TRANSPARENCY / PRIVACY
Privacy & data handling
Updated October 15, 2026
Private anonymous eyewitness submissions are open. Contact collection, media uploads, and investigator outreach are not yet available. Reports are never published automatically.
Who we are
NIGHTWATCH is an independent, human-led research initiative. It is not owned or operated by a government entity. AI may assist with organizing and analyzing information, but the project is committed to human oversight and respectful witness treatment.
Public witness intake and private storage
The observation form transmits your narrative and any optional answers you provide to NIGHTWATCH private storage over HTTPS. A description of at least ten characters, acknowledgement of this privacy notice, and anti-bot verification are required. Your name, email, phone number, and exact address are not requested. Please omit identifying details about yourself and others.
We store case numbers, submission times, report details, and audit events. Authorized investigators can review private reports. Cloudflare Turnstile processes technical information to combat abuse; the server also maintains hashed network identifiers to limit repeated submissions. Our hosting providers may process IP addresses and request metadata. No system guarantees absolute anonymity or security.
Media uploads and investigator follow-up are not yet available. Keep original files safely. For report concerns, contact contact@nightwatchresearch.com and reference your case number. We do not yet provide an automated report deletion portal. We are developing a formal retention schedule and assess requests individually.
Two kinds of information: witness identity and sighting details
Witness identity and contact details: This public form does not collect a name or contact information. A future optional contact feature will keep those fields voluntary. If a witness chooses to provide it, NIGHTWATCH intends to keep that information in a separate, access-restricted record for report-related communication. NIGHTWATCH will not intentionally disclose witness names, contact details, exact residential addresses, or other identifying information to outside researchers, sighting databases, or the public as part of research sharing.
Sighting and observation data: NIGHTWATCH may share selected, de-identified sighting information with researchers or organizations that compile sightings. This may include approximate date, time, broad geographic area, object characteristics, motion, duration, and carefully reviewed observational details. We will not automatically export a witness's complete narrative or original media.
Every report reviewed before research sharing
Witness privacy and safety are of the utmost importance to NIGHTWATCH. Our policy for future research sharing is that every report must be reviewed for personal, private, or potentially identifying information before any portion enters a shared research dataset. Identifying details found in text selected for sharing will be removed or replaced with asterisks (*****). When a detail cannot be safely redacted, we will omit the passage or withhold the report from sharing. The original report will remain restricted to authorized NIGHTWATCH personnel; no raw witness report will be shared automatically.
This is our required review standard for the future sharing system, which is not yet operational. Human review and redaction controls must be implemented and tested before any witness report is released to external researchers.
Optional contact and follow-up by NIGHTWATCH
In a future release, witnesses may optionally provide contact information, including simply to establish a way to verify that a real person submitted a report. Providing contact information alone does not give NIGHTWATCH permission to contact you for follow-up questions. A separate, optional, unchecked consent choice will let you authorize follow-up by a NIGHTWATCH Field Investigator. You may decline follow-up without affecting your ability to submit a report.
If you consent, you will be able to choose permitted contact methods (such as email, telephone, or text message) and preferred days, times, and time zone. NIGHTWATCH will honor those preferences and provide a way to withdraw contact consent. Contact details and consent choices will be stored separately from shareable research data.
Field Investigators contacting witnesses on NIGHTWATCH's behalf will act solely for NIGHTWATCH, not as government agents or representatives of another research organization. Their purpose is to respectfully clarify observations and gather better information so we can learn together. NIGHTWATCH will not authorize outside organizations to contact witnesses using information provided through our reporting process.
This contact workflow is a planned feature, not currently available. Anonymous witness submissions are open.
Verify a NIGHTWATCH Field Investigator
Witnesses can check a Field Investigator verification code against NIGHTWATCH's active credential registry. A valid code indicates current authorization, but a code alone cannot prove the identity of the person presenting it. Do not disclose sensitive information to an unexpected caller based only on a code. The verification registry is newly established, and official outreach is not yet active.
What to leave out of shareable descriptions
Please do not include full names, phone numbers, email addresses, exact street addresses, license plates, workplace details, or other identifying information in the observation narrative or other fields that may eventually be used for research sharing. If contact details are offered, they belong only in the separate optional contact section when that feature becomes available.
Even a report without a name can identify someone through unusual circumstances, precise location, or details in photos and videos. Before sharing data externally, NIGHTWATCH plans to review it for direct and indirect identifiers, reduce location precision where appropriate, and exclude material that cannot be shared safely. Original files can contain identifying metadata and will not be shared automatically.
Security and limits of confidentiality
Witness reports and fictional test reports are held in a Supabase database protected by row-level security and restricted investigator access. The public browser cannot directly query private reports without an authorized account. We use HTTPS-based services for website and backend communication. We continue security testing and are developing a formal data retention and deletion policy.
We aim to keep witness information confidential and do not sell witness contact details or include them in research data releases. However, no online system can guarantee absolute security. Service providers may process information to operate the platform, and disclosure could be required by applicable law. We will update this notice as our retention practices are formalized.
Website infrastructure
The website uses Vercel for hosting and analytics, Cloudflare for domain services and anti-bot verification, and Supabase for backend services. These providers may process technical data such as IP addresses, request metadata, or browser information under their own service terms and privacy practices. NIGHTWATCH does not promise anonymous use of these third-party services.
Ongoing safeguards
Private witness submissions are available. We are continuing to develop retention, deletion, optional contact, and reviewed research-sharing workflows. Raw witness reports are not shared automatically.
Important boundaries
NIGHTWATCH cannot guarantee an explanation for an observation or emergency assistance. Do not use this site to report an immediate emergency. We do not publish witness reports automatically.