partners may use cookies and similar identifiers to serve ads based on your prior visits to this site and other sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising at Google Ads Settings or at aboutads.info. We do not give Google your name, email, or any identifying information from us.

Cookies and similar storage

We use a small number of first-party cookies and browser-storage entries:

• bc_vid — the anonymous visitor identifier described above. Lifetime: two years from your last visit, or until you clear it.
• Preference cookies for the parts of the site you customize (your selected city, light/dark theme).

Google AdSense sets its own cookies — see the section above. We do not share our analytics identifier with Google, with any other third-party advertiser, or with a data broker.

Children's privacy

Baldwin Citizen is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us information, write to privacy@baldwincitizen.com and we will delete it.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what personal data we hold about you, request deletion, or opt out of certain processing. Because we collect so little about ordinary readers, the practical answer for most people is "we don't hold anything tied to you personally." For specific requests, write to privacy@baldwincitizen.com.

California residents: you have the right under the CCPA/CPRA to know what categories of personal information we collect (described above) and to opt out of any "sale" or "sharing" of personal information. We do not sell personal information.

EEA / UK residents: where GDPR applies, our legal basis for processing is legitimate interest in operating a news website. You may object, request access, correction, or erasure at the address above.

Updates to this policy

We'll update this page when our practices change and note the date at the top.