Consist Collection — Data Use & Privacy

Last updated: 7 September 2026

This statement explains what the Consist Collection records about you, what it reads, and what it does not do. It applies to the collection and badge features on the train compositions section.

Review notice. This is a drafting template written to describe how the feature works today. It has not been through a legal review. If you have a question about your data, contact [email protected].

1. What the Collection stores

The Consist Collection is a prestige feature. For each member it derives and stores, on LopoRail:

• a points total;
• a level;
• counts of confirmed vehicles, classes, operators and sightings;
• a current and longest streak;
• the badges you have earned.

It does not store your name, email, address or payment details beyond the ordinary WordPress account record. It stores no location history and no free-text notes.

2. How progress is worked out

Points and badges are derived, not incremented. They are worked out again from evidence you have already created — chiefly the sighting records you submit through the spotting feature — each time they are needed.

This means:

• scoring is idempotent: recomputing changes nothing;
• the source of truth is the evidence you already generated, not a separate score kept for this feature;
• deleting or correcting that evidence changes your collection accordingly.

3. What the Collection reads

To work out progress, the feature reads elsewhere read-only:

• the spotting ledger (via that plugin's own public helpers, never by writing to its tables);
• the public rolling-stock registry.

It never writes to another plugin's tables, options or files.

4. What the Collection does NOT do

• No spending, no prizes, no cash value.
• No leaderboard and no public points page.
• A member can see only their own collection; the collection endpoints are self-scoped and refuse anonymous requests.
• No selling or sharing of your data with third parties.
• No advertising profiles built from your collection.

5. Who can see it

Aside from you, the site's administrators can see the stored progress in the course of running the site. Other members cannot see your collection, points or badges.

6. Retention and your rights

Progress is tied to your LopoRail account and lives as long as the account does. If your account is deleted, the derived progress and badge ledger entries are removed with it. To ask what is held about you, or to ask for a correction or erasure, contact [email protected].

7. Changes

If the way the Collection works changes in a way that affects this statement, the statement is updated and the date at the top of this page changes.