Privacy Policy

The Czech-Slovak Institute of Oriental Studies (CSIORS) is the data controller for personal data processed through this site and its field survey. CSIORS is registered in Slovakia and processes data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Contact for privacy matters: tomaskrizan@csiors.org.

Our field survey is hosted on KoboToolbox (EU servers, eu.kobotoolbox.org) and is designed to collect no personally identifiable information. Respondents identify themselves only through self-assigned initials. No names, GPS coordinates, or device identifiers are collected. The maximum geographic precision we record is city-level. For the operational detail, see our Data Methodology.

An email field is optional. Respondents who provide an email may receive impact updates or reminders about submissions — nothing else. Emails are not shared with third parties and are not used for marketing.

Submissions are transmitted over encrypted connections (HTTPS) and stored on EU-based servers. Participation in the field survey is entirely voluntary and can be stopped at any time.

The CSIORS newsletter is operated through Buttondown (buttondown.com). When you subscribe, your email address is stored by Buttondown on our behalf and used only to send the newsletter you opted into.

Each newsletter email contains an unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing removes your address from the list immediately.

We do not sell, rent, or share newsletter subscriber data with third parties.

When you send a message through our contact form, your name, email, organization (optional), subject, and message are transmitted to CSIORS via our form handler. We use this information only to respond to your inquiry.

Contact messages are retained for as long as needed to handle the conversation and any follow-up. They are not used for marketing or shared with third parties.

This site uses Vercel Analytics to understand aggregate traffic patterns — page views, referrers, country-level geography. Vercel Analytics is privacy-focused: it does not use cookies, does not track individual users across sites, and does not build user profiles. Data is aggregated and anonymized.

If you prefer to block this entirely, any standard content blocker or privacy extension will do so.

CSIORS does not set tracking cookies or advertising cookies. No cookie banner is required because no consent-gated cookies are in use.

Your browser may store technical preferences (e.g. reduced-motion settings) in local storage. This data stays on your device and is not transmitted to CSIORS.

Field survey submissions are retained indefinitely as part of the CSIORS research archive, but are anonymous by design and contain no personally identifiable information.

Optional emails provided by field respondents are retained as long as the respondent remains on the list. Respondents can request removal at any time — their submissions remain in the anonymous archive, but the email link is deleted.

Newsletter subscriber emails are retained until you unsubscribe.

Contact form submissions are retained for up to 24 months after the last exchange, then deleted unless the matter is still active.

If you are in the European Economic Area, you have the right to: access the personal data we hold about you, correct inaccurate data, request deletion of your data, restrict or object to processing, and receive your data in a portable format.

To exercise any of these rights, email tomaskrizan@csiors.org. We will respond within 30 days.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Slovak Data Protection Authority (dataprotection.gov.sk) or the data protection authority of your EU country of residence.

Field survey submissions are processed under the legal basis of legitimate interest — specifically, the public interest in early-warning research on humanitarian, security, and economic conditions in conflict-affected regions. Participation is voluntary.

Newsletter subscriptions are processed under the legal basis of consent. You give consent when you subscribe and withdraw it when you unsubscribe.

Contact form submissions are processed under the legal basis of legitimate interest — responding to the inquiry you sent us.

This site and its operations depend on the following third-party services, each with their own privacy practices:

Vercel — hosting and analytics (privacy policy).

KoboToolbox — field survey infrastructure (privacy policy).

Buttondown — newsletter delivery (privacy policy).

GitHub — source code and content management (privacy policy).

We may revise this policy as our practices or the services we rely on change. The current version is dated at the bottom of the page. Material changes will be announced in the newsletter and on the homepage.

Privacy Policy v1.0 — April 2026. Data controller: Czech-Slovak Institute of Oriental Studies, registered in Slovakia.