Privacy Policy

Effective date: November 7, 2026

Cove Speaks is an independent community website serving Copperas Cove. This policy describes information collected through our website and how we use it. It does not promise anonymity or confidentiality for content you choose to submit for public posting.

Information we collect

Depending on which features you use, we may collect your chosen display name, discussions, replies, survey answers, story submissions, candidate feedback, nominations, supporting links, and reports about content. Advertising inquiries may include business name, contact name, email address, telephone number, and message. Insurance inquiries may include name, email, telephone number, insurance interests, and consent. Some story submissions include an optional private contact email.

Our website also uses a browser visitor identifier, cookies, security verification and technical information necessary to operate forms, limit duplicate submissions and prevent abuse. Third-party hosting and security providers may process technical data such as IP addresses.

How information is used

We use information to operate community features, review submissions, publish approved content, prevent spam, respond to inquiries, administer the website, and address legal or safety concerns. Insurance inquiries are collected separately from civic participation and used to respond to the requested insurance contact. Advertising inquiries are used to discuss potential advertising.

Public submissions and moderation

Approved stories, discussions, replies, nominations and candidate feedback may be displayed publicly with the display name or pen name you provided. Public content may be copied or archived by others. Private contact fields are not intentionally displayed as part of published stories or advertising inquiries. Moderators may review submissions before or after publication and may reject or remove material.

Sharing and service providers

Information may be processed by website infrastructure, hosting, database, security and form-verification providers, including Vercel and Cloudflare, to operate this site. We may disclose information when legally required or to address credible safety or abuse concerns. We do not promise that information is never shared, and we do not treat public submissions as private messages.

Cookies and security

A visitor cookie helps the site recognize a browser for certain participation limits. Local browser storage may remember whether you completed the homepage tour. Cloudflare Turnstile helps verify form submissions. Browser controls can remove cookies and local storage, but doing so may affect site features. No internet system is completely secure.

Retention and choices

We retain information as reasonably needed for site operations, editorial records, abuse prevention, inquiries, or legal obligations. There is no fixed deletion schedule currently promised. You may ask about a submission or request correction or removal by contacting the site operator through an available website contact channel. Requests involving public content may not remove copies held by third parties.

Children

This site is intended for general community use. Children should not submit personal contact information without parent or guardian involvement. Please do not post personal information about minors.

Policy updates

We may update this policy as features and providers change. The date above identifies the current published version.

Contact: Use the site's available contact or inquiry channels for privacy questions. A dedicated privacy email address has not yet been published.