Data Privacy & Policy

1. Overview

Fiscal Realities ("FR", "we", "our") operates a set of digital tools for economic practice, including the Survey Platform, The Advisor, the Economic Impact Estimator, and the Building a Resilient Economy and Opportunity Cost or Lost educational games (collectively, the "Platform"). This policy explains what data we collect across these tools, how we use it, and the rights available to you, whether you are completing a survey, playing a game, using an access code, or administering one of these tools on behalf of Fiscal Realities or a client organization.

By using any tool on the Platform, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this policy. Some tools may collect or use data slightly differently, as described in Section 2.

2. Information We Collect

The specific information we collect depends on which tool you use:

• Survey Platform — the answers you submit, the access code used to reach a survey (single-use or multi-use, as issued), and the submission date. We do not collect your name, email address, or IP address through this tool unless a survey question explicitly asks for it.
• The Advisor — your access code, the messages you exchange with the simulated "Chief of State" during a session, the outcome of that session, and, for security and abuse-prevention purposes, your IP address and browser user-agent string.
• Economic Impact Estimator — this tool does not collect or store any personal or project data on our servers. The project, investment, and modelling inputs you enter are processed only in your own browser to generate your report.
• Building a Resilient Economy / Opportunity Cost or Lost — your gameplay choices, scores, session attempts, and any feedback you submit, together with an access code or player identifier where applicable.
• Administrator accounts — if you are a Fiscal Realities or client-organization staff member with an administrator account, we collect your name, email address, and a securely hashed password to manage your access to the relevant tool.
• Usage and analytics data — technical information about how the Platform is used, such as pages visited, approximate location, device and browser type, and referring links, collected via a third-party analytics service once you have consented to it. This is limited to site usage and is never linked to your survey responses, Advisor sessions, saved projects, or game data. See Section 8 for details.

Beyond what is listed above for each tool, we do not collect personally identifiable information unless you choose to provide it (for example, by typing it into a free-text survey question or project field).

3. How We Use Your Information

The data collected through the Platform is used solely for the following purposes:

• To operate the tool you are using — for example, to run a survey, conduct an Advisor session, generate an impact estimate, or run a game session.
• To compile and analyse results on behalf of the administering organization (Fiscal Realities or a client organization), including generating summary reports that inform program decisions, resource allocation, or service delivery.
• To verify that access codes are valid, used within their permitted limits, and not expired, and to detect and prevent abuse of the Platform.
• To maintain and improve the reliability and performance of the Platform, using aggregate analytics data as described in Section 8.

We do not use your data for advertising, profiling, or any automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects on you.

4. Data Sharing and Disclosure

Your data is accessible only to authorized administrators of the tool in question — either Fiscal Realities staff or the client organization that commissioned it. We do not sell, rent, or share your data with third parties except in the following limited circumstances:

• When required by law or in response to a valid legal process.
• When necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Fiscal Realities, its clients, or the public.
• With technology service providers who process data on our behalf under binding confidentiality obligations — for example, the infrastructure that hosts the Platform, or the AI service used to power Advisor sessions.
• With a third-party analytics provider, which receives only the usage and analytics data described in Section 2 — never your survey responses, Advisor transcripts, saved projects, or game data — and processes it under its own privacy terms (see Section 8).

5. Data Retention

Data is retained for the period required by the administering organization or tool, typically not exceeding 36 months from the date of collection unless a longer retention period is legally required or agreed upon with the client organization. After the retention period, data is securely deleted.

6. Security

Access to Platform data is restricted to authenticated administrators through role-based access controls. All data in transit is encrypted using industry-standard TLS. Where a tool uses access codes, those codes are generated randomly and, depending on how an administrator configures them, may be single-use or limited to a maximum number of submissions, reducing the risk of unauthorized use.

While we take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data, no system is entirely immune to risk. We encourage you to contact us immediately if you believe your access code or account has been compromised.

7. Your Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the right to request access to, correction of, or deletion of data we hold about you. For most tools, your data is linked to an access code rather than a personal identifier, so you will need to provide that code to exercise these rights. If you hold an administrator account, your rights relate directly to your account information.

To submit a data request, contact us using the details in Section 9.

8. Cookies and Tracking

The Platform uses two distinct kinds of cookies. The first are session cookies that are essential to a tool's operation — for example, keeping track of which survey your access code unlocked, or keeping you signed in to an administrator account. These cookies are required — if they are blocked, the relevant tool will not function correctly.

The second is a third-party analytics service we use to understand site performance and traffic across the Platform. This service may set its own cookies and collect technical information such as your approximate location, device and browser type, pages visited, and referring links. Analytics data is used only in aggregate to understand how the Platform is used and to improve its performance and reliability. It is never combined with, or used to identify, your survey responses, Advisor sessions, saved projects, or game data, and our analytics provider does not have access to that content. Analytics data is processed by the provider under its own privacy policy.

Because this analytics service is not essential, we ask for your agreement before it runs: a cookie banner is shown the first time you visit this site, and the analytics script is not loaded unless you choose to accept it. This choice is asked once and applies to your future visits; if you'd like to change it, you can clear this site's cookies and local storage in your browser settings, which will show the banner again on your next visit.

9. Contact

If you have questions about this policy or wish to exercise your data rights, please contact Fiscal Realities at:

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the effective date at the top of the page. Continued use of the Platform after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.