Privacy Policy

Last updated 10 August 2026

TCK Hub is a directory of resources for third culture kids, their families, and the people who work with them. It is operated by SMCI Media, which is the data controller for the information described here. This page explains what we collect, why, and what you can do about it. We have tried to write it in plain language rather than legal boilerplate.

Information you give us

Most of the site can be browsed without giving us anything. You only share information when you choose to do one of the following.

• Create an account. We store your email address, a salted and hashed password (never the password itself), and, for blog authors, a display name.
• Submit a resource listing. We store the details you enter about the organisation or resource, including its name, website, description, category, region, and a contact email address.
• Submit a calendar event. We store the event details along with your name and email address, so we can contact you about the submission.
• Write a blog post. We store the post, your author name, and your email address.
• Upload a free resource file. We store the file, its name and size, and the email address and name of the person who uploaded it.
• Email us. If you write to founder@tckhub.com we keep the message in an ordinary mailbox.

Information collected automatically

We run our own analytics rather than a third party service such as Google Analytics. The measurement script is served from our own infrastructure and records:

• the page you viewed and the site you arrived from
• campaign tags in the address, where a link included them
• links and buttons clicked, including links leading off the site
• the country your request came from, as reported by our hosting provider
• two random identifiers that let us tell one visit from another

Those identifiers are random strings generated in your browser. They are not linked to your name, your email address, or any account, and they are not shared with anyone or used to follow you onto other websites.

Cookies and browser storage

• tck_session is set only after you sign in. It keeps you signed in and is marked HttpOnly, Secure, and SameSite. It is strictly necessary and cannot be turned off while you are logged in.
• _smci_sid and _smci_vid are the random analytics identifiers described above. They live in your browser’s own storage, not in cookies sent to other sites.
• _smci_optout is set if you opt out of analytics, so we remember to keep ignoring this browser.

We do not use advertising cookies, retargeting pixels, or social media tracking widgets.

How to opt out of analytics

Add ?smci=off to the end of any TCK Hub address and load the page once. That browser will stop being counted from then on, including on later visits. Use ?smci=on to start being counted again. The setting is stored in your own browser, so it needs doing once per browser and is cleared if you clear your site data.

How we use what we collect

• To publish and maintain the directory, calendar, blog, and free resources.
• To sign you in and keep your account secure.
• To contact you about something you submitted, such as telling you a listing is live.
• To understand which pages and resources are actually useful, so we know what to improve.
• To detect and block spam and abusive submissions.

We do not sell, rent, or trade personal information, and we do not use it to build advertising profiles.

Information that is published on purpose

Directory listings, calendar events, blog posts, and uploaded free resources are meant to be public. Anything you enter into those forms should be treated as information you intend to publish, including any contact details you supply for an organisation. Please do not put a private home address or personal phone number in a public listing. If you want something removed, write to us and we will take it down.

Who else handles your information

We keep the list of suppliers deliberately short. Each of these acts as a processor for us, under their own privacy terms.

• Cloudflare hosts the site, stores the database, and provides bot protection on submission forms. Their bot check receives the address of the request in order to score it.
• Google provides the mailbox we send notification email from, and stores files uploaded as free resources.

We may also disclose information if we are legally required to, or where it is necessary to protect the site and its users from abuse.

Where your information is held

TCK Hub serves an international community, and our suppliers operate globally. Your information may be stored or processed in countries other than your own, including the United States. We rely on the safeguards our suppliers offer for those transfers.

How long we keep it

• Published listings, events, posts, and files are kept while they remain useful to the directory, or until you ask us to remove them.
• Account records are kept while the account is open.
• Sign in sessions expire on their own, and password reset links expire shortly after they are issued.
• Analytics records are kept in aggregate to show trends over time.

Keeping it secure

The whole site is served over HTTPS. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes using PBKDF2, so we cannot read them and neither can anyone who obtained the database. Session cookies cannot be read by scripts in your browser. Repeated failed sign in attempts lock the account temporarily. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep the number of places your data sits as small as we can.

Children

TCK Hub is written for adults: parents, educators, counsellors, and the organisations that serve third culture families. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from a child. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

Your choices

You can ask us to show you what we hold about you, correct it, or delete it. You can ask us to take down a listing, event, post, or file. You can opt out of analytics using the instructions above. To make any of these requests, email founder@tckhub.com and we will deal with it ourselves. There is no ticketing system and no third party support desk.

Changes to this policy

If we change how the site handles information, we will update this page and change the date at the top. Significant changes will be noted on the site.

Contact

TCK Hub is operated by SMCI Media, the data controller for the purposes of this policy. Questions, access requests, and takedown requests all go to founder@tckhub.com and are handled directly.